Opinion
Featured in Bath Chronicle, January 2010:
Dear Editor,It is clear from many conversations with local people that the vast majority of residents are firmly opposed to proposals for an ‘Urban Extension’ south-west of Bath.
I entirely agree with this view. People I speak with are not against new house-building, and in particular the need to regenerate brownfield sites and provide more affordable housing is widely supported. But the huge house-building numbers imposed by Government are clearly not needed or wanted.
Conservatives, both locally and nationally, are firmly opposed to both the high numbers included in the Government’s targets and the Whitehall-driven approach the Government is taking to new house-building.
Bath is lucky to be surrounded by unique and beautiful countryside, and this must be cherished. The need for the thousands of new homes Government is trying to force on us is not grounded in evidence.
If a Conservative government is elected this year, the central-targets, known as the ‘Regional Spatial Strategy’, will be scrapped, setting free the Council to decide its own numbers and locations.
If this happens, Conservative Councillors will argue for the Council to go back to the drawing board over the numbers of new houses currently proposed. We will argue that evidence gathered from the Council’s Core Strategy consultation should be used to come up with a more sustainable number of new homes for our area, scrapping unnecessary ‘Urban Extensions’ on the edges of both Bath and Bristol.
We must use new house-building as an opportunity for regeneration, not to bull-doze our green fields.
Yours faithfully,
Cllr Gordon Wood,
Cons, Saltford