I joined Sir Peter Luff MP at a village meeting in Badsey on Friday 6th June to discuss local planning issues. The meeting was organized by the Badsey & Aldington Parish Council and focused on to the large number of speculative house building proposals that the village and surrounding areas have been subjected to over the last few months.
In the absence of a detailed local plan, further such speculative plans can be anticipated and ground for refusal will be limited. Sir Peter urges all relevant bodies to make sure that a plan is put in place as soon as possible. In the meantime, he urged local residents to use solid planning grounds to argue for plans to be rejected or modified such as concerns about impact on infrastructure, social services, water supply and drainage and/ or wildlife and environmental considerations.
Personally, I am in favour of some limited, organic, local development as it helps sustain local services, schools, shops and pubs. But the current proposals are too much and we should not even contemplate building on green-belt and open areas until all available brownfield sites have been exhausted and the empty houses have been filled.
Sir Peter’s comments and a press release on the issue can be found here.