District council Newsletter

Local Plan

I expect you will all no doubt be aware of what happened at the Council meeting in December.

It was not the best day of my life.

You may be aware from the tenure of my last newsletter that I was not surprised at what happened. One of the things that I am the most disappointed about is what did not happen from July to December last year. I had hoped that the Planning liaison structure that was created at the beginning of this civic year would have had more impact and input into what went on in meeting the EIP inspector’s new data requirements than it did. In fact in my opinion it had no influence at all in what was tabled at the December meeting.

Much work is being done to continue the defence of our rural parish for the resumption of the EIP scheduled for the 29th-30th of January.

My opinion is that very few of the people who voted for the creation of a new settlement actually understood the full ramifications to the district of the decision and what exactly the position would be after the decision. This is born out by comments I have heard made at Development Control Committee meetings since then.

Javelin Park Incinerator.

Another disaster for the vale in my opinion, with the decision of the secretary of State to allow the planning consent on appeal.

What ever happens now a large sum of public money will be spent on a proposal for a project that will destroy the vale with something that the vast majority of the local community does not want or need and is not the best way of treating our long term waste needs.

How many of the supporters of this monstrosity actually live within sight or sound of it? Very few if any I think.

A mile or so to the north a lot of time, money, and energy was spent making sure that the new motor way service area was basically buried and the visual impact on the vale as minimal as possible.

You do wonder what was the point of all that with this decision.

Boundary Commission Review.

I made reference to this in my last newsletter. I said that amongst the recommendations I had been led to believe the District Council was making to the commission would be a new ward consisting of the Parishes of Eastington, Standish and Whitminster.

On looking at the small print I find that this is not a totally true picture.

Unless I am reading the plans wrong, the proposed ward will not include all of the residents of those parishes.

Everything to the west of the motorway in Eastington would be in the Severn Ward.
Newtown would be in Stonehouse ward.
Parts of Standish Parish around Little Haresfield would be in the ward to the north
and a part of Whitminster Parish would also be in a ward to its north.

All this is driven by numbers only and the system seems to care little for community links. The three parishes involved would be in wards with a total of at least seven, perhaps eight, separate district councillors and two possibly three county councillors.

The phrase absolute nonsense springs to my mind. There will be a period of public consultation in the coming months for residents to give their opinion on these proposals.