Hello all, this is Borough Councillor Andrew Newhouse. i am one of your elected ward Councillors for Burnley Borough Council for our ward. I want to add a bit of information about the recent newspaper reports on the new Burnley local plan. First this is not a planning application. If anyone wanted to build any new homes in any ward a planning application would need to be submitted at which point lots of planning aspects need to be discussed and at that point we can look to fight for or against the developments. I will get to these issues later. Second the way the paper described the local plan made it look like these developments were planned projects they are not. So how did this happen. The government want all towns to create a local plan. The need for this is to show them that each town council is thinking about the future of their town not just wasting money on projects that are not needed. What they dont want is towns building lots of houses they dont need or any other project that just are not the way forward for each town.Wasting our paid taxes where its not needed. So they would like towns to have a workable plan for the future. Rather than just letting Burnley Council submit a local plan of there wishes they want input from as many people from the area as they can get. A while ago a lot of Councillors, Borough, Parish and County, as well as businesses, land owners and other service providers were invited to give their views. I went to the first meeting and what happened was this. We were all split up into mixed groups some Councillors some service providers and others etc. We were asked to add areas to a map that could be used for different uses eg recreation, housing and business development.. This lead to a plan of what could happen in the future. There was then a second meeting again doing more of the same. During these meetings someone or some people added the areas currently in question. These were not added by the Council. They were most likely added by land owners or developers who would like to develop there. So these development are speculative not applications. Each one of you could have gone and added your next door neighbors door back yard it wouldnt mean you would get planned to build it. At a later stage all the information will be looked and and a perfected option will be selected. This will mean some may be found to be unfit and removed. Once it is done it will be submitted to the government and they will pass it or reject it. So what does this mean for the future, well for Burnley if they need housing types which our areas could provide they can easily look and find spots that someone has though about building on. Developers can also have confidence that a lot of people looked at and eventually added areas they might be of use in the future. An example was the Burnley bridge project it was highlighted in a plan years ago, the developer was keen to develop it and spend money upfront millions, because it was part of a plan. So back to the issues. There are many restriction to building projects. the surrounding infrastructure for a start, sewers, schools and road systems all have to be considered. These in the past have stopped large projects in this area as we are at the max of our systems. Schools are full, roads are too busy at school times, and the sewer system is at capacity. There are many more aspect that would need to be looked at. Also currently we have a town that has a declining population. so building houses just for the sake of building houses just isnt practical.but for a good plan for the future you dont want to plan for less houses that wouldnt make sense. So you want to have a progressive plan which is what they are doing. Personal i and i think most of us dont want to turn our villages into towns or join us up to Burnley we like our rural area so i wouldnt want to see more developments if they are not needed, If it is needed then small developments built in the same style as the area would be my perfected option and as little impact to our environment as possible. After all we do want to grow, we all have families which will be growing and i am sure we would like them to live here near us rather than moving away. There are always going to be new people wanting to move here why wouldnt they its a great place to live so keeping up on the demand has constantly got to be looked at. As for the local plan developments that have been added they are in my opinion to big and in some areas unsuitable. This doesnt mean they wont be used but it means we are unlikely to get anywhere near that amount of houses developed if any. For now though there is no one to blame or anything to fight, this would come if planning applications were put forward. I have tried to explain what it all means sorry if i went on a bit but i hope i put some peoples minds at rest. Do come to the meetings as all i have said will be explained better there and you can ask the Council more questions with a better understanding on the situation. If you would like to speak to me more then do get in touch all my details are available on the Burnley Council website.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 16:46:24 +0000
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