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south gloucestershire
Housing slowdown makes Government’s new homes numbers pure fantasy.
Following the announcement by the Secretary of State on the Regional Spatial Strategy, local Councillors are warning that the current housing slowdown makes the government-imposed housing figures
for South Gloucestershire simply ‘castles in the air’.
Lib Dem Leader and councillor for Yate Central Ruth Davis said, “I am horrified that the Minister has ignored the huge outcry from the public against the proposed housing within S
Gloucestershire. We have already said that an increase of 23,500 homes would be difficult to deal with properly if not impossible. In reply the Government panel suggested 30,800. Now instead of
reducing that number to a manageable and sustainable level of growth the Secretary of State Hazel Blears MP has put it up further. As far as we’re concerned she’s living in the house of
commons fantasy land.”
“Our worst fears have been founded with the figure going up even further. As there will now be a 12 week public consultation period on these proposals I urge the public to put their views
forward in writing as it appears the Minister is just not listening.”
“We need time now to analyse these new figures in detail as whilst it appears the number for Yate are reduced to 3000 additional houses, this means 4000 more houses for the rest of South
Gloucestershire. Being swamped with a flood of new properties was not what Yate residents wanted but they certainly wouldn’t have wished 4000 upon their neighbours in the rest of South
Gloucestershire.”
The Lib Dem planning spokesman Cllr Pat Hockey said, "The Government needs to think again about the totally unrealistic number of new homes being proposed for South Gloucestershire. It is
ridiculous that the Minister has not taken into account that development appears to have ceased on a number of major sites in South Gloucestershire due to the downturn in the housing market. This
makes these housing targets unrealistic, unachievable and pure fantasy figures. "
Jan Woodley (Lib Dem, Patchway) said, "You only have to look at the current developments in the north fringe of Bristol to see the effect the slowdown is having on the number of new homes being
built. No work appears to be being done on the Northfield site and the developers, Bovis, only recently announced plans to slash their national workforce by 40%."
COMMENTS
Ian Stewart
Commented 10 weeks ago
Is LibDem councillor Ruth Davis being deliberately obtuse, or is she so removed from reality that she doesn't know why our Labour government is so determined to build over 2 million new homes ?
"Being swamped with a flood of new properties was not what Yate residents wanted but they certainly wouldn’t have wished 4000 upon their neighbours in the rest of South Gloucestershire” she says.
No ordinary British community wants to be swamped by a flood - of new properties, or the people who will fill them - but the Labour immigration policy, backed by the LibDems and the Tories, means that's what they're going to get eventually, wherever they life.
Where else are all the millions of new immigrants going to set up home otherwise ? To say nothing of the those produced by the high birth-rate of immigrants already settled here ?
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