Local development – another view

Cheshire East's questionnaire – see earlier story on Wednesday 3rd August titled 'Consultation on local development' – makes no reference to the protection of open countryside or the preservation of landscape value, biodiversity and agricultural land likely to be of ever increasing importance for food production as the population rises and climate change makes it more dfficult to source food from overseas.

CPRE (Campaign for the Protection of Rural England) suspects that Cheshire East's agenda is highly influenced by the coalition government's draft National Planning Policy Framework which dictates that the need for economic growth shall take precedence over all other considerations such as green land protection.

The development of green land for housing or commerce is now considered more important than its protection for amenity or farming, and, to the obvious delight of developers, the previous requirement that brown (previously-developed) land should be developed before green land no longer applies.

#Sustainable
The government, of course, refers to the need for such development to be SUSTAINABLE, but that can hardly be the case if finite agricultural land is permanently removed from production. The S word is rapidly becoming meaningless in government speak.

How the building of housing estates in open countryside can be justified as "economic development", when the creation of  the corresponding construction jobs is strictly short term, is a mystery to me.

Also, there seems to be no requirement that there shall be jobs locally for the new residents, merely a hope that if the houses are available for employees, new employers will be attracted.

#Housing
Again, the housing "requirements" are predicted on the basis of theoretical population trends and pay no attention to the actual state of the housing market, currently flooded with unsold and empty properties.

When the wider population wakes up to the fact that their countryside is seriously threatened by the government's thinking, and naive view that we can simply build our way out of the recession, the vociferous and successful protests against the proposal to sell all our forests to private interests will look like a mere tea party in comparison.

Local people should not think that the fields around us are safe from development. The threat is greater than ever unless a massive protest to the government (local and national) indicates that they will be unelectable if they continue with this grossly mistaken policy.

#Audlem Online adds
Audlem Online adds: 1,000 copies of the questionnaire are being distributed locally so it's hoped that Audlem will see a high return rate of questionnaires which should help to ensure local opinion, of whatever shade, is taken into account.

We now have a copy of the questionnaire as a PDF and it can be accessed and printed off by clicking on the link below the photo. You can also access the questionnaire at the Cheshire East website – a link to that is also provided.

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