NICK BACKS CAMPAIGN AGAINST SOUTH WEST SPATIAL STRATEGY
October 28, 2006 12:00 AM
Local MP, Nick Harvey, has backed a South West campaign against a government plan which poses a direct threat to our local countryside.
The government-inspired plan intends to create a framework to guide future planning and transport policy for each region over a 15-20 year period. The Spatial Strategies are designed to help the regions foster strong and viable communities, develop economic prosperity, ensure there are good homes at affordable prices and safeguard the countryside.
However, as the consultation deadline for the South West Regional Spatial Strategy reaches its final stages, MPs have expressed their lack of confidence in the Strategy's proposals.
They have identified key problems including the fact that it prioritises Greenfield over Brownfield sites, does not recognise the local and unique environmental constraints on development and has ignored local voices. In particular, though local authorities are meant to interpret and implement the strategy, they will in effect be powerless to stop developers already applying to develop Greenfield sites.
The campaign has support from fellow Liberal Democrats from Poole to Cornwall and, in the hope of cross party support, Conservative and Labour MPs are signing similar motions to see the local countryside saved.
Commenting on the campaign, Nick Harvey MP says:
"Local people have had very little control over this process and the region is understandably cross at the way in which the policy is going to impact upon our countryside and rural services."
"The Government has missed an opportunity to see what the people of the South West want for their region, and if the current plans go ahead it will devastate the area and overwhelm local roads and services."
"It is good to see cross-party voices campaigning against this Government-inspired project and I hope together we can make a real different and encourage the project to heed our warnings."
Notes to Editors
Both the Liberal Democrat and Tory motions call for the abandonment of the Regional Spatial Strategy although the Labour motion is expected to stop short of this demand.
Nick has signed the following EDM.
EDM 2337
SOUTH WEST REGIONAL SPATIAL STRATEGY (No. 2)
23.10.2008
Horwood, Martin
That this House has no confidence in a South West Regional Spatial Strategy that allows the prioritisation of greenfield over Brownfield sites, that is based on outdated projections of both housing market and economic growth, that takes no account of purpose built accommodation for students, that does not recognise the environmental constraints on development and has in effect simply implemented national policies and ignored widespread local opposition from across the region and from all parties and none and from parishes to parliament; notes that hon. Members have had no opportunity to debate specific details of the Strategy with Ministers or in regional select committees and were denied speaking rights at the formal examination of the strategy in public; further notes the specific threat to long-established Green Belt surrounding Cheltenham, Gloucester, Bristol, Bath, Bournemouth and Poole; further notes that while Ministers have repeatedly claimed that it is for local authorities to take the lead on the implementation of the Strategy, in practice they are powerless to stop developers already applying to develop Greenfield sites and citing the site-specific maps in the Strategy in their defence; and calls on the Government to abandon the South West Regional Spatial Strategy or to urgently revise it to reflect democratically expressed local views, the environmental limits of development and the need to prioritise the development of Brownfield sites before Greenfield sites by reintroducing the sequential test.
Other supporters of the Lib Dem early day motion include:
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham)
Steve Webb (Northavon)
Stephen Williams (Bristol West)
Don Foster (Bath)
David Heath (Somerton & Frome)
Annette Brooke (Mid-Dorset & North Poole)
Jeremy Browne (Taunton)
Adrian Sanders (Torbay)
Nick Harvey (North Devon)
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall)
Julia Goldsworthy (Falmouth and Camborne)
Andrew George (St.Ives)
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