Dear Editor,
The Local Plan was never going to be easy. Picking up the situation two years ago as a new administration and navigating to a plan that had wide spread support last year was a huge undertaking. But discussing, consulting and working with communities, last June we had a plan that worked and would have met our Borough’s housing needs. It was a sensible plan for Basingstoke & Deane. A good choice of sites, strong policies and widespread support.
The new Government blew up our local plan. Let us be absolutely clear, we are here now because the government decided to move the goal posts, they decided new vastly different housing numbers.
It meant a new housing number we do not support, a new plan we did not need, and a national approach to planning we are now seeing fail. All the good work we had done to move our plan forward at pace was reset.
You can tell we’re angry and frustrated by this. It’s our communities in the firing line, it’s our need for affordable homes, not conveyer-belt housing that drives our desire for better housing standards as well as homes that meet people’s needs, homes they can actually afford.
Design does matter, sense of place does matter, how we deal with the gaping hole in infrastructure from GPs to bus services really matters. How we protect our rivers and precious chalk streams really matters. Yet the only thing that both the previous and current government are bothered about is a fictitious housing target that will never be met.
We have a choice. We either have a plan set under rules we do not want or support; or, we let speculative development rule and our communities suffer even more. We know what a Hobson’s choice that feels like given both the previous and current governments planning nightmare.
We will continue to try and thread the needle here. We need homes that meet our local needs, supported by policies that drive better standards and infrastructure that is actually delivered not just promised.
The task is huge, and no one should be under any illusions of the governments intent here, they will do what they like to us without truly caring about the local realities we all know we face. This is the Government’s local plan, it is not ours. They killed ours last year.
Cllr Paul Harvey
Cllr Andy Konieczko
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