Elected representatives should listen to voters

I attended two of the Local Plan consultation meetings, at Trinity School and in the parish church in Old Milverton. Both meetings were very well attended and the public anger and mistrust voiced by residents was unanimous at both.

What particularly annoyed residents, who are after all the electors of both our MP and of the local councillors, was the repeated declaration of that well tried bureaucratic get out phrase that “there is no alternative” and that the massively inflated housing targets have been handed down from central government and failure to comply by WDC would be impossible.

Perhaps Chris White, as our MP, should now direct some of his questions to Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary in the coalition government he supports, who had such a lot to say about localism before and during the General Election, and is now the minister responsible for planning matters. Last year, the government issued controversial proposals to “simplify” the planning system, which experts warned would make it easier for developers to build in the countryside.

If it turns out that, along with other local authorities, Warwick district is being bullied by central government, our elected councillors should resist in the interests of the people they represent and use the evidence from the extensive consultation process to show how unpopular the Local Plan is.

The very radical departure from the 2009 Core Strategy is unjustified and indeed the notion that Warwick District needs to plan for this level of housing in either the core strategy or this latest preferred option is completely unwarranted.

The population projections, on which this plan is predicated, were demonstrated to be bogus at the public meeting hosted in the church by Old Milverton Parish Council.

This plan proposes massive overdevelopment detrimental to the quality of life and amenity of existing residents. We already have big developments at Warwick Gates and Chase Meadow and the new Local Plan is harmful to north Leamington in particular. The proposed infrastructure changes of a northern relief road to accommodate extra road traffic and the disregard for the Green Belt are completely unacceptable.

It is particularly cynical to dress up this massive over development under the rhetoric of a “cross-cutting theme” of Rurality and the suggestion that so called garden suburbs would make the scheme any more palatable.

Far from respecting the environmental and historic value of the district, these proposals will further erode the distinctive features local people hold dear.

These plans are wholly unwanted, unacceptable and deeply resented. I hope officers and elected members have the courage and leadership to listen to the residents and think again. - Robin Brabban, Warwick New Road, Leamington.