Council Matters

Tonight after work we went to the borough council offices to raise our concerns about the proposed new planning in the borough. Almost everyone stayed on topic, was measured and raised good points against the portfolio of proposed housing development. The bottom line is that in most of the places in the borough the infrastructure that is in place is already full to bursting if not already bursting and so new houses just can't be built and then expected to function correctly.

All the handwaving the borough makes about providing sewage and roads and schools and roads and trains are just that: handwaving. The previous developments didn't come with the upgraded sewage pipes, didn't fund adequate road or any rail improvements and it's hard to believe that they will this time, especially as some of them would run to many millions of pounds to correct.

One point was made in particular, the villages are not NIMBYs, we do want a small continuous supply of new housing, especially housing association housing, we just don't want to become just dormitories for the town centre.

Pretty much everyone agreed that the borough owns a large chunk of land that was bought expressly for the purpose of being built on and that if the majority was built there and in one town that also wants houses but was denied because of other reasons then the rest of the smaller towns and villages would take some housing. However the current council was elected pretty much promising not to do that which is sensible...

The blip is a memorial outside the borough offices taken on the way out, after the meeting closed.