Ignore the LDF at your peril . . .
Vine Grove, Clifton.
The pre-Christmas 'drop-in session' to familiarise the electorate on the new Local Development Framework (LDF) was an acknowledged failure due to poor attendance figures.
However, this lapsed information package was considerd to be of sufficient importance that Clifton Action Group archive veterans David and Em Armitage were moved to lobby Calderdale officialdom to convene a further meeting.
Chaired by Calder Valley MP, Chris McCafferty, this took place at Brighouse High School's Sixth Form Centre on January 16 when well over a 100 people attended.
While there I was able to quote from a national newspaper the following: "Protecting the green belt will no longer be the key consideration as ministers prepare to sweep aside planning controls as part of a pledge to build three million new homes by 2020. Farmers and other landowners will even be given incentives to sell land to developers, while councils will be told to earmark sites in communities where residents are struggling to afford new homes."
It all reads very innocuously, so what does it mean?
In effect LDF strips local green belt control from the local voter (when introduced over 70 years ago it largely put an end to indiscriminate building practices) and passes it to a regional body – answerable not to the local electorate but to government.
Then there is the pledge to build three million new homes by 2020. Where is the evidence to support the urgency and the need within the stipulated 11-year time frame? Is this a pledge you recognise, one that you could endorse with your vote, given a choice? Or are you more inclined to view it as a pledge that appeals to a shed load of so called economic migrants, many clutching a work permit issued by your own Labour Government, presently camping in Calais awaiting opportunity to jump on the first ship heading for Dover?
The question becomes even more enigmatic when one considers every high street estate agent's windows festooned from top to bottom with properties; when every local newspaper across the country carries two, three and four full pages of houses and when a current TV advert boasts a company with over a million homes for sale on its books.
Then, what of those incentives to farmers and landowners? In my book the word incentive easily finds confusion with bribe and bribes are usually offered to someone to act in a manner they would normally be disinclined to do.
Didn't the Echo recently write of Calderdale Council being offered 1million to facilitate the building of 1,000 houses twixt Lightcliffe and Hipperholme? A prime example of taxpayers' money being utilised to achieve an objective that might otherwise be unobtainable by popular vote. Headline: Big bucks foil democracy.
Without doubt the LDF will prove a joy for landowners and developers. Already at Pond Quarry, where the owners appear to have jumped the gun, LDF is already claiming its first victims.
* More topical comment in this week's Echo Common Side at Clifton could be next.
For in reality this is a pernicious piece of bandit enablement from a Government many thought they’d elected to look after and protect their interests. Bad mistake, as from now on it’s open season, as Pond Quarry overtly illustrates.
George Simpson
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