Lack of Joined up Thinking


One of the main arguments for the proposed building of the so called eco-town, or low carbon development as it is sometimes called, was the close proximity to the Bittern railway line and the station at Salhouse with a proposal for a new station at Rackheath.

The Bittern Line is a Community Railway Partnership that supports and publicises the railway from Norwich to Cromer and Sheringham. Norfolk County Council formed the Partnership with the local railway company in 1997 and the railway forms part of the National Rail system.  Norfolk County Council are now proposing that one of the cuts they will make in the current round of spending reviews is their annual subsidy to the Bittern line.  Has anyone told the GNDP?  Isn’t Norfolk County Council a member of the GNDP?  Perhaps their secret meetings are so secret that even the member councils do not know what is going on!

Its about time that local government and indeed central government departments started to talk to each other in a meaningful and joined up way.

5 comments:

  1. Ah yes but you must not overlook the vast increase in traffic which will be generated by development in the NE Growth Triangle. Never mind that the rail line does not serve the area and only goes to Thorpe Station, the developers told the EiP that they will generate 5000 return journeys a day.
    No subsidy required, excellent.
    Sorry about that North Walsham, Cromer and Sheringham.

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  2. I think the lack of joined-up thinking is deliberate. SNUB, on the other hand, are very good at it. I appreciate all the reading and research SNUB do, and also the links down the right-hand side and other info about similar problems across the UK.

    As I keep repeating, I do think that local protests need to link not only with other local protests but with international movements and the very powerful UN laws which national and local governments are NOT OBEYING.

    Because I used the word "Ecocide" on one of my documents on the GNDP website, I was contacted by an environmental lawyer called Polly Higgins who has launched a campaign to make large-scale vandalism by corporations or governments upon the natural world a criminal offence. Although this would only apply to the huge vandals who are largely TransNationalCorporations, the climate of branding their activities as crimes would have a useful knock-on effect lower down the scale, changing the moral climate and making councils etc. realise that many of their proposals are "criminal" in the way that drunk driving was, for instance, before it was actually criminalised.

    I see that Polly is speaking to a Transition group in Carlisle next week, about how international law can be used to help local protest, and I wondered if someone from SNUB would care to invite her to address Greater Norwich on this subject? Her website has her email, I think, her website is called ThisIsEcocide,
    http://www.thisisecocide.com/

    Polly seems to attract a lot of really vitriolic criticism, but she also has a lot of very influential support. She is not in fact all that extreme as environmentalists go - she does not seem to be against Growth per se, for example, so has more in common with SNUB than I do!

    On a technical point, it was interesting to see the internet being used so efficiently, with a google alert picking up every public use of the word “Ecocide” – this is “Intelligence” used in a most beneficial way. I do not consider it spying at all, and was delighted to be contacted – in any case it is not private emails that are monitored, only contributions to public forums. Of course the word “Ecocide” was coined in the 1960s and was described as a form of suicide in those days, not a crime (unless you think suicide is a crime which seems outdated). However the situation has got so much worse since then, that it seems sensible to turn to the criminal law. After all, drunk driving is suicidal too – the problem is, it harms others as well as yourself.

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  3. Has anybody told the public about the way that Broadland Distric Council and the GNDP intend to fund the NDR and the other lunatic inappropriate developements etc....they call it a CIL, Community Infrastructure 'levy' or as common people would call it...a bloody rates increase ( to the tune of about £100- 150 per household per year).....or did they forget to mention that.....please ask your loval councilor, I'm sure he will be glas to fill you in ( or maybe they don't even know about this?.....

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  4. I think you will find that the CIL is paid by developers when they develop a scheme, it doesn't fall on existing residents.

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  5. I think you will find that the developers will have an agreement with the GNDP principals which will assure them of a rate of return. This will be in the form of an agreement about the number of affordable houses which can be supported by a development. Since CIL is not payable on affordable houses, who will pay it. Exactly, those who buy private homes and who sets it - the council - and what are they proposing £10,000 or £15,000 per dwelling.
    This is a new line as the previous contention was that it would be paid by the landowner. So if we are expected to believe that this levy will not end up by being paid by the buyers of those properties and ergo every property owner in the district as prices rise to cover it, you must have your eyes closed to reality.

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