Final Chance for St Edmundsbury

Paul Lambillion (BFP 28th August) was right to highlight the problems that arise as a result of poor planning and the residents of Moreton Hall can have no confidence in the Borough Council maintaining a firm grip on development. Recent builders so condensed the building that they had lots of spare land left over and the Council instead of insisting on community use of the spare land permitted the developer opportunity profits by allowing them to build further housing.

The future of the Borough lies with the public response to the Local Development Framework (LDF) final consultation.

Last time the Council went to consultation less than a hundred ordinary people of the 74,000 people in the Borough responded to this critical document that will define the next twenty years. If you don't take part then you will have no moral right to complain for twenty years about these plans and policies. Councillors have not 'approved' these plans they have approved sending them out to the public for consultation. This really is your last chance.

The plans propose to seal existing villages within their own boundaries. There will be no more natural gradual development of villages by adding a 'close' here and there on the edge of a village. There will be little opportunity for new jobs and shops in the countryside in village defined as an infill village, while selected villages face being swamped with new housing.

Forty three per cent of residents live in the countryside but we can expect no matching job of housing growth in these areas, which in practice is likely on past performance to be no more than ten per cent, if these plans and policies are endorsed by public inaction. Council planners, particularly central government planners and the Government Inspectorate don't recognise the countryside as a sustainable working environment, and only concerted public action will preserve the rights of families to continue living generation by generation in their home villages.

These plans will price housing in the countryside even further out of the reach housing for farm workers, public service workers, and others not earning high salaries by working in the countryside. It will enforce environmentally damaging unsustainable travel across the Borough by blocking new jobs in the countryside, while making worse the congestion pollution in the town.

Are you going to let this happen?

Do something about it?

Contact your Borough Council on 01284 575368l, or go to www.stedsmundbuty.gov.uk/ldf and take part at no cost in the consultation