WELL!

***Disclaimer! These are my opinions only and are written in place of fact. You can contact me to get hold of the planning proposals and decide for yourself*** 

Apparently there was an ‘in depth’ consultation down at our local town council offices for ONE DAY ONLY  that I managed to miss, because I didn’t see the ad in the paper. I’m sure the same thing happened with many other people. Sometimes I really think this is a strategy by MBDC to claim that they offered us, the public, a chance to air our views and opinions, but they’re always rubbish at advertising when an exhibition or public consultation will be on.

There are several planning applications put through, a considerable sum of which have been put in on greenbelt land. Apparently they can’t guarantee that greenbelt won’t ever be built on. So my question to them in an email was this - what is the point of earmarking land as greenbelt if there’s no guarantee of protection from the sweaty, money-grabbing (ok I didn’t word it quite like that) hands of land developers?

As far as the allotments are concerned, it’s the very developer that I thought it would be who wants to build a sprawling estate of no-doubt shambolicly built cardboard-thin houses that are squished together to squeeze every penny’s worth of money out of the worth of the land. I can see it now, nasty little boxes with no character and no garden space.

I told them they shouldn’t be building here. They say we’re a ‘major service centre’. 30-40 years ago we were a village. Then came the 70s,80s and 90s housing estates. Not many local facilities to support the increasing population. We have a train station and a supermarket, which has squeezed the life out of any retail venture that dares darken its doorstep. We have a load of hairdressers, banks, too many estate agencies to count and not much more. Our library and ‘village’ hall needs investment, we don’t need more housing. We need places of cultural interest, somewhere for the kids to go. With Center Parcs opening down the road in a few years, we’ll be congested with traffic (another shambolic proposal that got through thanks to Ms. Blears, despite the advice NOT to go ahead), so what we really need is a bloody big bypass. I like the countryside, I like living on the outskirts. I like the fact that I can walk out of my door and 5 minutes I’ll be roaming around in the woodland and fields. If the developers get their way, I’ll be swallowed up.

They want to develop our town, so it’ll basically meet the next (nicer) town. Then they want to develop Milton Keynes all the way out to the picturesque and stunningly beautiful town of Woburn. In 30 years if I don’t move I’ll be living in some horrible Conurb (as in the book The Guardians).

It also transpires that the same developer has put in planning permission to build houses on the tennis club. Then he wants to concrete over our allotments so he can build a couple of indoor tennis courts. Now tell me where the logic in that is.

He owns so much land around here, and I fear has a lot of influence in what goes on. I know that in the next town, he got planning permission for something was rejected by the town council, the district council and the local residents. So he keeps pushing. And what happens? It goes to a man in Bristol who doesn’t live here, has never visited, will probably never visit, who gives it the rubber stamp of approval. Result is land developer gets his own way AGAIN, builds houses on otherwise nice patch of green land that FLOODS every time it rains. I reckon he has his buddies on the planning committee. That’s just my opinion, but I can’t see how half the things he puts in for get approved. And the more money his company makes, the more land he buys up.

So I wrote a big long email, saying exactly what I thought. I tried to be eloquent but to the point, I wasn’t rude, I just told it as I saw it. What sort of reply I get, I don’t know but I very much doubt they’ll take my opinions into consideration. As far as MBDC are concerned, the government has given them a housing and employment target, and they’ve got to fill it. Fuck everybody else.

So for now, I’m going to put up a big sign on my allotment that reads something like “NO TO TENNIS COURTS, YES TO ALLOTMENTS”. I’ll talk to other allotment holders and see if there’s anyone on the town council who agrees with me. I know my grandmother’s next door neighbour used to be town mayor and is on the planning committee (a level-headed voice in the wildnerness) so I will talk to him too.

IT’S MADNESS!

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 12:45 pm and is filed under allotment, plans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.