There was bound to be a bit of a cofufal when SLDC officers met the public last night in the Coro to explain the outcome of the local development framework. This as I understand it has been a far reaching study because we need to build a lot of new houses in South Lakeland over the next 15 to 20 years. I downloaded the summary of this work and even that ran to over 300 pages, there's a lot of stuff there, and that's just about Ulverston.
We had a taste of what was to come at our council meeting on Monday where we had a small but very vocal group who were up in arms about the proposed development at Urswick road. So Wednesday was bound to see some fireworks, and we did.
The problem here, as I see it, is this. The public seem to see this as a done deal, they don't see it as a consultation exercise. The officers explained at the beginning, which I missed, that each of the sites proposed, was ONLY proposed and that they were a long way from enacting any building, if at all. These bits of land, inked in red on the map had been suggested to them by various sources, land owners or public bodies etc.
Each of these bits of land had been visited by officers who had then consulted with various agencies, Highways, Environment, Utilities etc, who had fed in their two peneth. They had then given them scores, that is they evaluated each proposed site.
Now they say we are going to need 1200+ homes over the next 20 years. Of course it's easy to poo-poo this as nonsense, but I'm not a statastition, I can't even spell it, but lets at least say they may have a point, and if we do need more houses we have to have a plan of where we're going to put them.
So out come the NIMBYS.
They were furious because they didn't hear what they wanted to hear, and they weren't listening to what was being said. The poor officers were being treated as if they were politicians. They can't make policies to bring more employment here, which some said they should do before building houses.The poor blokes were just there to try and explain what they have been doing and why they reached the conclusions which they have.
And this I suppose is what you get with democracy, it's messy, and it's messy because we don't want to see the big picture. We see the bit outside our front door, and convinced that the experts have yet again got it all wrong we squeeem and squeem and squeem. But not please at the messenger, what's the point of that, we need to engage with our politicians, local and national, all of the time. Go to meetings, I know that it's boring stuff, I do it, but at least your informed.
Anyway I thought the officers kept rather cool under fire, and answered each question politely. I don't think I would have managed so well, so hats off to you all, it was a tough call, but it's going to be a bumpy night.
We had a taste of what was to come at our council meeting on Monday where we had a small but very vocal group who were up in arms about the proposed development at Urswick road. So Wednesday was bound to see some fireworks, and we did.
The problem here, as I see it, is this. The public seem to see this as a done deal, they don't see it as a consultation exercise. The officers explained at the beginning, which I missed, that each of the sites proposed, was ONLY proposed and that they were a long way from enacting any building, if at all. These bits of land, inked in red on the map had been suggested to them by various sources, land owners or public bodies etc.
Each of these bits of land had been visited by officers who had then consulted with various agencies, Highways, Environment, Utilities etc, who had fed in their two peneth. They had then given them scores, that is they evaluated each proposed site.
Now they say we are going to need 1200+ homes over the next 20 years. Of course it's easy to poo-poo this as nonsense, but I'm not a statastition, I can't even spell it, but lets at least say they may have a point, and if we do need more houses we have to have a plan of where we're going to put them.
So out come the NIMBYS.
They were furious because they didn't hear what they wanted to hear, and they weren't listening to what was being said. The poor officers were being treated as if they were politicians. They can't make policies to bring more employment here, which some said they should do before building houses.The poor blokes were just there to try and explain what they have been doing and why they reached the conclusions which they have.
And this I suppose is what you get with democracy, it's messy, and it's messy because we don't want to see the big picture. We see the bit outside our front door, and convinced that the experts have yet again got it all wrong we squeeem and squeem and squeem. But not please at the messenger, what's the point of that, we need to engage with our politicians, local and national, all of the time. Go to meetings, I know that it's boring stuff, I do it, but at least your informed.
Anyway I thought the officers kept rather cool under fire, and answered each question politely. I don't think I would have managed so well, so hats off to you all, it was a tough call, but it's going to be a bumpy night.
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