Letters: Readers unhappy with MP’s planning vision
It seems our MP is not going to publish an answer to his constituents that are so concerned about his dangerous plans to ‘brickify’ our green belt lands.
It is a good idea to look a little more closely at Boles’ Bung as he chooses to call it: a really good name, isn’t it? A bung being a bribe.
He has invented the Community Infrastructure Levy, which is to replace Section 106 agreements.
These agreements were a provision under which a local authority gave developers permission to build in a council’s area, and in exchange for the co-operation councils received payments they could use to fund other improvements.
The Community Infrastructure Levy raised from developers means communities must draw up neighbourhood developments and secure the consent of people through a referendum to get 25 per cent of the levy to be given to councils for spending on schemes.
What this means is Mr Boles is saving the Government the money they previously had made available under Section 106: In some areas it amounted to hundreds of thousands of pounds for local projects like community centres, swimming pools, parks etc.
Therefore the Community Infrastructure Levy is much harder to get, and will amount to far less. Thus developers will be paying out far less than the Government and builders were paying under Section 106. I suspect the offer of green belt land to build on is an incentive offered by Mr Boles in order to get developers to subscribe to his Community Infrastructure Levy scheme.
But yet there is comfort for all the concerned who are totally ignored by their elected member: Nick Boles has yet to come face-to-face with the serious green belt protection brigade. It is going to be more than he reckoned with. It will all go ahead until just before the excavators roll in. But isn’t it both cruel and sad to abolish Section 106?
Roberta Britton
Millfield Road, Morton
Our local MP appears to have achieved “notoriety” in both national and local papers recently over his determination to concrete over the green belt.
He suggested that if action is not taken we will all end up sharing our house with our children and grandchildren – not once in all these uttering’s has he indicated that there are just too many people in the country nor has he indicated that the Government is making any positive steps to stop this open door policy, apart some tinkering around the edges over student visas.
Perhaps he is preparing the ground for the influx of Romanians and Bulgarians at the end of the year when the seven-year transition period ends. Current estimates indicate that some 70,000 per year are expected. EU rules clearly state that there must be free movement of people within the EU area – put simply there is nothing we can do as one of the “benefits” of belonging to the EU is that we no longer control our borders.
Apart from the EU area Mr Cameron clearly states that the Government will continue with overseas aid to a variety of countries as it is our moral duty, especially Somalia whereby providing financial aid will stop the need for them to come to the UK. Yet both Mr Clegg and Mr Cable state quite clearly that under no circumstances is immigration to be stopped simply because of the investment, skills and entrepreneurial expertise immigrants bring to this country.
When I ask the question exactly what do 150,000 Somalis bring I have difficulty in obtaining an answer – nine letters have been sent to Mr Clegg, who has 14 special advisers costing £900,000 per year, yet between them they cannot provide a satisfactory answer.
Since moving to Lincolnshire in 1982 the developments in Stamford, Bourne, Grantham, Spalding and numerous surrounding villages has carried on remorselessly with the houses getting smaller - the same appears to be continuing throughout the country
Could Mr Boles explain exactly what benefits 150,000 Somalis bring to this country or for that matter 70,000 Romanians and Bulgarians – or will he be like the Deputy Prime Minster and Business Secretary have no idea. No reply from the Planning Minster will indicate that he does not known either!
A L Stubbs
Saxon Way, Bourne
Nick Boles, the would-be ‘Pensioner Basher’, seeks to despoil our green and pleasant land, in order, one reads to house, and particularly reward, economic migrants from Eastern Europe. At the same time his family, thus far a successfully fought battle, is preventing the nearby accommodation of new homes.
This, at a time when there are some 900,000 empty houses in Great Britain and building permission given for several hundred thousand new ones; we all know that Bourne is flooded with such. Perhaps, as a very close associate of the Prime Minister, he is merely launching these ideas, merely to “test the water”.
I believe that many of our problems are that, when the Labour Party was “dead in the water” the Conservative Party chose a leader who is a PR junkie (a comment recorded by close associates too), and one who preaches Blairite Socialism.
A real Conservative would have had an overall majority, but we are left with a coalition, a festering boil at the heart of the country.
One might hope that we are free from the incessant demands of the parasitic European nations. Notwithstanding, more recent payments to the EU; let’s not forget the enormous price we paid to restore freedom and peace to Continental Europe, 1939 to 45. In the meantime the government, as did its more recent predecessors, merely treats the symptoms of problems (like immigration), rather than the specific problems themselves.
BRIAN FINES
Lavender Way, Bourne
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Monday 20 May 2013
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