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 16 February, 2016
I am astonished to report that Uttlesford Council Members are being bounced into deciding on the principle of including a new town in the emerging Local Plan. Those of us who are member of the planning policy working group will be asked to endorse the idea next Tuesday, February 23rd, without any analysis of the local implications and what options there will be for locating a new town. This is so that the proposal can be rushed through an extra cabinet meeting convened only today for March 17th. It will then be rushed through an extraordinary full council meeting four days later.
And all this will be decided based on a largely academic paper about the principles of new settlements, with little regard to how deliverable a new town will be, and whether, for instance, the district will have to increase its annual growth of new housing to make it work rather than remaining for years a soulless housing estate in the middle of the countryside. Oh, and where it (or they) might actually go!
Those of us on the planning policy working group are being taken for a ride. I am not prepared to see this exercise rushed through in less than an hour and without thorough examination. I have a feeling the Tories are trying to get it agreed so that George Osborne can announce special funding for the scheme in the follow up to his budget statement on March 16th. The UDC cabinet meets the following day. Coincidence?
This smacks of a total lack of transparency by Uttlesford Tories, despite their claims that the new local plan will be wholly transparent and evidence-based. This timetable is in no plan that I have seen. Where is the evidence?
There will be much to talk about in the next 24 hours!
27 Comments
It would be a useful exercise to chart the thought processes of Howard Rolfe and his crew over the past 3 months. Twelve months ago we were promised a fully inclusive consultative process, as opposed to the shambles that led to the disastrous outcome of December 2014. What are we getting? The same again: no inclusivity, no proper consultative process, only yet more policy ‘on the hoof’, instead of decision-making as the result of carefully considered discussion in committee and Full Council. Not only are the opposition groups being left out of the loop, the rank and file of the Conservative group are being short-changed also. How exactly do we stop this ‘decision-making by diktat’? The proper processes of the council are continually being bypassed by ‘ad hoc’ working groups that, under the council’s Constitution, have no democratic validity, where no officer of the council is present, which have no agenda, and where no minutes are taken. Such meetings are illegitimate. This is not how local government is supposed to work. The council was strongly advised by the PI to give thorough consideration to all of the opportunities that presented themselves and to arrive at a proper judgement thorough debate and sound reasoning around the planning facts that obtain. It is time for formal complaints to be made, from both within and outside of the council, about what is going on. We cannot have a situation where, in a so-called democratic institution, decisions are effectively being made by one man. When will Cllr. Rolfe realise that his arrogant, egocentric stupidity is endangering the Local Plan process? Does he really want the Secretary of State to impose a solution on Uttlesford? Because that is where we are headed at the present time.
Uttlesford residents will now reap what they sowed last May when they voted in a bunch of political pygmies with no vision, no understanding of planning or strategy, just short term opportunism, led by a man with no perceptible talent and a total inability to admit mistakes.
As Oscar Wilde might have remarked, one would need a heart of stone not to laugh.
I picked this off the R4U website. I think it says it all … except where the new town would go!
“M. Ford says:
26 Nov 2015 at 1:56 am
Thank god for the vast majority of people in Saffron Walden who have NIMBY attitudes(which Mr Johnson thinks is a terrible offence, to like where you live and try to retain a resonable quality of life) and want a new settlement/development which is the most logical sensible answer instead of concreting over Saffron Walden and making it into a new town,You cant move in certain roads in Saffron Walden for the sheer volume of traffic, queuing up for the doctors surgeries like a third world country, every school both primary and secondary in and around Saffron Walden is already overcrowded Its not rocket science, build a new settlement(or the option of two new settlements) from scratch and get it right with all necessary infrastructure/schools/doctors surgeries etc etc.”
Get things in perspective here: Rolfe has a consistent track record of [xxx] failure (how else can anyone view the way the last draft plan went awry?) and he is too petty and egocentric to understand his inadequacy.
This (xx) individual (who barely scraped in last May) with no vision, strategy or planning experience thinks he can bounce the council wherever he wants, largely because the Tory sheep vote without thinking.
Again, I would note that residents voted for this so don’t start whining people. If you couldn’t be bothered to think last May, suffer the outcome. I wasted 4 years trying to defend residents and they preferred the likes of Hicks and Ranger with their track record of disregarding residents. Pardon me if I lack sympathy for the inevitable outcome.
Page 5, point 16, of WeAreResidents.org’s February 2016 consultation response to parking restrictions in Saffron Walden.
“In fact in March 2016 Uttlesford District Council is voting to adopt a new garden town/city solution for the majority of housing for its new Local Plan.”
Alan, clearly WAR, and therefore R4U, have already made their minds up, even before the next working group, let alone before the next cabinet meeting!
There is widespread confusion, Andrew, about what is going on. I think R4U councillors are as confused as I am. The council is NOT voting “…in March 2016 to adopt a new garden town/city solution for the majority of housing for its new Local Plan.” It is deciding to investigate the implications of a new settlement. There are many, including the likely fact that a majority of its new housing in this plan period WILL NOT be able to be built in a new settlement because its will take years to get one under way.
The working group is already investigating the pros and cons of a new settlement along with other solutions. Next week’s meeting and those now planned for March run the risk of preempting an evidence-based decision. I don’t want to see another Local Plan go off track. The risks of that are mounting by the day.
You can’t have it both ways, Alan. You can’t have WAR (therefore R4U, it’s the same thing) preempting decisions in principle and telling the NEPP that an urban clear way is not needed in Saffron Walden because they have decided a new settlement will be built (as far away from SW as possible) and then have you and John Lodge on the working group saying that the process is flawed. That’s just crass hypocrisy. R4U have said time and time again that they want a new settlement. However, I suggest whatever is decided, it is probable that you and R4U will distance yourselves from that decision. I listen to the meetings and all I hear is deliberate stalling tactics whilst criticising the process.
Andrew, you can take that partisan line if you wish. I recollect Alan Haselhurst and Howard Rolfe appearing on video about a year ago promising that there would be no more housing near Dunmow. How’s that for jumping the gun? There have even been some Liberal Democrats – not councillors – who expressed their personal views over the past year.
I think that WAR/R4U are deluded if they think that a new settlement will divert all future housing allocated in the new local plan away from our existing towns and villages, including Saffron Walden. The reality is that it will take years for any new settlement to start being built. In the meantime, housing growth will continue on other sites that have been put forward.
I have been asked by Howard Rolfe to come up with a less one-sided proposal for next week and I will try my best to do that.
Dear Andrew, I have checked out the context of this quotation. This statement is one of several by WAR that make the claim that the NEPP is premature in consulting on its traffic scheme for Saffron Walden. Whilst it is incorrect of WAR to say that UDC is voting in March to adopt a new settlement, I do not see how you can reasonably claim these words confirm that WAR has already made up its mind about a “garden town/city solution”.
Alan – your mistake is using the word “reasonable” with reference to AK. He seems to spend quite a lot of time ranting on and on about WaR and R4U – usually without any basis in fact. R4U and WaR are not the same thing for a start. Just because some people in one organisation are involved in another doesn’t mean the two organisations are synonymous. If that were the case then by the same logic the local Tories are the same thing as the Freemasons.
Recently AK was fantasising about a ‘whip’ at Saffron Walden Town Council – and then admitted that the particular decision he was fuming about was carried because it received support from several members of other parties whilst several R4U members voted against it: somewhat undermining his own argument about there being a whip (unlike the Tories, I may add, who were been accused by their own members of “bullying” on key decisions around the previous local plan).
As for claims that R4U are pre-empting decisions, I have a copy of a leaflet handed out by AK in Saffron Walden last May promising no new houses in Saffron Walden or Dunmow other than those already announced. An empty and deceitful pre-election promise if ever I saw one.
Irrespective of what R4U may or may not think, the bigger question here is why the sudden rush to put the option of a single settlement on the table? It couldn’t, by chance, have anything to do with the upcoming budget statement can it, or the long-awaited decision on the Land Securities site in the south of the district?
I wonder whether it will come to light that conversations have been going on about this site behind everyone’s backs.
If that were to be the case (and we’ll have to wait and see) it will make a mockery of the entire local plan making process (again).
Your final two paragraphs merit scrutiny and some questions being asked of others.
“UDC has confirmed that almost all the dispersed sites would need upgrades to utilities – gas, electricity, phone/broadband as well as water and sewage. Newport is reported to have recently run out of new fully functioning phone lines. This is one of the reasons why a new settlement should be built, where new infrastructure can be provided.”
Taken from here – http://web.weareresidents.org/housing/housingother-settlements/newport-save-newport-village/
“Our existing schools and doctors’ surgeries are full, our sewers are bursting, and our roads are often jammed. We firmly believe that our existing towns and villages can’t take the scale of development that UDC demands. UDC’s own Comparative Sustainability Assessment evidence shows that an approach that looks at new settlement(s) for housing is the best solution – and we support it. A new settlement impacts the fewest existing residents and developers are required to pay their way by providing all of the necessary infrastructure. We also believe that an evidence-led process should determine the best and most sustainable location(s) for any new settlements.”
Taken from here – http://web.weareresidents.org/2015/10/04/district-council-plans-12500-more-homes-in-uttlesford/
6th October 2015, Uttlesford: “Residents for Uttlesford (R4U), the local advocacy group for towns and villages, has renewed its calls on Uttlesford District Council (UDC) to adopt the ‘most sustainable’ new settlement option in light of the Council’s report that Uttlesford needs 12,500 new homes to be built.”
Taken from here – http://www.residents4u.org/2015/10/06/press-release-residents-for-uttlesford-strengthens-call-for-new-settlement-solution-to-satisfy-housing-need/
It is not my job to defend WAR and RFU statements. They must answer for themselves. Taken at face value there are statements here that lack logic. A new settlement in particular would need far more than “upgrades to utilities”; rather needing major investments in infrastructure. The fact that schools are full are a reason to expand or build new schools, as is now happening in Stansted; not sole reasons to deny housing development. There is no simple choice between growth of existing settlements and creation of new ones. That is a process that councillors of all parties are working on at the moment. We are several months away from having the evidence needed to draw conclusions. I will resist ANY PREMATURE move that gives signals to local residents, to developers or even to government ministers that Uttlesford has reached a decision prematurely on a preference.
I strongly suspect the decision has already been made that we’re getting a large new settlement in Uttlesford – and not by Alan Dean’s party or anyone from RFU for that matter…
Special planning working group meeting is on Feb 23rd…
Budget statement is on March 16th… Possible talk about new garden towns
Special cabinet meeting where presumably our Dear Leader will then approve whatever decision he pushed through at his own working group is on March 17th…
Coincidence?
Still, it’s all war/RFU’s fault according to Andrew Ketteridge…
I see Ketteridge has a lot to say, unenencumbered of course by understanding of the issues or those he seeks to traduce.
R4U does not, as I understand it, have a policy on single settlements, any more than the Lib Dems and I resent an unelected [xxx] trying to misrepresent the two major opposition groups at UDC. Inadequacy and bile are no substitute for reasoned debate, and just because someone didn’t have the guts to stand last May is no excuse for trying to damage those who did (and annihilated his colleagues in the process)
The situation at UDC is curious. After several years with zero interest in a new single settlement, the Dear Leader is trying to bounce the plan working group and council into supporting the concept. I suspect there have been moves behind the scenes regarding East on Park and this is nothing more than cynical positioning ahead of an announcement.
All of this is way above the head of AK and it would be refreshing if he would stop trying to poison the well. Nobody really cares what he thinks and there are creatures in ponds with a clearer understanding of the issues.
Toxic Tories have bequeathed a dreadful planning legacy to Uttlesford, a corrupt planning regime and pliant committee seem determined to allow uncontrolled development across the district. Consider what has happened in Takeley, with so many new houses and so little community benefit, the same in Dunmow, Elsenham, and to an extent in Walden.
I sincerely hope that the next time residents have the opportunity to express a preference they will remember what damage the Tories have caused and reward them appropriately (those that have the brass neck to stand)
Alan, I see you continue to allow your contributors to be rude and abusive. Classy, very classy.
Some contributions that have contained excessive language have not been published. There are examples of comments that have been edited before publication, shown [xxx]. Robust debate is welcomed and some opinion may cause offence.
Differing opinion should not cause offence, only disagreement. Rudeness and personal insults have nothing to do with opinion, they just fill what would otherwise have been empty space. I’ll leave it at that.
That is very true. But I have known councillors who took criticism of council policy very personally; they took offence and became very emotional. Their normal response was not to hit back with counter arguments but to attack the personal qualities of the messenger. You only have to look at the Prime Minster’s foolishly demeaning and personal attack yesterday against the Leader of the Opposition in response to a question about the NHS. This seems to happen to divert attention when they have no answer to the challenge put to them.
(X) Can someone explain to A Ketteridge that you cannot attempt to take the moral high ground (X). As to class, how classy is it to damage a tree that is legitimately protected? Most people behaving in such a manner would face prosecution and a heavy fine, not being able to rely on intervention from a relative.
And if you are so damn passionate about residents, why didn’t you have the guts to stand last May? Your ill-informed and frankly pathetic attacks on R4U can’t disguise the fact that the toxic Tories were literally annihilated in Walden.
Might I suggest you refrain from further comment that might provoke reaction?
Oh look: the day before UDC’s Cabinet is set to discuss considering a new settlement in its local pan process Central Government only goes and publishes a paper on ‘New Garden Villages.’
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/locally-led-garden-villages-towns-and-cities
What a co-incidence eh. Its almost like someone at UDC knew this was going to happen…
And just think, we’re still awaiting the outcome of those two planning appeals too.
So much for a transparent and evidence-led process being carried out with full consultation.
I think serious questions need to be asked about what is really going on.
I have asked the leader of the council, Cllr Howard Rolfe, if he would like to respond to your comment.
P.S. Cllr Rolfe has informed me that he does not respond to blogs. He has made the point that other councils have announced decisions to develop garden villages but that Uttlesford’s decisions are still to be made.
Let’s face it, the agenda item before the cabinet tomorrow makes no sense at face-value: “That Cabinet recommend to Full Council that a new settlement (or settlements) should continue to be investigated and analysed alongside all other possible options for housing and employment distribution and should not be dismissed at this stage from the potential options for inclusion in the Local Plan.”
Why does this even need to be discussed? We have already been told that all the options need to be explored to find the most sustainable – which clearly includes a new settlement option. So the cabinet are in essence voting to carry on doing what they are already supposed to be doing.
So what is the cabinet really agreeing to tomorrow? Given that the cabinet has previously rejected the idea of a new settlement, then partially backtracked by calling the Elsenham development a ‘village extension’, do they need to put a provision in place so that they can retro-fit the planning inspector’s approval of the two sites currently up for appeal.
I can’t see any other reason for voting to look at something you were already supposed to be looking at.
Very fishy.
I have given my apologies for non-attendance at this meeting. Like you, I consider it to be a complete waste of time and money – on the face of it.
Ah – I see now. Applications to get central government funding for new garden villages have to be in by July 31st. That explains the rush to get this thing before cabinet tomorrow.
So much for the local plan being done “objectively, transparently in public with full consultation.”
http://www.hertsandessexobserver.co.uk/Uttlesford-leader-promises-transparency-New-Year/story-25812894-detail/story.html