Challenging Lib Dem Plans For Huge New Towns Near Colchester

You may have seen my recent letters in the Gazette regarding 'West Tey'. On 23rd February I attended a borough council scrutiny meeting at the town hall in which the Liberal Democrat councillor for Castle Ward Bill Frame, who is the councillor responsible for planning, outlined plans for a series of huge new towns on the outskirts of Colchester. These would be built on greenfield sites, open countryside, with two planned in the first instance and more to follow. Countryside around Marks Tey (the "West Tey" proposal), Langham and on the Essex-Tendring border near Essex University are all being mooted as possible sites. The leader of Colchester Borough Council Paul Smith (Lib Dem) has described the proposal as having, "great potential". In other words he is all for it. A petition against the West Tey proposal already has over 6000 signatures on it, however the council are doing all they can to kick this petition into the long grass and to avoid having to hold a full council debate over the issue.
Cllr Frame is using a clever piece of flim-flam in order to disguise the nature of the proposals. He is calling the new towns "garden settlements". At the scrutiny meeting several councillors clearly had no idea what a garden settlement was, which allowed Cllr Frame to wax lyrical about 19th century urban idealism, Cadbury homes at Bournville and all to use all manner of nice sounding eco-friendly terminology. However reality soon emerged. These are new towns with as much housing as possible and the average cost of each home will be £200,000 each. Cllr Frame explained how this housing would be affordable and you could almost hear the sound of jaws hitting the floor. Out of touch doesn't even begin to cover it.
This is a classic example of green sounding language being used to disguise urban sprawl and countryside loss. "Garden settlements" conjures up images of pretty cottages in the Cotswolds with thatched rooves and lush gardens brimming with roses. The reality will be new towns crammed with expensive and large modern houses. It is a similar disingenuous approach to the use of confusing acronyms such as SUE (Sustainable Urban Extension) to disguise developments and lend them a green veneer.

COUNTRYSIDE LOSS

Should the West Tey  plan go ahead, large amounts of countryside near Marks Tey and Braintree would be concreted over with 14,000 houses. Coggeshall would also be seriously affected and become just an offshoot of the main new town (see map below):

There would also be a large increase in traffic on the roads around Braintree, Marks Tey and Witham.
Rather than protecting the countryside, the plan simply involves moving the urban sprawl a few miles further out from Colchester and dumping it there.

 INFRASTRUCTURE PROMISES

Cllr Frame has suggested that the new towns will contain their own infrastructure, schools, shops and healthcare facilities so that pressure will not be increased on Colchester's already stretched services. Frankly if you believe this, you may as well believe in Santa Claus and leprechauns. Colchester has grown by 24,000 people and thousands of new houses since 2001, yet the rate of infrastructure investment has not kept up with this expansion. Our hospital is struggling to cope, our roads jammed up and our bus station remains a joke. If they can't secure the investment needed for Colchester, then why should we believe that they will do it for the new towns? Pressure will just be further increased on Colchester's services as the new residents drive to Colchester.
Developers tend to promise the earth in terms of infrastructure in order to secure planning permission. Afterwards they negotiate down their responsibilities in order to maximise profits. The basis of any negotiation process is to go in hard in the first instance so that the resulting compromises are in your favour. Unfortunately, given the lack of infrastructure to go with Colchester's huge recent growth, the current council seem to lack the energy to do this. Its almost as if their approach to developers and central government is to raise the white flag.


HOMES FOR THE NEXT GENERATION?

Cllr Frame has claimed that the new houses, 14,000 at "West Tey" alone, are to house the next generation.
Yet how on earth would young first-time buyers be able to afford £200,000 homes given the proliferation of increased student debt and zero-hours contracts which Cllr Frame's party pushed through when in government?  The reality is that this is an expansion programme and part of a growth, growth, growth agenda.
The new housing he has provided since 2001 has simply increased the Colchester population by 24,000. These were not primarily homes for the local young.

THE NEED FOR SOCIAL AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING

We do need to utilise brownfield sites to provide homes for local young people and families in need. We also need to make renting a viable alternative to buying as this is the only way to stabilise house prices. I explain how to do both here:
http://markgoachergreen.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/we-need-new-approach-to-housing-and.html


 

Tuition Fees: A Tale of Two Pledges

The above image may remind you of someone. Google search Nick Clegg tuition fee pledge 2010 and a similar image may appear. Well when I say similar, there are a few noticeable differences. Nick looks rather happy and smiley while I'm striking a rather serious look. His pledge sheet is nicely word processed where as mine is home made.  Yet on the whole the images are similar and you may be thinking that this extends to their intent as well. Both Nick Clegg and I belong to neither of the main  two political parties. We are both fully aware that there is slim chance that either the Lib Dems or the Greens will form a majority government on our own following the next election but there is a chance that we may help to form a coalition government in a hung parliament scenario. However this is where the similarities end. In 2010 Mr Clegg knew full well that he would not be able to deliver the above pledge as leader of a majority Lib Dem government. Yet he and his party still trot this out as their excuse for not keeping their promise ie that they 'surprisingly' didn't win the election. About as surprising as Autumn following Summer.
Mr Clegg could have insisted on the keeping of his pledge as part of the coalition negotiations and deal. He didn't and it was dropped at the first hurdle. His much parodied apology was for making the pledge in the first place and not for dropping it. The simple truth is that the Lib Dems were only ever half-heartedly against tuition fee rises in the first place and only then in order to gain the student vote. The Conservatives and Labour will simply increase the fees whenever they feel like it, that much is clear.
However the Green Party can be relied on to oppose tuition fees regardless of circumstances. On a personal level I will never break the above pledge. This is because tuition fees add to long term inequality. A student who goes to a fee-paying school is likely to have his/her fees paid upfront by their parents, given that they are lower per year than the school fees in many private sector schools. They will emerge from university with no debt. Yet a state school student whose parents cannot afford to pay the fees up front will emerge with £27.000 fee debt as well as living cost student loans debt on top. Later in life when the latter student is hit with loan repayments with added interest (in other words a massive stealth tax), the former student pays nothing.
Therefore I will never vote for for the keeping of or the extension of the fee system.

How the Greens can Learn From Both the Lib Dems and UKIP

The Greens do have much to celebrate in Colchester. Our overall percentage share of the vote has increased from that of 2012 and has significantly increased in several wards. In New Town the green vote has increased by nearly 80 votes, pushing the Conservative Party candidate into last place. These are real achievements however much work remains to be done. It is clear that the Lib Dems remain the main winners in Colchester, despite their overall voter share falling by nearly 10%. UKIP are still on the rise (by 13%) despite not winning a single council seat.

There are lessons to be learned by the Greens from both the Lib Dems and UKIP in terms of campaigning. The Lib Dem grip on Colchester is based on their work on local issues and the Bob Russell factor. The Lib Dems concentrate their leaflets and publicity on local concerns, from the perennial dogs fouling pavements and pot-holes to issues surrounding the jumbo tower. They have built up an image of being hard-working locally. This despite the fact that in reality the Morant Road, Artillery Street and King Stephen Road area still has such a problem with dog fouling that the residents have resorted to circling the turds with chalk and writing 'Please clean up after your dog' next to them. It is the perception that counts not the reality. Therefore we, as greens, need to focus our campaigns and our literature on more local matters as well as ensuring that we do match perception to reality. Secondly we must publicize to the voters our wider policies beyond those of the environment. 

From UKIP, there are lessons to be learned about presentation, image and communication. UKIP strike a chord with many voters who feel disengaged and alienated from the political process. This is not only because of the perception that they are the only party listening to concerns about immigration, it is also because they appear not to talk down to voters from the lofty heights of a political ivory tower. They are, in that sense, anti-establishment. Nigel Farage has an excellent manner and approach as leader, down-to-earth, straight-talking, an every man necking a pint of beer. In the modern world image does matter. A leader that appears too intellectual, po-faced and odd-looking, which is how many perceive Ed Miliband to be, will inevitably lose votes. It is self-defeating for Greens to shout 'racist' at UKIP voters, insist that image doesn't matter or look upon UKIP voters as the barbarians at the gates. We must engage in an adult way with all of these things. Greens must take on board the fact that many voters have genuine concerns about levels of net migration and the resulting impact on wage levels, housing demand, school places and over-development. Most UKIP voters are not racist and some of UKIP's posters and Nigel Farage's rhetoric about Romanians moving next door would have gone too far for them. However to win these voters away from UKIP will require real engagement with the issues rather than attacks. Greens must also work on the image. We must change the public perception that Green candidates are all bearded old hippies who look like former members of Jethro Tull or are middle class people with no understanding of life on the breadline in modern Britain.