There has been a lot of debate about numbers and what is correct. Well, as someone famous once said “After all, facts are facts, and although we may quote one to another with a chuckle the words of the Wise Statesman, "Lies - damn lies - and statistics," still there are some easy figures the simplest must understand, and the astutest cannot wriggle out of” I have had a lifetime in commerce and numbers can be made to say anything you want them to. However lets look at the FACTS:
- The need for social housing is falling in Broadland District Council as reported in there own Annual Housing report. FACT
- Broadland District Council and South Norfolk are actually overachieving in their provision of affordable housing as demonstrated by Shelter’s independent annual survey. FACT
- When Broadland District Council and others in the GNDP applied for Growth Point status in 2005, without consultation I may add, they opened the door for additional housing, as one of the objectives of this national relationship between Central Government and local partners is the “Early delivery of housing as part of growth plans”. FACT
- The Growth Point for the Greater Norwich Housing area, which is larger than the city boundary but smaller than the area covered by the JCS, calls for an additional 33,000 new homes and 36,000 new jobs in the Greater Norwich area between 2001 and 2021. FACT
- According to the Chief Planner at Broadland District Council, at a public meeting called by SNUB in 2010, 15,000 new houses have already been built between 2001 and 2010. FACT
- However the authorities have deliberately confused local residents with the call for new houses coming from the Greater Norwich Housing area and the JCS area with double counting and duplicitous nature of their statements. FACT
- Compared with the previous projections, the County’s population growth is a little lower. FACT
- CPRE support the legal challenge by SNUB to the JCS. They would not have made a public statement to this end if they though that SNUB’s figures or interpretation of them was wrong. FACT
Judge the FACTS and not the individuals!
Oh I do love "facts".
ReplyDelete1. Interesting but what impact does it have? Is it a short term blip, is it the same elsewhere in the area? Does it make any real difference to the longer term?
2. A respones to your previous mis-use of Shelter figures demonstrated that they support the GNDPs target.
3. a quick search of the history shows that the housing target was already in the regional plan before the area became a growth point and didnt increase as a result
4. So?
5. What is the relevance to the future plans? If correct, what it does indicate is that the area achieved 45% of the growth said to be required in Fact 4 in 45% of the time - pretty good going!
6. There is no "fact in 6, merely assertion and distortion
7. So? the interesting comparison would be between the latest projection and the GNDP target. I found a document called EIP 70 on the GNDP website which looks at projections and housing need.
8 So one organisation that is opposed to growth supports another. Now there is a surprise and probably a bona fide "fact"! But even here there is a matter of degree, are CPRE supporting with finance for example? I thought on previous posts it said they werent.
Hmmm. Anyone might think that since the legal challenge against the GNDP was launched, that someone was deliberately trying to discredit snub and turn public opinion against them. But surely the councils wouldn't be that underhand would they? Make up your own minds!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 00:20 why do you think the only people who are interested in the facts are employed by the GNDP? SNUB have rightly encouraged us to delve into the issues but when you do the picture is not always as SNUB would have us believe - as always there are at least 2 sides to every argument.
ReplyDeleteAnon. of 9 June 2011 00:20 may have a very good point. The beginning of the barrage of negative comments on this blog seems to have coincided with SNUB's legal challenge. Is this mere coincidence?
ReplyDeleteBut EIP 70 and all the "evidence" of housing need supplied by the GNDP are mumbo jumbo, the sort of thing that High Priests used to do in the olden days to mystify and overawe the populace. The Government updated PPS3 in 2010, to demand proper evidence of housing need from councils. I wonder why they felt a need to update PPS3?
ReplyDeleteEvidence is the actual waiting lists, broken down into types of demand ranging from homeless to vaguely wondering whether to exchange your home for a smaller/larger one in the same or a different area.
Evidence is also the number of private homes for sale in the area at below the cost of "affordable" housing. Evidence is also the death rate set against the birth rate (which we can see for ourselves in any local newspaper). There are forests of bungalows for sale all over Norfolk, and there is no reason why a young family can't start off in a bungalow designed for someone elderly, which probably has a large garden unlike most of the new crap.
There is no real evidence in any of the expensive-looking mauve (or is it purple?) documents.
I think another fact that needs throwing into the ring is that you can't fool ALL of the people ALL of the time.
No doubt people have finally woken up to the fact that at least GNDP have drawn up and published a PLAN. SNUB have concentrated on a mass of negative comments, never presented anything constructive on paper as something to compare the JCS with and now, with a legal writ in place, it is quite right that the general public should be examining the possible consequences and facing up to the fact that the area could be WORSE off for this.
ReplyDeleteIt is also curious that SNUB chose not to post the article in the EDP on Tuesday about South Norfolk (GNDP), and the possible rethinking of the policy in the JCS about dispersal of housing in villages.
Some of their Councillors have questioned whether the economic climate is right to place additional houses in villages and whether it is better to bring housing closer to Norwich.
This thinking is not good news for SNUB as one of their few alternative suggestions is to push housing out into the villages to regenerate them and take it away from Norwich and the NE triangle.
S Norfolk's reappraisal might give added weight to the viability of Broadland's NE Growth triangle solution.
Has Snub got a plan ?
ReplyDeleteAll i read on here, is moan moan moan, no to this and no to that from Snub
Why cant Snub be more Positive, provide a solution and stop moaning all the time, its like a stuck record over here.
Lets see a action plan that residents can get behind and support, not just `we dont want developmnet in our area` attitude.
Snub has had long enough to think up a solution thats workable, lets see these facts for a change and move this whole thing forward into a higher gear.
Im not providing my name as Mr Stewart Lyndsay will only say its fake !
Come on folks. SNUB are a small team of volunteers who do not have the huge resources that local councils have to come up with a an action plan. Surely thats what we are paying our rates for. All I know is that it does not feel right to have all of these houses in one place making a new town the size of Thetford grafted on to the North East of Norwich.
ReplyDeleteThe dispersal in South Norfolk is working for the majority of the houses as it is only the rump end of 1800 houses that need a place to be built. With all of the evidence about numbers they could probably do without these anyway.
I'm not sure why people are having a go at SNUB as the majority of Parish Councils in the North East agree with SNUB's legal challenge. At least SNUB have had the courage of their convictions and done somehting positive rather than sniping away on the Blog.
If the objectors are unhappy then lets see them call a public meeting to put their side of the argument. Where is their petition for all of the people who want this level of development? SNUB have always said that they would give up if the local people tell them to.
A google search led me to the latest Government household projections on http://www.communities.gov.uk/housing/housingresearch/housingstatistics/housingstatisticsby/householdestimates/livetables-households/
ReplyDeleteThe fifth on the list, Table 406, has district council projections. Scroll down to Norfolk and you will see the 3 GNDP districts. In 2008 they had 165,000 households and this is projected to rise to 209,000 households by 2026. This is a rise of 44,000 households - somewhat more than the GNDPs housing target.
9 June 2011 07:31
ReplyDeleteI think it touched a nerve when your spin machine was mentioned, looking at the recent Broadland rag a whole two and a half pages of propaganda. Local houses for local people I think not.
Anonymous 15:58 refers: There we have it! 'A small team of volunteers' who, on the basis of a claimed 3000 names have chosen to affect the lives, as a previous blog quoted, of almost 1/3 million residents in the GNDP area? Given that potential impact SNUB has a social responsibility to produce a PLAN of sorts. The GNDP at least are committed to an Area Action Plan for the NE – but perhaps you have not read that far!
ReplyDeleteThe 'rump end' of 1800 houses as you so casually refer to them are sufficient to impact on those S Norfolk villages nominated to receive them. The same would happen to those nominated in Broadland. Easy is it not to throw phrases around and not think of the consequences for those affected when your vision is narrowed on your back yard. As for the extended dispersal option as per S Norfolk , there is no sign that SNUB has brokered a similar argument with potential recipient communities in Broadland.
As for 'sniping away on the blog'. Well SNUB has sniped on this blog at just about everybody and about everything. The Councils, the Government, landowners, developers, the Inspectors, anyone who disagrees with them, even the EDP and the list goes on.
Not so long back, the Chairman asked people to join the debate. People have done so and since then they have been accused of being Council employees, developers and others with an interest, not being who they called themselves, trying to undermine SNUB..........anything else other than residents who have taken the trouble to get involved and state their case!!
The Inspectors conclusion, having studied the evidence and held a public hearing at which it is recorded SNUB, CPRE and the BNP were represented, "The authorities have seized the initiative, risen to the challenges presented by the demographic forecasts for the area, and made a proactive response which recognises the scale of the issues. The JCS sets out a sound long-term strategy for this growth and the GNDP position on the issue is worthy of support". Why did they get it so wrong?
ReplyDeleteBasically SNUB like to be the centre of attention and hate to have any form of counter argument. But this is what blog sites are all about. What has become evident is that there are now very few active supporters out there other than the 'usual suspects' and Edith Crowther of the BNP (Broadland election candidate 2010), who features at length on nearly every page. What is her interest as a West Norfolk resident – surely not the next elections for Broadland? Hopefully she is equally eloquent on the Incinerator debate in her own area or about the 220 homes planned for Dereham; both issues so much closer to home rather than this in a potential constituency? Also, is there a link with the propaganda that a blogger from Rackheath quoted when he said 'I live in Rackheath - Yes on the New Estate and I was originally a Snub supporter, they knocked on my door and explained there would be Imigrants and ex convicts out of prison living in the Eco Town development.' Sounds a familiar and unsavoury message.
ReplyDeleteIf SNUB is big enough to launch a writ that ultimately could affect the lives of 1/3million residents in the GNDP then they and their supporters should be able to stand up to the debates on this website without whingeing like playground children every time someone comes up with an argument they do not like. If they cannot do that then they should question whether they have the stomach for a real fight which they will certainly get when this goes to court and for the subsequent consequences.
Its happening again, tried to post a factual comment which would attempt to bring a sense of perspective to this discussion and, five times now, it has not been published.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you make of that?
What you make of it is that they ALL went into the 'spam box' courtesy of Blogger! Apologies but that is what happened like it or not - as we have tried to explain before. Your comment has now been published. There is nothing sinister going on but we don't actually sit there monitoring blog comments 24 hours a day.
ReplyDeleteIf SNUB is big enough to launch a writ that ultimately could affect the lives of 1/3million residents in the GNDP then they and their supporters should be able to stand up to the debates on this website without whingeing like playground children every time someone comes up with an argument they do not like. If they cannot do that then they should question whether they have the stomach for a real fight which they will certainly get when this goes to court and for the subsequent consequences.
ReplyDeleteWell said that Man/Woman.
Looks like the Spam box excuse is back again !
It is possible to move the comments from the Spam Box to this topic- or would that not look good - or open - or transparent ?
4 teams of planners from 4 different councils work together and come up with a plan after 4 years of collecting evidence, its agreed by 4 different groups of councillors from opposite ends of the political spectrum, and then endorsed by 2 independent inspectors who listened to the views of a wide range of people and inspected the quality of the evidence. But SNUB dont like the outcome so all this process and all these people must be wrong (actually the accusation is not that they are wrong but that they are corrupt and deceiptful). In life difficult decisions have to be made and the more difficult they are the more likely someone wont like them, but we have to move on. I am a local person and I say to SNUB "give up now" please.
ReplyDeleteThe anti-SNUB comments are not worth the virtual paper they are written on. Also they fail the transparency test completely, because they are anonymous.
ReplyDeleteIt is worth pointing out though, that the allegation by environmental lawyers, is that further large-scale development in the UK breaks the law unless it is done with greater care.
International laws on traffic fumes and water use and conservation of nature have entered UK Planning Law, but governments and councils are carrying on as if these laws are only on paper and do not need to be put into practice. So their actions have a tendency to break the law, not surprisingly. This may be due to ignorance of the law, but ignorance cannot be pleaded as an excuse especially when your job entails knowing what the law says and then implementing it.
In West Norfolk, people have already learned from the Save Historic Newmarket case found by SNUB's solicitors, and are either using the same solicitors or applying the case as individuals against various overdevelopment projects like the incinerator which would seem to be breaking the law, especially the EU Directive on Nitrogen Oxides which it became a criminal offence to breach in 2008.
All these infrastructure and housing projects aim to cater for an increase in population through immigration, as the existing population is declining naturally as it ought to in order to reduce the global resource use of the UK which is, frankly, beyond gluttony. Our existing population is far too large for our own resources and the row about water is just one example. We do not want to be driven to importing water as well as other vital resources from countries which cannot really spare these.
We must all fight these fantasies about housing "need" on our own patch, in our own wards and parishes, and also county-wide and nation-wide. In 2010 South Norfolk came top on Shelter's Local Housing Watch list of over 300 councils - it built twice as many affordable homes as were needed. 123 were needed and it built over 300. Perhaps by 2012 it will need 123 again - but 123 is a bit different from the thousands proposed.
It seems somewhat ironic in a post entitled "judge the facts" to have a lecture in environmental law from a BNP member who is also someone who admires and repsects the anti semitic terrorists of Hamas. SNUB have done nothing to disown this supporter. In fact I believe her colleague is one of the few people to have declared financial support in these blogs. Her reasons for getting involved are almost blown by statements such as "All these infrastructure and housing projects aim to cater for an increase in population through immigration" but then isnt that what SNUB really believe as well? Perhaps it is time to set the record straight? By the way she wasnt actually born here but then who in SNUB was?
ReplyDeleteAnon 22:29 yesterday, you shouldn’t bring party politics into a cross-party issue. Inter-party bickering is bringing this country to its knees, when we are in a state of emergency and everyone should pull together as we did during the World Wars.
ReplyDeleteAll political parties have pro-Israel and pro-Palestine camps. So again this is a cross-party issue. I grant you it is relevant here though, because it is at the same time an overdevelopment issue. Hamas is not anti-semitic but anti-immigration, and Palestine is a glaring example of how a land can be destroyed by too much immigration and too much development. The promise made in the Balfour Declaration was made by the Cabinet privately to Lord Rothschild, and all it said was that “His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. At the time (1917) Palestinian Arabs (Christian and Muslim) owned and farmed most of Palestine and had done for thousands of years. About 65,000 of the 650,000 population were Jews, who had lived happily there for centuries. They did not farm however, and so owned only about 1 per cent of the land.
So how on earth did 80 per cent of Palestine become a new country called Israel, occupied by nearly 8 million new settlers living an alien western lifestyle that is completely unsustainable in the long term? What happened to all the small villages and farms and bustling market towns and the peaceful, harmonious lifestyle where Orthodox Jewish and Christian minorities fitted in happily because they had similar tastes?
Whatever happened, it shouldn’t have been allowed – you have to stop obvious mistakes before they happen, and the same goes for Britain. Norfolk is full, the UK is full, Europe is full, what is there about the word full that people don’t understand? We are behaving like those early Kings of England who literally bust their guts overeating.
Maybe its a good time for Snub to step in and put the story straight ?
ReplyDeleteThis reads like a Pro BNP Blog now.
What ever have Palestine and Israel got to do with Urban Sprawl in Norwich areas ?
Dunno, but you don't have to be anti-Semitic to be pro-Palestine, and its a bit odd to see a committed BNP member seemingly concerned about human rights!
ReplyDeleteEdith Crowther seems a rather confused person. A lot of what she says would actually be quite sound (on the environment for example), but then she goes and spoils it all by saying something stupid like I love Jews! Sorry Edith, couldn't resist that little joke.
The BNP don't love Jews, or Blacks or Asians or gays or gypsies or commies... The BNP is a neo-Fascist, racial supremacist, bigoted organisation. Luckily, very few of its members are anything like as well educated or articulate as Edith.
By the way, I don't think Hamas are 'anti-immigration' but they are anti-occupation, anti-land theft & anti-repression, quite a different and far more justifiable kettle of fish. I'm of Jewish ancestry, and ashamed of what the Israeli government is doing, as are many others. And I don't want to see every field between Norwich and Salhouse built on!
Time we got back to the original point and that is the promises made by Broadland District Council at that very first meeting at Rackheath. Remember "If large objections we will not proceeed" and "NO NDR No Ecotown". Some people have obviously got short memories and the National Developers want their huge profits regardless of the local people.
ReplyDeleteDevelopers can only make a profit if they make a product people buy. Buying a house is not an impulse purchase. People only buy if they want or need to. It would seem to me that developers will tend to build slightly less than there is a demand for in order to keep prices and profits up. Therefore the number of houses that get built will broadly be the amount for which there is a demand or a bit less. If the GNDP has overestimated demand then the houses will simply not get built. If they have underestimated then there will be upward pressure on prices , social problems as people struggle to find a home, and a negative impact on the local economy as young people move away to find housing or as local business finds it more difficult to attract the workers they need. This Government and the previous one recognise that we have built far too few houses over the last 20 or 30 years - principally because politicians are generally too scared to make the difficult decisions.
ReplyDeleteConsumer demand is not some kind of fixed, immutable entity. Demand can be stimulated and even created - hence the billions spent on advertising and marketing. Most importantly, demand does not necessarily equate to need. There is demand for cars and motorcycles capable of 200mph, but clearly no need for them. Yet various manufacturers are happy to compete to supply the demand. There is a strong demand for heroin and cocaine, but supplying it is not tolerated by society.
ReplyDeleteAnon. 13 June 22:29 is right to say that houses will only be built at a rate at which demand exceeds supply, but the mere existence of the demand does not necessarily justify the builing of them. The planning system was brought into being to tackle the problems caused by developers supplying demand however they wished.
It is sad that the GNDP has prioritised through its Joint Core Strategy, developer's ability to stretch the market to the limit, above conservation of the countryside, wildlife habitats and natural resources.