Letters
Time to stand up to housing plans
ROBERT Key seems to have just woken up to the fact that Wiltshire is going to have to provide sites for the Labour government's long announced housing push.
For years, the annual construction programme to meet increased household formation and replacement of our poor housing stock has been well short of requirements.
It is an issue the Conservatives simply left to the private sector.
This approach clearly failed and there is little doubt the planning process is a big factor in that.
As an architect, my experience is that even with a simple
extension to a domestic dwelling, unreasonable objection prolongs the process.
No other country allows this to happen.
That, Mr Key, is the generator of the man-made disaster you proclaim, but there are two
further issues:
The un-elected regional government who are the real movers of this numbers game and the proposed Wiltshire Unitary Authority who will actually
implement the plan.
This was an authority proposed by the Conservatives and, to be fair, to which Robert Key unsuccessfully objected.
The only hope I see is for the powers of the un-elected regional authority to be transferred to the Unitary Authority and to ensure as much power is devolved to parishes as is possible to enable them to have a say.
If temperatures continue to rise we will find that the real disaster is our prevarication at a time when we need to act.
GREGOR CONDLIFFE RIBA, Salisbury
HAVING waded through the Core Strategy Preferred Options document I am left with three impressions:
In proposing a 2,500 home site at Firsdown or Lopcombe Corner, has the council consulted with Hampshire County Council to make sure that they are not proposing a similar size development along the A30 just beyond Lopcombe Corner, close to West Winterslow, or elsewhere along the county border?
Secondly, the 14,000 jobs are sometimes referred to as "additional" jobs and in other parts of the document as "new" jobs.
Over the next 20 years new jobs will be created and others vanish - do the 14,000 jobs include those jobs to replace the jobs that cease to exist?
If so, then the 12,400 housing estimate is suspect because those people in jobs that cease to exist will already have accommodation.
I would be very sceptical of any claim that the 14,000 jobs are in addition to "replacement" jobs.
Overall the ratio of jobs to new houses at 1:1.2 seems wrong.
Finally, in proposing large developments at Firsdown or Lopcombe Corner, the Core Strategy makes no mention of the impact of increased traffic heading toward Southampton through the lanes.
There is already a considerable morning and evening rush hour traffic. Not everyone living in this new development would be working in Porton.
ALAN SHAW, Pitton
I HAVE met many people who assume that the future will be like the past - it's always been so, therefore it will always be so.
This type of mental inertia has an enormous cost and south Wiltshire residents are about to pay that cost.
The housing plans for the area are based on out-of-date population statistics.
The figures show that the population of the country is expected to increase by 17 per cent over the next 25 years (2006-2031).
But if you look further you will see that much of this is based on immigration.
Are the planners actually thinking?
It cannot, surely, be ignored that there has been a sea change in our attitude to immigration in this country.
It is no longer possible for previous immigrants to automatically bring in relatives; there is a points system, many of those who have come from the new EU countries will go back home again, since the whole point of the EU is economic
homogeneity among its member nations.
Immigration is simply just not going to happen as it did in the early 2000s, but the immigration effect in the population statistics is huge, partly because of the simple immediate body count and partly because immigrants tend to be of childbearing age.
If you take out immigration, then the increase in population in 2006-2031 is estimated at five per cent, with an absolute decline in population thereafter.
Illegal immigrants are not in these figures, of course, but they too tend to be of child-bearing age and their children are in the birth statistics.
Illegal immigrants, if we are to believe the government, are currently being shipped out of the country at the rate of 60,000 a year.
That is the size of a small town.
I therefore question the need to increase the size of Salisbury by 60 per cent over the next 20 years and ask why we need to create new villages, and double the size of existing villages?
Robert Key assures us that he and the local planning authority are challenging the government's figures at every stage.
Challenging perhaps is no longer enough.
I cannot believe that in a democracy, either an individual or a body can be forced to act on the basis of information, which is patently wrong.
Nor, surely, can they be forced to act in a manner which is clearly detrimental to themselves and the region's future inhabitants.
The time has come simply to say no.
LOIS FERGUSON, Alderbury
GIVEN the radical implications for residents in Harnham if the Local Development Framework Core Strategy Preferred Options are implemented, can someone at Salisbury District Council explain why Harnham was not included in the round of exhibitions and public meetings?
Harnham always seems to be the dumping ground for things other areas do not want.
It is an almost totally residential area with currently no infrastructure of shops, surgeries or leisure centre and yet it could very easily turn into the new Southampton Road, with HGVs thundering past homes, churches, and schools.
Residents must look at these proposals and send in their comments before April 25.
Harnham Neighbourhood Association is trying to get a speaker from the council for an emergency meeting if at all possible.
MRS S K EVANS, Harnham
2:53pm Thursday 17th April 2008
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CommentPosted by: John B. Pope, Tisbury on 4:17pm Fri 18 Apr 08
Since Central Government has required South Wiltshire to make provision for a certain number of houses, it is pointless to debate whether that decision is right or wrong, whether it is fair or unfair. It is however relevant to discuss how this decision is best implemented. There are few areas that will or have escaped despoilation. Many Villages are to host disproportionate numbers of new Houses. Tisbury recently fought and lost its battle concerning some sixty new homes off Hindon Lane, and in the immediate past has had to host new houses where so ever it was possible to put them.
However much one may empathise with the residents East of Salisbury concerning the intensity of housing to be thrust upon their Communities; there seems a logical place for the houses to be built.
There are far too many people who have no home of their own, the scarcity of new builds, has pushed the cost of all housing beyond the financial means of the average wage earner. In years gone by there was the possibility of occupying a Council House, goodness me what a word, of course I meant Social Housing. The Government returned to Office in 1979 allowed the bulk of such property to be sold off at Pepper Corn prices, now those self same two-three thousand pound purchases can resell for close on two hundred thousand pounds each. That decision to sell was a disaster, as was the decision for the enfranchisement of Privately owned Leasehold Property. That Conservative Government effectively bought their popular vote using the assets of not only the Councils who owned the 'Social Housing' but too with those of persons who had invested their savings in the Freeholds of Houses then occupied by Lease holding Tenants.
Furthermore if we have a million Polish Nationals living and working in this country, clearly they as too all the immigrants and European Nationals we have welcomed to our Island, need to be accommodated. It is a matter of cause and effect.
It is important that all Persons should let their Councillors, or Member of Parliament know their point of view concerning every aspect of Government. That we show far more interest in our Governance at every level. Find the time to offer our services as a Parish/ County Councillor or at least vote in Elections at ever level. Unfortunately the Cliques that currently 'feed' us every sort of candidate, tend to be entirely unrepresentative of majority opinion. I suppose we get what we deserve, and will get no better so long as that self same majority fails to partake in the Democratic Process.
Since Central Government has required South Wiltshire to make provision for a certain number of houses, it is pointless to debate whether that decision is right or wrong, whether it is fair or unfair. It is however relevant to discuss how this decision is best implemented. There are few areas that will or have escaped despoilation. Many Villages are to host disproportionate numbers of new Houses. Tisbury recently fought and lost its battle concerning some sixty new homes off Hindon Lane, and in the immediate past has had to host new houses where so ever it was possible to put them.
However much one may empathise with the residents East of Salisbury concerning the intensity of housing to be thrust upon their Communities; there seems a logical place for the houses to be built.
There are far too many people who have no home of their own, the scarcity of new builds, has pushed the cost of all housing beyond the financial means of the average wage earner. In years gone by there was the possibility of occupying a Council House, goodness me what a word, of course I meant Social Housing. The Government returned to Office in 1979 allowed the bulk of such property to be sold off at Pepper Corn prices, now those self same two-three thousand pound purchases can resell for close on two hundred thousand pounds each. That decision to sell was a disaster, as was the decision for the enfranchisement of Privately owned Leasehold Property. That Conservative Government effectively bought their popular vote using the assets of not only the Councils who owned the 'Social Housing' but too with those of persons who had invested their savings in the Freeholds of Houses then occupied by Lease holding Tenants.
Furthermore if we have a million Polish Nationals living and working in this country, clearly they as too all the immigrants and European Nationals we have welcomed to our Island, need to be accommodated. It is a matter of cause and effect.
It is important that all Persons should let their Councillors, or Member of Parliament know their point of view concerning every aspect of Government. That we show far more interest in our Governance at every level. Find the time to offer our services as a Parish/ County Councillor or at least vote in Elections at ever level. Unfortunately the Cliques that currently 'feed' us every sort of candidate, tend to be entirely unrepresentative of majority opinion. I suppose we get what we deserve, and will get no better so long as that self same majority fails to partake in the Democratic Process.
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