Green fields around Cheltenham
Posted by Martin Horwood, MP for Cheltenham, at 08:57, Fri 3 October 2008:
Dear all
HearfromyourMP.com tell me there are now 101 Cheltenham constituents signed up to hear from me from time to time. I have to confess I haven't used this system very much yet but there's an issue now facing Cheltenham that is so serious I'd like to tell you the latest news and encourage you to take action.
This is our last chance to protest against government plans which are threatening unique countryside around Cheltenham. The origins of this policy are ina well-meaning attempt to restrain house price rises - but this is a policy many experts thought wouldn't work even before the latest hosuing downturn. Many commentators like the Lib Dems' Vince Cable said that reckless lending was always the key factor in the inflationary bubble. But the key worry about the government's one-dimensional response to the problem is that just releasing more and more land for housing plays right into the hands of developers with little concern for the countryside or the environment.
Whether you’re worried about the wider environmental impact or you use roads that thousands of new house-owners would have to use too or you’re worried that this could make flooding like last summer’s even worse or maybe you just love the countryside and feel better for walking in it, you’re right to be worried.
Six thousand three hundred new houses are now planned for Green Belt and other green fields to the south and north west of Cheltenham. And developers have already started putting in plans for new housing estates south of Leckhampton and in Green Belt next to Swindon Village and even in the Cotswolds Area of Natural Beauty before the policy process has even finished.
For years now a document called the ‘Regional Spatial Strategy’ has been painfully making its way through draft after draft. This plan imposes the government’s projected numbers of houses for the south west as a whole and in detail for Cheltenham and Gloucestershire. Again and again the government has put these numbers up, even after last year’s floods and the strong evidence that more urbanisation makes flooding worse.
I was fighting these proposals before I was an MP and I’m fighting them now. Local representatives of all parties have opposed them. Local groups like the Leckhampton Green Land Action Group (www.leglag.org.uk) and Save the Countryside (www.savethecountryside.org.uk) have battled them. But still the government presses on.
The latest proposed totals are a staggering 56,400 new houses over the next 20 years for the whole county. Everyone can accept some new housing on already developed sites inside the urban area. But the government want a massive 5,000 beyond the Tewkesbury Road next to Swindon Village and another 1,300 next to Leckhampton and uphill of Warden Hill.
The latest Proposed Changes have been made by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government herself, Rt Hon Hazel Blears MP. They can be seen at www.gosw.gov.uk but the documents are huge.
Most importantly, they are up for consultation until 24 October 2008. So now you can have your say.
You need to respond by 5pm on 24 October 2008. Sections 4.1.25 to 4.1.33 of the draft RSS refer to Cheltenham and these are the parts you should oppose in section B of the official response form.
You can download the official response form at http://www.gosw.gov.uk/gosw/planninghome/691545/713860/
Or write to: Regional Spatial Strategy Team Government Office for the South West 2 Rivergate, Temple Quay, Bristol BS3 6ED
or email rssconsult@gosw.gsi.gov.uk .
Thank you for your support.
Best regards Martin
Martin Horwood MP Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Cheltenham martin@martinhorwood.net
working for a fairer, greener, safer Cheltenham
House of Commons London SW1A 0AA
Constituency office: 16 Hewlett Road Cheltenham Gloucestershire GL52 6AA
Head of constituency office David Fidgeon 01242 224889
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