STOP NORWICH URBANISATION

Anyone attending SNUB open meetings will have heard David Hook from CPRE describe so eloquently what has happened to Bristol as it fell victim to urbanisation (you can watch our YouTube video of him in action) and the unabated growth of Milton Keynes shows how development has increased the population there from  40,000 in 1967 to 213,000 in 2008 and is now targeted to grow by a further 110,000 in the next 20 years.

Along with SNUB there are a number of other campaign groups starting out who are working towards stopping large scale development in the area surrounding Norwich. (Hands off Hethersett and Vision our Wymondham are two which have websites worth visiting.)

The new government has pledged to allow residents to decide where they want development in their localities. Communities Minister, Andrew Stunnell recently announced that:

"the Localism Bill will set the stage for the long-overdue push of powers out of Whitehall to councils and neighbourhoods right across the country, and give local communities control over housing and planning decisions. It will help set the foundations for the Big Society by radically transforming the relationships between central government, local government, communities and individuals.

It will also give local people - individuals and community groups - more power over local government and over how public money is spent in their area, and ensure that councillors are more directly accountable to them."

Join your local campaign group and write to your MP and local councillors urging them to stop the urbanisation of the Norfolk countryside.

5 comments:

  1. SNUB has always had the view that developments proposed by Broadland District Council were wildly excessive and prepared without any meaningful consultation (however they choose to interpret that word).
    The focus was originally on the Rackheath ECO Town because of the obvious flaws in the concept.
    Once the Joint Core Strategy was launched it was clear that they had even greater designs on our countryside and the scope was widened.

    Now we are being flooded with requests for involvement in the Plantation debacle. A wealthy Norfolk family wants to make financial capital out of building in the wooded areas on the old heathland North East of Norwich. Is nothing of the slightest importance to these people other than money?

    The Council tells us that they are doing all this because we need to return to growth... for what ... to increase the pace at which we are destroying our planet. Their recently newsletter says 'we are planning for significant growth in Broadland'. I say WE DO NOT WANT IT.
    Where is your mandate? This has all appeared like topsy since the last district council elections.

    GROWTH is the mantra of capitalism and its weakness. These people have no alternative strategy other than to build, guzzle resources and destroy our environment.

    The fact that people in Norfolk are very slow to anger has been taken advantage of unscrupulous men but the upwelling of resentment is now real and we must move to show that they cannot take our environment as their plaything.

    It has got to STOP NOW!

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  2. How can we be sure that when the politicians talk about local communities that they mean US, the residents and NOT Broadland District Council, who has proved they listen to no one except themselves and the developers

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  3. Local resident10 July 2010 at 16:50

    Anyone read the EDP today. We have all be conned. What price Democracy now

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  4. We appear to have been let down and ignored yet again,the local voters don't seem to count these days. I wonder what will happen if the planning inspectors decide in September that the JCS is unsound? Or will they be ignored as well?

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  5. We must ensure we get the right candidates in place for the next council elections and then we can return our democracy back to the electorate.
    This present council has its own agenda and for whatever reason prefers to listen to the developers,rather than the public. The council should be protecting our countryside not promoting its wholesale destruction.Now we have another 200 acres under threat,IT CANNOT GO ON.

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