At tonight's well attended meeting for residents to discuss the proposed Rackheath Eco-town & NDR, councillors were booed and jeered as they continued to ignore local residents' concerns and struggled to answer questions in a coherent and credible manner.
The biggest applause of the evening was reserved for David Hastings (ex-leader of BDC and SNUB executive member) and Richard Williams (SNUB) whose pertinent questions failed to get the honest responses from Broadland District Council that they deserved.
Broadland once again disgraced themselves by visibly smirking and laughing at some of the questions and opinions being made by residents which gave a very unprofessional impression from a group of elected councillors and salaried officers. The vote of no confidence in the Council at the end of the meeting was richly deserved!
It was the arrogant and dismissive attitude demonstrated by the Officers and Elected Members that was really shocking.
ReplyDeleteThe NCC highways people did not want to engage merely to pontificate. Our models ie guesses about traffic flows could not be wrong and yet, although they plan to build 10 -15,000 houses on the sides of the Northern Development Road they have produced figures which show that traffic levels will be reduced. They cannot accept that it is implausible.
The leader of the Council was still on about the numbers needing affordable houses and after dropping his claim that the number was 16,000 and reverting to the previous figure of 3,400 now claimed that they were mostly young people. This is in spite of the fact that Broadland build more affordable houses than they need. (EDP last week)
The fact that they Keynote speaker for the Council had not been properly briefed is the fault of Council Officers. It was clear that he had only been asked the day before and that he was using generic reasoning to justify his arguments. The Government produced a list of over 50 sites for ECO Towns and only 4 remain. That is because they are conceptually flawed
Dissenters within quangos like EERA are giving ordinary people the key to smashing this development gravy train. According to them (off the record), the government's own carbon emission targets forbid the building of one more house anywhere in the UK - including "eco" houses.
ReplyDeleteWhy not just smash the public authorities with their own overriding carbon targets? Whether you believe in man-made climate change or not? The fact is, there is no ROOM for one more car or one more person in Norfolk, or anywhere else in Britain. So they have to get real.
And it is rubbish about young people needing homes. Not one young person is going to be able to afford even the cheapest new home until the pressure on jobs from overpopulation is halved. And I mean HALVED.
Plaintive squeaks about infrastructure and churches, although true, are not going to deflect the likes of Amos and Woodbridge. Existing churches need to make them ponder the famous Bible text: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (Proverbs 1:7).
Looked up Gideon Amos OBE. He has just moved from a very high powered job at the Town and Country Planning Association to a new Government quango in Bristol - the Infrastructure Planning Commission. The Times newspaper was puzzled by this move, because the Tories have vowed to scrap the IPC if they get elected. Why would Amos give up such a wonderful job for something uncertain?
ReplyDeleteBut, I think maybe Amos knows the IPC or its like will not get scrapped - the money involved in infrastructure projects is too huge. The IPC is there to rush through massive infrastructure plans, by-passing council deliberations but still giving the public a "say" (how? when it is being rushed through?) As we all know there are gigantic construction schemes planned for this small island (unless a depression saves us), simply in order for those used to amassing mountains of money (offshore) to continue to do so. It is not just housing gravy trains.
Sorry for overuse of words like huge and massive and gigantic - but I am trying to get over the scale of the forces that humans with a modest lifestyle (together with all other species, plant and animal) are up against.
I voiced similar comments to Keith Simpson, about the infinite smugness and arrogance, of El Bandido.
ReplyDeleteThe kind of smugness that comes when you already have the necessary in your possesion.
Who the heck is El Bandido?
ReplyDeletePer qualche dollaro in più starred Lee Van Cleef
ReplyDeleteback in 1965.