Maria Miller MP for Basingstoke has today called a debate on the floor of the House of Commons to call into question the Governments move to overturn the Local Inspectors report into house building on German Road, Bramley.
Speaking before the debate Maria said, “This Government is yet again pushing Basingstoke to build more and more houses without the investment to ensure local services can cope with the increased levels of demand for doctors, dentists, schools, roads and public transport. There have been three extensive Reports into the proposals for Bramley all of which have concluded that any more house building is unsustainable because local services simply could not cope.
There are already sufficient building sites identified in our Local Plan to deliver to the Government their house building targets for Basingstoke, which are well in excess of what the local community actually needs.
This Government says it values highly public consultation but the reality is that they force local residents and local political representatives through a time consuming process only to pay little or no attention to what is said.
This shows how little the Government values local consultation with residents and local democracy in the planning process.
I am asking in the debate today whether the Secretary of State trusts local people to plan to future of their communities.
The is a growing concern in Basingstoke and Deane that there is already insufficient investment available to ensure local services can cope with the increase demands created by such high level of house building. We now see the sewage system regularly flooding certain residential areas; level of Phosphates in the Loddon causing concern; the M3 motorway running over capacity with a tragic spate of deaths directly as a result of congestion in past 2 year; a growing problem of rat running through villages and residential communities; new residential areas such as Rooksdown no community facilities to support residents. We already have an infrastructure gap of over £200million for roads alone – my fear is that Government is creating problems which will be costly to remedy in the future. “
Maria will be specifically asking the Government today:
1. What new evidence is there that the plan to build 270+ houses in German Rd is now sustainable where previously it was deemed not to be? Did the Inspectors make serious errors in their reports?
2. Both the Sec of State and the planning inspector agree that the proposal are not in compliance with the Local Development Plan – because the proposal:
a. Is outside the settlement policy boundary of Bramley
b. Increases dependency on car
c. The scale of the proposal has increased significantly since original proposal was submitted
Did locally elected representatives and the local planning authority get it wrong?
3. There has been extensive consultation with people of Bramley and the people of Basingstoke on the Local Plan yet the Secretary of State can over ride this. What message this send to Basingstoke about the usefulness of being involved in future ‘consultations’?
