Local Plan as good as could
be expected
Of all the functions which
local government is required to carry out, planning is inevitably one of the
most contentious and challenging (Urban Brawl, Kentish Gazette, May 9).
Whether seeking to identify
where different forms of development might go and to dratt the related policies
in a Local Plan or deciding if planning permission should be granted for
anything from a small porch to the largest housing estate, it is bound to upset
someone.
The grander the scale, the
more the council is likely to offend if it gives the green light.
People these days are far
more environmentally aware and have easier access to information. Society as a
whole places increasingly greater values on matters like wildlife and
countryside conservation, looking after our built heritage and avoiding
problems like flooding and pollution. Anything involving more traffic is bound
to be controversial.
It is inevitable, therefore,
that if it is to identify land for new housing of the scale envisaged, the
Local Plan will give rise to concern.
If this scale of housing is
needed, there are sound reasons for placing it on the edge of Canterbury to
meet sustainability principles relating to travel to services such as schools
and shops.
No doubt the council has
wrestled with other options and considered them objectively. It should come as no surprise
that land south east of the city has been chosen. It has been eyed for
development, albeit of a lesser scale, for many years and potentially gives
direct access to the A2.
That said, I regret that the
city council is forced to find land for this quantity of new homes.
I am also sorry that this
land is now under renewed threat of development, particularly as I grew up in
the area and fondly recall the mix of hop gardens complete with hop-pickers and
their huts, cherry, apple and pear orchards and lettuce fields, complete with
tall hawthorn windbreaks which once occupied the land off Nackington Road.
I anticipate and fully
understand the likely concerns and fears of local people at the scale of
development and its implications and the loss of valued countryside.
Your front page headline
screams "Urban Brawl". No doubt, whoever produced that is
congratulating him or herself. I thought when I first saw it that you were back
to the subject of the city's night-time economy. But the subject of
Canterbury's future is far too serious for such cheapness.
The city council will already
have expended considerable money and time on what is a highly complex matter -
a glance at its website will give a clear idea of what is involved.
There will be disagreements,
arguments and serious discussion, of course, and the opposition expressed from
Alex Perkins and Fred Whitemore is to be expected. However, it is fairly put and
your report includes reference to nothing which constitutes a "brawl"
comparable to what might occur outside a pub.
John Gilbey is absolutely
right: the city council has no option other than to find land for the number of
homes dictated to it by others. If it does not, it faces the
very real prospect of people throughout the district facing uncertainty and ad
hoc planning permissions being given at appeal to unscrupulous developers,
probably at very great cost financially to local taxpayers.
Tim Fisher, Hatch Lane, Chartham
