Having attended the meeting at the Vista on Saturday March 30 to listen to concerns expressed by the action group, I would like to respond to what I believe are a number of pieces of misinformation that were presented.
Let me start by saying that I agree that LCC has mishandled the process of consultation with the affected communities.
LCC has also failed to consult effectively with their local authority partners in this process by changing the originally suggested route of certain sections. These are not yet subject to any form of detailed planning, or consultation, but have still been made public.
In respect of the alleged involvement of the South East Lincs Joint Strategic Planning Committee. A slide listing each member’s name was displayed to those attending. This claimed that the committee was responsible for the ‘design and layout’ of the proposed road. This is untrue.
The joint Local Plan committee has no role in the design, or layout of any development in any location in South East Lincolnshire. Developers design and layout development. Lincolnshire County Council does that for roads as the highway authority.
A further claim was made that the only reason housing had been concentrated in this area of Spalding was to help the developer make money. The small glimmer of truth in that, is that developer contributions are always required to build infrastructure such as roads. Central government will not give us that money, a story often repeated across rural counties such as ours.
The much larger truth is that most other areas surrounding Spalding are unsuitable for residential development due to a higher flood risk. The evidence base for this is in the adopted Local Plan background papers and Strategic Flood Risk Assessment.
A speaker made an impassioned speech to protect our rurality and against building more houses.
This ignored the fact that Spalding is our largest urban area, with over one third of South Holland’s total population.
It also ignored the fact that every council is under sever pressure by government to contribute to meeting its 300,000 per annum housing targets.
It ignored the fact that the planning system has been significantly changed to favour developers, and that every council, even ‘rural’ ones has a target number of houses it is required to see built annually.
The final inconvenient fact ignored was something called the five year housing land supply figure hanging over every council that developers and agents watch like hawks.
I will finish by saying that in its current form these proposals are far from satisfactory, if only because of the severe impact and uncertainty they have caused to communities. I understand the LCC portfolio holder for highways has been quoted as saying he wants to see a route for the centre section that doesn’t involve the demolition of homes. Although that it is a future promise he may not be in a position to honour personally, he can indeed ensure that it is enshrined in an outline policy document now.
More immediately, I trust he will be considering very carefully all of the legitimate concerns raised. In particularly those related to late changes that have move raised roadways closer to existing properties, in order to accommodate more development and seek to improve the plans accordingly.
Coun Roger Gambba-Jones
Spalding Wygate Ward
