Sunday 13 July 2008

Housing Plans

Residents in Broxtowe have reacted with disbelief to the proposals of consultants that three large housing estates could be built on the greenbelt in the borough. Before I go any further I'll make it clear that I would personally be very affected by these proposals as the largest proposed estate is directly behind my house. I don't hide from that at all.

Even if I wasn't affected personally I would still consider the proposals to be deeply flawed. The consultants did not look at any possible sites in the flood plain. That may be understandable given last years flooding, but if buildings were properly designed with flood risks in mind then matters could be far better than they are at the moment.

Equally on the largest proposed site in the borough, that directly behind my house, the consultants taken no account at all of the wholly inadequate transport arrangements that exist here for getting into the centre of Nottingham. All traffic has to go on one of two already highly congested roads, the A52 or the A609. Neither of these has the spare capacity to take potentially a further 10,000 vehicles travelling each way each day.

As a member of the Development Control Committee I have to consider any planning applications impartially and dispassionately, which I will do, but I cannot see how this proposed rape of the green belt could ever be justified.

Labour Out Of Touch

Two comments by politicians recently have illustrated how out of touch Labour have become with ordinary people, the people that their party was formed to represent.

First Gordon Browns answer to the economic squeeze - delivered just before he attended a banquet apparently costing £85,000 for the meal, is that people should eat less and not throw anything away - Monday's meal will be the leftovers from Sunday, that sort of thing.

If that wasn't bad enough we then had the appalling Angela Eagle trying to justify massive increases in road tax by saying that it won't affect poor people because they don't own cars. The arrogance of this was unbelievable. She obviously had no idea that the changes she was bringing about would make it ever harder for those on low incomes to be able to afford to buy and run a car.

It's pretty obvious now that Labour will lose the next election. The challenge for myself and my Lib-Dem colleagues is to make sure that people realise that it is our policies, rather than those of the Tories, which represent the best future for Great Britain.