Local Plan: letters
HBM
MIsleading Maps
The local plan is about to go out to consultation and the council has tried to put their spin on it in their official mouthpiece District Life.
They have printed maps of some of the sites but just manipulated the scale to completely falsify the situation. The 4,000 homes proposed at South Canterbury appear to take up about the same amount of land as the 400 at Herne Bay Golf Club!
They don't, of course. The map has just been adjusted to half the scale!
I thought that when a council consulted people it was supposed to present the facts in a clear and balanced manner.
When we pointed out this deliberate attempt to mislead at the local plan steering group we were promised it would be rectified. Far from it. Now this cynical attempt to mislead has gone out to every house. Throw your District Life into the recycling (don't forget which bin). Look at the sites with a decent map and then tell the council what you think.
How shameful that the council destroyed any credibility in its own magazine in trying to peddle its latest doctrine.
Cllr Nick Eden-Green, Lib Dem - Wincheap ward, Dane John, Canterbury
Use empty houses, not farmland
In respect of the draft Local Plan, which the city council proposes as a blueprint for the future of Canterbury, I would like to make the following observations. Canterbury district has about 4,000 empty dwellings. This equates to a similar number proposed for the sites in South Canterbury.
Why doesn't the council focus its efforts on bringing these houses and flats back into the housing stock? Yes this is difficult but a truly visionary council would look to make this effort rather than concrete over very fertile farmland. By 2050 the world population is set to increase by 30% to nine billion people. All these people need to be fed, including residents of the UK.
If we do not ensure that we are self- sufficient in food the true cost will be prohibitive for many of our children and grandchildren.
This is happening now if you take into account the rise in the number of food banks. I have raised this issue at a number of public forums and met with the glazed look of councillors who obviously do not consider it a real possibility. It is not properly addressed in the draft Local Plan and I question the very notion that such a plan can be "sustainable" when it proposes to remove such high grade land from the food supply.
Jon Linnane, Old Dover Road, Canterbury
Student housing
I fear local planning authorities are being asked to cure the symptoms of a problem and not its causes.
We have just received our copy of District Life, which shows the now familiar Key Local Plan proposed sites. On Monday evening I heard Cllr Peter Lee telling the people of South Canterbury, that, effectively, it was time for the city itself to take its share of development. Or, as Cllr Gilbey was quoted, possibly out of context, in an earlier issue of the Kentish Gazette, they "should put up or shut up."
This must not be a matter for dividing communities in our district, and I am happy to be labelled a Nimby; however, if people like me do not speak up for our neighbourhood it seems no one else will. Perhaps more will be sympathetic if some other facts are explained.
The proposed development for South Canterbury is, by the scale of the city, massive. It may not look so at first glance of District Life, but the South Canterbury plan is at a scale of 1225000, the Sturry/Broad Oak plan at 1:20000, Hersden at 1217250, and Herne Bay Golf Course at 1215000. The Canterbury proposal is equivalent in size to the whole of Hales Place, St Stephens, Whitstable Road area and London Road Estate combined.
Cllr Gilbey, at last Monday's meeting, twice mentioned Brighton as a city having to plan to build on land hitherto regarded as sacrosanct. This was an attempt to explain that Canterbury is not alone in having to take tough decisions, but he chose an apt comparison. Brighton has two universities. For many years its Victorian and local authority suburbs have filled with students. It cannot extend south!
Many other university towns and cities have growing ghettos of students and it is becoming a national problem. Successive governments have allowed the expansion of the higher education sector without providing for student accommodation. The local plan gives the issue two paragraphs, concluding that it is not a problem, that consultation proved thus and that student HMOs could be controlled from now on.
This horse has of course well and truly bolted - ask students if they mind more students in the district and the answer is no! But where have the residents gone? Very many have moved to the estates which have already been built in Herne Bay and to a lesser extent Whitstable. They do not just disappear! Many old Whitstable residents have sold up their terraced houses to weekenders and they have also moved to the edge of town estates.
Here is my alternative; plan for high-density student apartments between Tyler Hill and Blean to serve UKC, with a direct bus/cycle link, and on the barracks to serve CCUC. No more expansion of university places until the accommodation for existing student numbers is provided. CCUC and local developers such as Pavilion have shown what can be done. Clever planning and design, different funding streams, including batch sales to existing landlords, backed by assured student rents will enable development to occur on a fraction of the land of the present plan.
Existing housing stock will return to the market either to rent or buy, and will yield council tax. This would, I assume, not yield the building bonus per new house from government, but if local authorities in similar difficulties and local campaigners against large developments unite nationally, central government might be inclined to help middle England out of a hole. Could our MP help too?
The city council might not get its second link to the A2, yet. Mr Gilbey might, but with careful planning would not, lose his seat in Blean, and if he took the lead on a bold alternative plan he might get the thanks of the people of South Canterbury, Sturry, Herne and beyond.
Clive Flisher, Old Dover Road, Canterbury
HB Gazette 6th Jun 2013
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