NEWS: The Sun December 18, 2019

The Sun 18th Dec.PNG

Housing Boom. Boris Johnson to turbocharge home building with series of planning reforms in the new year

The Sun reports “BORIS Johnson will unleash a series of controversial planning reforms in the early new year, in a bid to turbocharge home building.”

It goes on to report “planning reforms that ministers want to do include building on greenbelt areas where there are already developments, such as around railway stations.

“A new system of rebates to rapidly speed up the green light to build from councils is also being plotted. Under it, applicants will get their fees repaid in full if local authorities don’t meet tight deadlines.

“The substantial overhaul is designed to deliver on independent estimates that Britain must build 300,000 new homes a year to solve the nation’s housing shortage.”

Robert Jenrick and Sajid Javid have been working on this for a while apparently, but it was not shared during the election campaign. Robert Jenrick has confirmed the one million new homes target in a letter to John Bercow on 29th July 2019 and prevented South Oxfordshire District Council from changing it’s Local Plan, after a local election where many new councillors were elected on a ticket of stopping the expressway and not building on green belt land.

Would financial implications for Local Authorities mean rushed and ill thought through decisions?

How much has Bidwells plans for a “Radical Regeneration Manifesto” influenced things?

The No Expressway Group is no anti housing or anti growth. We believe the scale of what’s proposed for the “Oxford to Cambridge Arc” is massively over-inflated. The one million new homes target for the Arc is between 4 and 6 times the Office of National Statistics own average population growth predictions for England to 2050. The scale of growth being aimed at, is the problem. The environmental impact of this scale of development would be devastating and make meeting net-zero carbon targets un-achievable. Net environmental gain has never been successfully delivered on this scale anywhere in the world. It would likely decimate existing communities and there has been no discussion on everything needed to go with this scale of development - schools, GP surgeries, hospital beds, sewage works, water supply (already a significant issue in Cambridgeshire).

We need to do things differently! More sustainable development, more social (and truly affordable) housing and build what we actually need.

You can read the full article in The Sun here.

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No Expressway Group believes there is no need for an Oxford-Cambridge Expressway, nor the over-inflated housing targets associated with it, and we will actively campaign against it and support other organisations with the same objectives. 

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Guest Usernews, december 19