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Below are items that previously
featured on the front page of this site which I am reluctant to discard.
| Links to
Articles on This Page |
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Eco Towns |Application
for Info Under FOI Act |Responding
to Core Strategy | |
| |
Important Message |Visiting
Planning Department |Judicial
Review |Herts
and Essex Web Poll |Sir
Alan's Letter |Responses
by ECC and GoEast |
Environment Committee
Meeting |Tuesday
was Quite a Day |Eco-Town
in Henham and Elsenham |An
important Day - Monday 2nd June |E-Con
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(Transferred from front page 16th December
2007) |
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UTTLESFORD District Council and
individual councillors have continually referred to the 3000 + development
in Elsenham/Henham as an Eco-Town. As far as I can see from Fairfield
Partnership maps, this development immediately butts on to the village of
Elsenham and across agricultural land (most of which is in the Parish of
Henham), which has been in constant use for hundreds of years. Indeed,
when looking at the map published by Fairfield, they boast control of all
the farm land linking linking the two villages.
The Executive Summary of the Government Prospectus on
Eco-towns is as follows, I quote: |
"Eco-towns will be small new towns of at
least 5-20,000 homes. They are intended to
exploit the potential to create a complete new settlement to achieve zero
carbon development and more sustainable living using the best new
design and architecture. The key features we
want to achieve are:
(i) places with a separate and distinct identity but good links to
surrounding towns and cities in terms of jobs,
transport and services;
(ii) the development as a whole to achieve zero carbon and to be
an exemplar in at least one area of
environment technology;
(iii) a good range of facilities within the town including a
secondary school, shopping, business space and
leisure;
(iv) between 30 and 50 per cent affordable housing with a good mix
of tenures and size of homes in mixed
communities; and
(v) a delivery organisation to manage the town and its development
and provide support for people, businesses and
community services.
Government is looking to encourage and support local authorities and
the private sector to bring forward around five
new schemes. This prospectus sets out the
context for the programme and explains how the Government can support
these projects. It outlines the criteria by which they will be
assessed, subject to consultation and testing in
the planning process."
This definition hardly
seem to fit what Uttlesford and Fairfield have in mind and again I quote,
this time from the
Uttlesford Core Strategy – Policy Choices
and Options for Growth, January 2007
Representations on behalf of
The Fairfield Partnership - DAVID
LOCK ASSOCIATES.
Whilst this paragraph
extracted below is from the bottom of page 11,
please take time if you can to read the whole page.
"Elsenham is
a prime Eco-town location due to its sustainability credentials and our
detailed proposals include extensive energy
efficiency and renewable energy measures to promote
zero carbon development. While the site is not brownfield its clear
sustainability credentials enable it to fulfil
all other Eco-towns criteria. There are no alternative brownfield
opportunities of this scale with such
sustainability credentials in the District. The absence of brownfield
should not therefore hinder the identification of Elsenham as a
location for sustainable growth based on the
emerging Eco-Town model."
Worried - We Should be!
Bill Bates - 10th
December |
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Important
Message
Transferred from front page 9th
Jan 2008
Those of you in Elsenham, Henham and Stansted who have
received our flyer through your door showing a map of land controlled
by the Fairfield Partnership: this was reproduced as accurately as we
could and in all good faith from the 'Elsenham Settlement Study' by LDA on behalf of Fairfield
Partnership. The red line boundary indicated land 'controlled' by them.
What we failed to see was an addendum which stated -
This
report refers to ‘land controlled’ by Fairfield Partnership. This should
read ‘land considered’ by Fairfield Partnership. The area shown as ‘land
controlled’ do not exactly correspond with the areas now under the control
of the Fairfield Partnership.
We
apologise unreservedly to anyone whose land has been misrepresented by this
map. I wonder what 'land considered' means. |
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Transferred from Front Page 11th Jan 2008
(Please
note that where you see underlined text, this indicates a link to
another site or document - also that the copy of
the Preferred Options document you will link to is the one on our site.
(Uttlesford's is temperamental)
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| As you
are no doubt very well aware the period Uttlesford District Council has set
the consultation for their
Core Strategy Preferred Options Document
started on 30th November 2007 and will finish on Friday 11th
January 2008.
You should have received from Uttlesford a four-sided brochure announcing
the consultation and explaining their rationale. We have commented on the
worthiness of this document before, particularly at a full council meeting
and see no point in further reiterating our opinions.
If you have not received it please tell them and
ask for one.
Up to now we have asked you to hold back on
responding to the document until we received advice. Now it is all systems
go. |
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Preamble
Firstly, whilst the purpose of our Steering Group, (apart from promoting
our campaign), is to provide guidance to concerned residents, we have
quickly realized and are being constantly reminded
that we are not experts and that our opinions, whilst genuinely held, may
not necessarily be the right ones or coincide with yours. Therefore, it is
important to stress that each of you must choose to approve /disapprove of
the Options Document in your own way and by the
method of your choice.
Secondly, whilst we are all worried about the possible effects of the
proposals on our villages, we are not to deliberately trying to divert the
problem of development elsewhere, although inevitably we will be accused of
that. If our area is the right area, so be it.
The Fairfield Partnership features largely in our minds, particularly in
relation to our villages of Henham and Elsenham, but we know there are other
developers hovering with their own plans to create housing in other parts of
the district. No doubt they will be making representations accordingly. We
will not comment one way or another on the merits of their emerging plans.
Should you wish to do so that is entirely up to you, as with any of the four
options.
We are just concerned about the four options put forward by Uttlesford
and in particular, their preferred Option Four. For many reasons we consider
Uttlesford’s arguments are fundamentally flawed and that our area is not the
right place for massive housing developments.
The Main Bit
As we have said before, we have engaged the services of Mr. Geoff
Gardner, a former head of planning at Essex County Council. He is a man well
versed in matters such as this and it is on his opinions we
offer our advice.
He has produced a very comprehensive report that will form the basis of a
Joint Parishes submission to Uttlesford regarding the Core Strategy. He gave
a verbal presentation to the Joint Parishes Meeting on Monday 17th
December. (minutes await)
His report is, by necessity, quite technical and we consider not suitable
for publication on this site, nor would we wish to do so at this stage for
perhaps obvious reasons. However, it does form the basis of the information
we are providing for you under ‘selective summary’. We
trust that it will prove useful when you pen your responses.
As promised, for those of you who attended the Elsenham meeting on
17th December and required the shortened version, please
click here . Others may also find this version useful but please remember Henham copies should come to Bill Bates,
(see below).
Mr. Gardner tells us that when Uttlesford’s
Core Strategy is submitted, it will be judged against
Nine
"Tests of Soundness". It is against principles
contained in these nine tests that he has concentrated his
objections.
He suggests that, in his opinion, the best way
to respond to Uttlesford is by sending a letter
(by post or by email) to The Policy Team,
Uttlesford District Council, Council Offices, London Road, Saffron Walden,
Essex, CB11 4ER. Email address planning@uttlesford.gov.uk.
There are other ways of responding. (see
below)
It is important that in your letter you set out clearly which parts of
the
Core Strategy Preferred Options Document you
are objecting to when you make your comments and also advises that you
consider limiting the number of objections to about five.
He stresses that you should put the objections in you own words and try
to keep them concise. If you have questions for the council on which you
would like a response, please do not hesitate to include them and also any
other general comments about the quality of life in our area and how it
would change if their plan was implemented.
In connection with this, Melanie Jones, Principal Planning Officer at
Uttlesford Planning and Housing Strategy kindly emailed us to say, and I
quote -
"I
have just been looking at the Campaign website. I just wanted to clarify in
relation to the consultation arrangements that we will, of course, accept
representations from anyone in a household who wishes to reply, there is no
limit on the number of representations that can be sent in per household
and this, of course, includes any young people who wish to respond.
The
advice says that only one representation per person will be accepted. If
someone sends the same letter in a number of times then we will only log the
comments once but if someone sends one letter in and then subsequently
thinks they would like to make some additional new points before the closing
date then these would be accepted and added to the original
comments. Obviously it would help if people could reference their previous
letter when making any new comments.
I
hope this is helpful."
We will be delivering more leaflets through your doors giving assistance
on how you might respond to the consultation and we are recruiting
canvassers to call on each household in Elsenham and Henham to give
additional help and advice if required. Please don’t forget the letter
writing days. (see events)
As said above, Mr. Gardner points out that in his opinion a letter
(either in hard copy or by email) is best.
However, Uttlesford’s main preference is that you to do it online. Please
see
this link to their site for their full advice. This method will involve
you connecting to their Limehouse system for which you will have to register
first. You can then go to their main document and put your comments against
each part in turn.
The choice is yours but, we ask that if you can you send a copy of your
letter or email to our site so that we can keep our own record.
Hand written
copies may be delivered, in the case of Henham to Bill Bates at Stone
Cottage, High Street, Henham, CM226 AS (next to
the shop) or, in the case of Elsenham to Mr. Bush 2,
Coriander Drive, Elsenham, CM22 6DL.
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Visit to Planning Department
Transferred from Front
Page on 4th April
On Thursday 12th
February, at the invitation of Mr. John Mitchell the Director of
Development, Chris Bush and I visited the Planning Department of Uttlesford
District Council. We had an informal meeting with him, Roger
Harborough Senior Planning Officer and two Planning Officers, Melanie Jones
and Hannah Hayden for about 40 minutes. We then spent a further 20
minutes or so in the office office to witness the imputing of data into the
Limehouse system.
Although no minutes
were taken, Chris listed a number of discussion points which have been
submitted to Mr. Mitchell for agreement and returned. To see them
click
here.
From the outset
however, Mr. Mitchell made a statement that he will be publishing on the
Uttlesford website as follows -
Core Strategy Consultation on Preferred Options
Consultation on the Preferred Options for the Core
Strategy finished on the 11 January 2008. The Council would like to
thank the many people who responded to the consultation, particularly on
the housing options for the District.
Officers are currently collating the submissions
and preparing to analyse and further explore the issues raised. Some
people included specific questions in their representations. The
questions are noted and the issues raised will be addressed in the
report to members on the consultation responses.
We will not be responding individually to each
person who raised questions because we need to concentrate our resources
on resolving the issues.
Further work will be needed to inform decisions on
Core Strategy options before the Council approves an approach for
submission to the government. This will involve work on transport,
housing trajectories, water cycles and other infrastructure issues,
together with testing scenarios for growth, including levels of airport
growth.
We will not be recommending a Core Strategy
to the March Environment Committee. It is unlikely that we will be in a
position to make recommendations before September, quite possibly later.
NOTE - This statement
contains a number of issues that the Joint Parishes Steering Group will have
to consider, not the least being perhaps ascertaining the legal obligations
of a public body such as Uttlesford to respond to individual questions. As
you know we are asking you to write to Uttlesford asking for a response to
your questions and we feel they are duty bound to do so irrespective of
their resourcing difficulties. I
will report back on this is due course.
It was explained to us
that there were three people transposing data onto Limehouse, namely
Melanie, Hannah and another lady Sara who is on holiday this week.
Only Hannah does the job full time whilst Melanie and Sara work at it when
other commitments permit. With the volume of work they have to
complete they are clearly under-resourced. Whilst it is evident from recent reports that the Council is having severe financial
problems, this cannot be considered an acceptable situation. Council
leaders please take note.
They stated that their
strategy for imputing was to deal with representations from statutory
consultees first followed by developers and parish councils, etc.
Their logic for this is that they consider, probably quite rightly, that the public would
want to know what organisations such as GoEast, Essex County Council and so on were
saying so they have given them a degree of priority. Equally with the
developers, etc. This part of the job now is almost complete and then
they are now moving on to the individual letters.
They showed us the
boxes in which the hard copies of the representations were contained.
By far the biggest contained objections from Henham and Elsenham. A
very small part of another box contained letters filtered out which
apparently supported Option 4. I make no further comment about that.
They were unable to give a total number of representations they have
received, but this might well be a figure which will be reported to the
Environment Committee on 11th March.
Another reasonably
large box contained letters from people concerned about the proposed
development by Chater Homes in Little Dunmow. Reading between the
lines I don't think they anticipated that volume of concern which obviously
resulted from the road-shows put on by the developers.
Chris and I were given
a demonstration on how details were transposed on to Limehouse and it is a
very laborious business. Each letter has to be carefully logged, read
and sections copied into the relevant parts of the data base. It was
explained to us that sometimes a subjective judgement has to be made as to
whether the author is supporting or opposing an option. It was readily
admitted that mistakes could be made and we stressed the need for a system
of quality control. We also stressed that we would be redoubling our
efforts to check entries ourselves and to encourage residents to check their
individual entries. We were told that where residents had an email
address, they would be informed by email when their letters were placed on Limehouse.
We spent some time
discussing how data would to extracted to produce the final report and to
ensure that the strength of feeling was illustrated. Mr. Mitchell
stated that final recommendations to the Council Members would be made on
the basis of 'planning issues and interpretations'.
In all I felt the
meeting productive and Chris and I thank Mr. Mitchell and his staff for
their time. If was informative and cleared up some concerns we had. Equally
however, for us it highlighted how under-resourced the planning department
were and how important it is that the Limehouse database accurately reflects
the views of the community if it is to be used as the basis for important
forthcoming recommendations.
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Judicial Review
Removed From Front page
4th April 2008
On Thursday 7th February,
the Steering Group of The Joint Parishes met and voted to be included as an
'Interested Party' in the action taken by Twigden Homes and Bellwinch Homes
(two developers having plans for the development of small parcels of land in
the U.D.C area) who have instigated a joint action against U.D.C. over the
manner/process in which the decision to make Option 4 was arrived at.
Originally, it was reported that Henham Parish Council would be named as the
interested party in the application for Judicial Review, but this as a
result of the vote has been revised. The minutes of the meeting
will be posted as soon as I get them.
Judicial Review
Removed from
front page27-6-08
It seems that in
respect of the Judicial Review application brought by
Twigden Homes and Bellwinch Homes (see
original article) of which
the J.P.S.G. was an interested party, the judge has decided not to send the
application forward for a hearing. (click
here to see his judgement.)
We have heard from the solicitors for
Twigden Homes and Bellwinch Homes and there will not be an appeal hearing.
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Herts and Essex Web Poll
Removed From Front page
4th April 2008
In the latter part of January,
The Herts. and Essex Observer conducted on Web Poll. Well over 2000
people voted on the four options entitled -
"Where in Uttlesford should 3,000 homes be
built?"
9.9% said "Elsenham
& Henham"
11% said "Great &
Little Dunmow"
12.5% said "Great
Chesterford" and
66.6% said "None of
the above - they should be spread around the district"
Uttlesford Councillors take notice please.
The opportunity was there for people to vote for specific sites.
They clearly didn't and the majority favour houses to be spread around
the District
Sir Alan Haselhurst's Letter
Removed From
Front page 4th April 2008
On 9th January 2008 I
wrote a personal letter to our MP, The
Right Hon. Sir Alan Haselhurst,
regarding the Core Strategy and the planned closure of Henham Post Office.
In this letter I invited Sir Alan to write a article for this site
expressing his views as far as he felt able. He has kindly replied and
I attach his covering letter (my address removed) and a page containing his
views. Please
click
here to see the letters. - Bill Bates
He is also trying to broker a deal with Parish Councils.
Click here and go to page 4 to see the article.
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Responses by Essex
County Council and GOEAST
Removed From Front page
4th April 2008
It seems that Essex County Council
Development, Highways and Transportation are not too enthralled by
Uttlesford's Options - Please
click here
to view the report. It
begs the comment "we said that but you didn't listen." Its a bit
wordy but you will get the drift.
It
also seems that Go-East (Government
Office for the East of England) are
also not too impressed by Uttlesford's efforts. They, (in the person
of a lady called
Dearbhla Lawson)
have
sent Mr. John Mitchell, Planning Officer for U.D.C a 'Dear John letter'.
It seriously questions the quality of
Uttlesford District Council Core
Strategy Preferred Options Consultation
Document
and makes fascinating reading.
This can be viewed on
Limehouse
by
clicking here. Well worth a visit.
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Environment Committee
Meeting
Removed from Front Page 4th April
In company with Don
Sturgeon, Peter Johnson, Petrina Lees and Cllr David Morson, I attended the
11th March meeting of the Environment Committee. These committee
members, chaired by Cllr. Susan Barker are the people who make
recommendations to the full council on many issues, but particularly on the
U.D.C. Local Development Core Strategy. It was they who put forward
the four options back in September and Sue Barker in particular was the
champion of the preferred option 4.
The agenda can be seen by
clicking here and the minutes by
clicking here.
Prior to the start of the
meeting Peter and Petrina addressed the meeting. Peter's submission
can be seen by
clicking here
His concerns were about the way entries were
transcribed onto Limehouse. Planning Department officers John
Mitchell and Roger Harborough responded but rather vaguely. Hopefully
the minutes when they are forthcoming will accurately record what they said.
In the meantime Peter has sent an email to John Mitchell asking for a
written response.
We were
also told that because of the volume of letters the Planning Department had
now taken to summarising what they considered to be the main points
rather than entering text from letters which supported or objected to
paragraphs from the Core Strategy document. Letters would then be shown as
attachments. (Both Chris Bush and I on our visit to the Planning
Department on the 12th February (see below) had rejected this idea as being
liable to introduce more inaccuracies and we had thought we had won the
day).
Rather
disturbingly Roger Harborough stated that resources are being taken way from
the task of making entries on Limehouse and moved to analysing the results.
We will have to see whether in fact all our letters will eventually be
registered.
Petrina
urged councillors to reassess the preferred option and come up with robust
and credible evidence to support future decisions. Councillor Barker
said that councillors had to be led by the officers in the planning
department. (There does not seem to be much supporting evidence that
this was the case when the committee came up with option 4).
The 1tem
we obviously had attended the meeting to hear was number 6, the last on the
agenda which was to hear an update on the progress of the Core Strategy.
Members had been given a briefing note prior to the meeting, (click
here to view). David Morson has kindly given the following
summary on what was said.
At the Environment Committee on 11th
March we were informed that because of the overwhelming volume of
responses to the recent Consultation it would not be possible to process
the data or report back findings until September 2008 at the very
earliest. There have also been a number of additional submissions by other
developers which have to be considered. As a result, the programme for the
adoption of a draft Core Strategy will not be available until early in
2009 with an adoption of the Strategy in 2010. There are no guarantees of
any outcomes at this stage. During the debate there were calls to totally
rethink the whole process and to make any future decisions Council led
father than developer led, based on sound research and evidence of
infrastructural capability. Cllr Barker ,Chair of the Environment
Committee, and author of Option 4 said that future decisions would be made
on the advice of Officers and that nothing had been ruled in or out at
this stage.
He also added the following -
Can I congratulate the Joint Parish Steering Group
who have worked tirelessly to get us to this point. Who would have thought
when the bombshell broke 6months ago that we would have achieved so much?
We still need to keep up the pressure and we are monitoring
all responses on the Limehouse system to ensure accuracy and a proper
reflection of residents views on the Consultation.
Please do not be lulled into a false sense of security in the intervening
period. We will keep you informed.
I echo
these latter remarks and also extend thanks to all the canvassers and others
who have been involved in so many different ways. For my own part I
will be continuing to make a data base of the copies of letters I have
received from you and monitoring their entry onto Limehouse. -
BB |
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Tuesday Was Quite a Day For Our Campaign
(removed from front Page on 15th
May)
Tuesday 11th March saw two significant events in our ongoing
campaign. The first was a Fact Finding Coach Trip
organised by The Herts and Essex Observer and the second a meeting of
The U. D. C. Environment Committee at the
Council Offices in London Road. |
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The Coach Trip
In recent weeks The
Observer have been trying to discover how many councillors had actually
visited the proposed sites for the developments outlined in their options,
particularly their preferred Option Four. Their enquiries revealed
that many, particularly the Conservatives who had introduced the option, had
not done so. As a result a coach trip had been organised to tour the
Henham, Elsenham and Stansted areas which would be affected. Of the 44
councillors individually invited, only 25 bothered to reply and 4 accepted.
These four were all Liberal Democrats. In spite of this the trip went
ahead with plenty of room for television crews from the BBC and ITV on the
coach.
The guide for the occasion
was Comedian Ed Byrne accompanied by Top Gear editor Jason Barlow, both
Henham Residents. The route took in not only a circular tour of the affected
villages and countryside but also of the totally unsuitable road
infrastructure connecting the proposed development to the M11 and included
the difficulties of Grove Hill and Chapel Hill in Stansted. The event
concluded at The Cock in Henham where the bus was met by actor John Savident
also a Henham resident.
Both TV companies featured
the tour in their evening programmes. It was a great shame that so few
Councillors thought fit to accept the invitation. |
 |
The tour is fully reported
in a double page spread on pages 4 and 5 in this week's edition of The Herts
and Essex Observer which also
contains a very good letter from John Savident. (click
here to see a Word copy) or -
Click here to see an on-line version of the
newspaper. |
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Eco Town in
Elsenham and Henham
On Thursday 3rd April we were devastated
to hear that the land to the north-east of Elsenham (most of which is in the
Parish of Henham) had been put on a short list of 15 locations to be
developed into Eco Towns (click
here to view). The scale of the proposed development is far
beyond what was envisaged by Option 4. Later on this year the list
will be reduced to a final list of ten.
The announcement was made by Caroline
Flint, the Minister for Housing and Planning. The Department of
Communities and Local Government have published a document called 'Eco-
Towns, Living a Greener Future' which may be viewed by clicking on the
picture.
The Joint Parish Council Steering Group
met on Thursday 10th April when the matter was high on the agenda. We
will be holding public meetings on Wednesday 16th April (see above for
times, etc.) Clearly, we are now fighting on two fronts. The
application for the Eco-Town is based on the U.D.C's preferred Option 4.
However at a press call on Friday 4th April at Elsenham station car park
(which overlooks the blighted landscape), Uttlesford Conservative
Councillors turned out in force together with our MP, Sir Alan Haselhurst,
to state their total opposition to an Eco-Town in Uttlesford. How can
they U.D.C. Councillors still be in favour of their preferred Option 4
whilst being against an Eco-Town in the same place?
A little while ago, Fairfield Partnership
supplied a 44 page document called 'Elsenham -
A Strategic Master Plan
Vision (dated January 2008) to
Parish Councils. I have received permission from them to reproduce it on
this site with a reminder that all diagrams maps etc are subject to copy
write and must not be reproduced without permission.
This is the
basis of their submission to the Government. Click on the picture to
view it.
It is our opinion and that held by
others, that the only way Uttlesford District Council can dig themselves out
of this mess is by admitting now that Option 4
was a mistake.
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An Important Day - Monday 2nd June
Removed from front page
1st July
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As every body is now
aware, on Thursday 3rd April 2008
we were
devastated to hear that the farm land between
Elsenham and Henham had
been put on a short list of 15 locations to be developed into so called
Eco-towns. The scale of the proposed development is far beyond what was
envisaged by Option 4 which we have been fighting since September 2007.
Later on this year the list will be reduced to a final list of ten, but we
are now in yet another crucial period of consultation. Your response
to the L.D.F. consultation earlier this year was magnificent, but now we have
to re-double our efforts before
Monday 30th June to convince the
Government that Elsenham/Henham is totally the wrong place to build a huge
new town. Although the current consultation has been running for some weeks
we have been asking you to hold back on writing your protest letters until
we had taken all the advice we could on the best way to respond.
Now is the time for
action. - See details in the article below
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Monday 2nd June
saw the launch of our concerted effort through public meetings, first at
Henham and then at Elsenham. In both venues the turnout was excellent. |
 |
The meetings were in two parts. First, we had a keynote speaker in Grant Shapps, M.P. for
'Welwyn Hatfield' and Shadow
Cabinet Minister for Housing. He was
accompanied by our M.P. the Rt. Hon. Sir Alan Haselhurst.
Mr Shapps started by congratulating the
Joint Parishes Steering Group on mounting an excellent campaign and stated
it was crucial to be well organised. He denigrated the nonsense of
eco-towns. "Eco sounds good but it is in effect 'eco-spin"
Whilst he agreed that we needed more housing he criticised
the 'Soviet style' of government and stated his party would scrap central
planning and allow communities to choose where houses will be built and
employ incentives for local government to do so. He said that he and his party were
100% on our side in opposing the proposed new town but warned that residents
must ensure that they 'actually register their
objections as forcibly as they can' and not
leave it to others. Every letter counts. A question and
answer session then followed. Carol Barbone of SSE urged the
Conservative party to include a commitment in their election manifesto not
to support eco-towns. Mr. Shapps stated that at no time had the
concept of eco-towns been voted on in Parliament.
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The second part of the meetings
was in the hands of Don
Sturgeon and Simon Lee.
Simon said that in the next few days every household would be receiving an
A4 envelope through the door containing a number of very important documents
which stated in detail what the J.P.S.G. were asking residents to do.
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1. A full update from the Joint Parishes Steering Group on
where we are currently. (Click
here) 2.
A four page Eco-Town Consultation document on who to write to, by which
method and importantly who to send copies to so that we can keep track of
numbers, etc. Summarised under thirteen headings is advice on points
to include in letters. (Click here)
Note - There is a fuller version of this document
but we are reluctant to put in on the site because of possible plagiarism.
Petrina Lees (see
Contact Us page) will supply an email or
hard copy on request.
Please also note that
the email copies to Caroline Flint should be sent to
pscarolineflint@communities.gsi.gov.uk
and not the email address shown in the instructions, i.e.
flintc@parliament.gov.uk
3. A 'We Need Your Support' letter
asking you to formally join the Save Our Village Campaign by giving a small
donation. (Click
here)
4. Instructions on how to complete the
10 Downing Street E-mail petition (Click
here)
5. A set of three sample letters as a
guide to those who wish help on compiling letters. Please put the
samples into your own words. (These letters have not been copied to this
site)
6. Save Our Village car and window
stickers
7. A check list on
10 WAYS YOU CAN HELP viz-
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Write your letter to object to
the Eco-Town proposal. |
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Complete the email petition on
the 10 Downing Street web site and email your friends to do the same.
|
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Place the enclosed window
poster somewhere prominent on your property. |
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Use the car sticker on your
vehicle or anywhere others may see it. |
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Join the Save Our Village
campaign. |
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Support the Save Our Village
campaign with a monetary donation. |
|
Volunteer to help the campaign
by offering your time as a canvasser, leaflet dropper or general helper. |
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Attend Save Our Village fund
raising events. |
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Talk to your neighbours and
friends about the campaign and remind them to write their letters. |
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Check saveourvillage.co.uk
weekly for updates |
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On behalf of the J.P.S.G. many thanks to Simon for all his
hard work in producing the packs.
At the end of both meetings Don announced that substantial
funds had been put aside to finance a publicity campaign and also that new
signs (to replace the ones stolen) would appear round the villages and be
displayed until the end of the consultation
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ECO-CON
I unreservedly believe that that
attaching the prefix 'Eco' to government planning initiatives is a complete
and utter confidence trick. We all understand the need to address
global warming, properly conserving energy and the the discipline of
re-cycling waste. However, in the midst of the proposal to build a so called
eco-town in Elsenham/Henham, we find that we have in Henham perhaps one of
the most advanced eco-friendly houses in the country. This house was
built at approximately 30 - 40% above the cost of what an average similar sized
house. How is it possible that our government could believe their own
spin and that of developers that an eco-town, and in particular the
proportion of low cost affordable housing, is in any way financially viable?
This is just an excuse to appropriate nearly a square mile of prime arable
land for building houses close to Stansted Airport; land which has
contributed to feeding this country for well over a thousand years and is
more than ever needed now. It is nothing less than vandalism of our
countryside on a huge scale. How can it in any way can the proposal be
contributing to making our planet a better place?
On Tuesday 13th May. Simon Lee, the
owner of the aforementioned house, addressed the full council meeting of
Uttlesford District Council on the subject. Please
click
here to see what he said. - BB
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Site Designer and Manager
Bill Bates
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