EARLY ONE MORNING.........................
Liberal Democrat Councillor for Stansted North on Uttlesford District Council and former Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group Learn more
by Alan Dean on 1 November, 2014
Today’s forum aimed at opening the door on a secretive and unresponsive Uttlesford District Council was enjoyable. It was also valuable to us as councillors in helping to set the direction for a newly elected council next May. Thank you to everyone who came along.
We would be pleased to hear from those who couldn’t make it or didn’t hear about it in time. You can download a .pdf of the feedback form here and send it to back completed to me as shown at the base of the page. I look forward to hearing from you.
One of the ideas came from lady who brought a presentation about making protected and quiet lanes safer for walkers. Here is her presentation. Keep the ideas coming!
5 Comments
In the light of the ‘key questions’ to the district council posed by the Planning Inspector, Mr Foster, one may reasonably conclude that the Draft Local Plan is unlikely to progress in its present form, and that UDC will be back to square one next May.
With the General Election only 6 months away there is every likelihood that an incoming government, whether a majority Labour administration or some form of coalition, is quite likely to ‘tinker’ with some of the rules related to housing-building policy. However, the requirement to build large numbers of new homes will not disappear. The best one may expect is more homes delivered in a slightly more measured way – and possibly with the removal of so-called ‘incentives’ like the ‘New Homes Bonus’ which lead to local distortion in housing development.
A first decision for us in Uttlesford will be: do we adopt a ‘single-settlement’ solution (but not in Elsenham-Henham!), or do we spread the housing all around, and particularly in the district’s two major settlements, Saffron Walden and Great Dunmow?
The inspector, in his preliminary remarks, seems to be indicating strongly that UDC should re-examine the ‘single settlement’ solution in the light of possible solutions hitherto ignored. He asks also why UDC has apparently failed in its ‘duty to co-operate’ with neighbouring authorities, pointing specifically to opportunities for growth in the north of the district with the continuing development of high tech. business in places like Chesterford Research Park and nearby Hinxton in S. Cambs. These strong indicators simply cannot be overlooked, and the conclusion to be drawn seems to me inescapable.
Secondly, the district has a problem with the severe lack of accommodation available for rent. This may not be as acute as in most areas of the UK, but it is there. Over the past 5-10 years we have watched the number of families on our housing register in need of affordable rented accommodation gradually grow and grow. This problem has to be tackled. The types of houses we permit developers to build will do little or nothing to tackle this issue. At best we may reduce the demand a little. The Council has to become far more imaginative in how it meets the requirement for social housing by working in close collaboration with Registered Social Landlords and neighbouring authorities and the Rural Community Council for Essex. In particular there is a great need to provide housing for young people who wish to leave their parental home, but want to maintain close contact with relatives and friends locally. Of course, with this goes the need to match such housing with viable and realistic employment opportunities – not so easy, but that does not mean we shouldn’t try.
The district council should carry out an in-depth planning review of every settlement in the district to seek opportunities for small scale housing developments, preferably, but not exclusively, on brown-field sites. Settlements like Thaxted and Henham simply cannot accommodate the numbers of houses indicated in the DLP. Village development must be determined, in part at least, by questions of scale.
The current Draft Local Plan has approached housing development as the business of building houses wherever there is a plot of land there to be built on, ignoring almost completely questions of infrastructure – civic amenities, transport, services (sewage, water, etc.) and access to medical services, with little understanding of the full implications of an effective doubling of population in places like Great Dunmow.
For far too long UDC has arrogantly adopted the view that in all policy matters it alone has the ‘right’ answers, and therefore does not need to talk to its neighbours in order to exchange information or seek mutual solutions. Uttlesford is too often a bit like Little Johnnie who joined the Grenadier Guards – the only one in step. This ‘know it all’ attitude has to change; there is a wealth of experience and information to be gained through collaboration with our immediate neighbouring authorities, without the need to constantly draft in expensive consultants – who must think Uttlesford a ‘honey-pot’ as they have made a mint from us over the past few years!
Finally, the district council must review its financial policies and practices which frankly appear slack and lacking in rigour: there is no justification whatsoever for a small authority such as UDC to accumulate such a vast surplus in its accounts, much of it held under very spurious and opaque budgetary heads. It is now becoming clear that many financial decisions made by the council over the past 8 years have been taken without due regard to what council tax-payers can reasonably expect to have to pay. I think that the council cabinet has some very awkward questions to answer in the coming weeks.
Let us all pull together and hope that next May’s Local Elections will bring big changes to the way our district is run.
Geoff, thank you for this input. It would help if you could submit it in the form used yesterday. I can provide a Word version if you cannot convert it for PDF to Word.
Uttlesford is holding a housing (need) conference tomorrow. I hope some answers come from that event.
I would say that the main distortion from New Homes Bonus has been to the council’s finances. Not only has the council accumulated significant reserves that could be used for non-recurring expenditure. UDC is also running a revenue expenditure (i.e. expenditure that will recur year after year unless cut) that is dependent on/subsidised by NHB. So if NHB disappears and is not replaced by a new funding stream, the council could soon find itself running a deficit budget that can’t be sustained for many years by raiding reserves.
So whilst the situation may appear rosy, adjustments/cuts to recurring expenditure may have to be made before say 2019.
This is not to agree with the administration establishment that all reserves are spoken for. They are not. All talk of every penny being designated for “a rainy day” is simply not defendable with evidence.
I know it goes against the grain and won’t appeal to many people or villages or mostly the UDC and developers. But. If houses in small numbers were added to every community in the district , it would go a long way to deal with the issues. Stansted has more than 800 so far. The FHP ones housing some of Uttlesfords numbers . But in order to make building huge estates viable large numbers are taken up by housing associations from other areas. Therefore large numbers from places like London send their overflow here. Which means there is still limited affordable housing for locals. Locals must come first. Full stop. If the developments are smaller and aimed at locals first then London and other areas must look to their brownfield sites and buildings in need of restoration to take up part of their numbers first. Labour put the Huge numbers of housing in this area our map. Councils and developers need to look at alternatives before new builds. 2,100 homes will be going up our side of Stortford. 3 miles away! Other than some of Herts social housing numbers. Who is going to buy or rent these houses? How many will come from stortford and how many from London and other areas? I would love to see / know the statistics. I’m happy to be proved wrong. But with x thousand of migrants entering London in a weekly basis , where do they all go? And I’m not picking an immigrant discussion , just wondering. Sorry. Fuming about the whole saga , and the added bad news on Taylor Wimpy wanting another bash at Bentfield, and the whole developers can appeal and the public can’t scenario!
I am working on the whole question of the need for local social/affordable housing. Uttlesford is in the process of introducing a more rigorous qualification process for tenants; three years’ residence, two years’ employment. UDC has nomination rights to housing association properties so, although HAs can decide whom to take, UDC’s housing list is the only housing list for properties in the district. The fact that a housing association has a name from outside the district, they cannot move tenants into Uttlesford properties from elsewhere other than in very exceptional circumstances. There are a lot of myths about the allocation of housing that leads to much misleading information being put about.
I update my previous reply today.