Another excellent Blog we are following is 'Transition Norwich' (http://transitionnorwich.blogspot.com) - a community-led response to peak oil, climate change and economic downturn.
Yesterdays' post by Councillor Andrew Boswell entitled 'Inspector Runs Rule on High Carbon Plans' unleashes an exceedingly well-argued attack on the GNDP's Joint Core Strategy. There is much to applaud in the post so we suggest you take time to read it in full - here are just a couple of extracts:.
"It’s not rocket science, but if GNDP started to think carbon-centrically, the NDR would just drop out of the options. Other more interesting options would come in too like bringing back empty properties into use, creating communities where people can live and work locally, building more such communities in existing areas, ensuring good and supply for local food growing and initiatives such as community support agriculture (CSA)."
"Once again, the four council leaders of the GNDP will make their response behind closed doors. However, what ever happens we can continue to tell the GNDP that it is no longer acceptable for decisions on how the Norwich area grows over the next twenty five years to be made by a handful of people behind closed doors, and that we demand that all councillors and the public are involved in further developments. And, that carbon reduction must now be built in as a main plank of the plans.!
Well said Councillor Boswell - we trust that the Greater Norwich Development Partnership will take note.
What with the need to cut carbon emissions and the huge cuts being made in VITAL services surely we cannot spend money on this going to nowhere road.
ReplyDeleteWith all the cuts the County Council are making in the VITAL services, surely they will never find the money for the NDR and Postwick Hub. Also when are Broadland DC going to hand back the £10.3 million as this money is urgently needed on more important items.
ReplyDeleteIs it true that Rackheath has now been nominated as a Waste Disposal Site ?
ReplyDeleteWhen is this rotten GNDP Quango going to stop meeting in secret behind closed doors. We as taxpayers should NOT be funding this un-elected and undemocratic group.
ReplyDeleteI have made the following comment on the Transition website:
ReplyDelete"This is an absolutely brilliant overview Councillor Boswell. Though it is a pity that your written and spoken contributions to the Inquiry did not pack anything like such a punch - I suppose you were nervous, and I don't blame you.
Since you have upped your game with such skill and rapidity, perhaps you are ready for the next stage. As someone who spent a lot of time as a teenager listing to seasoned ecologists like Teddy Goldsmith, Leopold Kohr, Diana Schumacher, Ivan Illich, etc., I have to tell you that your post above has already been said over and over again since the 1970s. Those who profit from Growth and Globalisation have paid no attention whatsoever - all they have done is develop a forked tongue where they babble on the one hand about carbon etc and on the other fuel the stampede for Growth which now includes "Green Growth" and "Sustainable Development", both a contradiction in terms in all countries more developed than Papua New Guinea. I seem to remember that the Amerindians complained that the colonisers spoke with forked tongues - but their complaints got nowhere, so we need to be a bit more pro-active or we and the rest of living biodiversity will end up in the same place as the First Nations of the Americas. In Reservations - and indeed if you look at the little green blobs on the GNDP maps representing "Nature" they look exactly like the South African Bantustans or the Palestinian “Bantustans” or whatever they call the disconnected blobs which are all that is left of Palestine.
The only thing that works is either UN Law, enforced at a local level, or direct action, a useful euphemism for a range of activities which are not necessarily illegal because UN Law permits citizens to take matters into their own hands to some extent, as a Judge recently ruled in relation to the Kingsnorth protesters.
A UN Convention is hard law - it MUST be obeyed by the signatories, and implemented at their national and subnational levels. I am afraid we are going to have to start using these Conventions coupled with any UK environmental Laws (and we have some pretty good ones believe it or not, dating back to the 1980s). No doubt a Parish Council could use them, so could a lone individual. So could a political party, or more than one political party acting together or separately. The more the merrier - again either together as a Class Action, or individually. Funds are only needed to pay court fees of a few hundred pounds and to defray award of costs against you if you lose - but if you have no money you can't pay the costs and if you own no property no charging order for the costs can be made against your non-existent property.
The only other things Developers will listen to are earthquakes, financial collapse, bubonic plague, tidal waves, and large-scale famine - not necessarily in that pecking order. And they only listen to famine if it is so bad that it removes their customer base, otherwise they would ignore it because they would have plenty to eat somehow.
By the way, you forgot to mention that all the houses are for people from outside Norfolk and the new jobs for the inmates of the new rabbit hutches will be in "Financial Services". These facts too emerged at the Inquiry and would seem to be fairly crucial when weighing up priorities."