Concreting Rotherham
Some two years ago Rotherham Council announced some very big plans indeed for the future of the town. Something over 30,000 houses were to be built in the borough and large swathes of greenbelt were to be concreted over. Much of this housing was to provide homes for incomers (not Rotherhamites) of various complexions. Some of the dregs of Sheffield and a good many other places much further-flung were to be settled here.
Various "consultation meetings" were organised in the areas most affected by these plans. Not surprisingly there were enormous protests by those of us who already live in and enjoy these areas. Think about it! This isn't just housing, but infrastructure. Water supply, drainage, power supply, roads, bus services, health services, schools are amongst those that spring readily to mind. In some of the the areas traffic and services are already at saturation point as it is and unless massive sums are spent to increase facilities we are all going to get pushed beyond reasonable limits. Then there is the enormous, mind-boggling cost of all this which to my simple mind must run to billions of pounds that Britain hasn't got, let alone Rotherham.
I think that the breadth of protest took our council by surprise. I got the distinct impression they thought they could what they normally do, and steamroller the people of Rotherham without any further ado. Any road they went away for two years and thought about the next move in the covering Rotherham with the sprawl of concrete.
In June 2011 RMBC announced that they had revised the Local Development Framework (and how much does this cost I ask you!) and that the number of houses required over the next 15 years has been cut to about 13000, which is a significant reduction I suppose. There is to be several months of consultation, adverts in the local press and various drop-in sessions and events. there is also a website due on line about the whole thing.
The Rawmarsh and Greasbrough Protest Group, one of several, went quiet for a couple of years also but has now sprung back into life again.
We went to the meeting on 13 July 2011 re the new proposals for Rawmarsh and Greasbrough. I can see why the good folks of Greasbrough are up in arms about the new proposals as a huge swathe of agricultural land termed Bassingthorpe Farm which wraps itself around the village to the south and east is a preferred area for the development of new housing. This site is served by the dual carriageways of Fenton Road and Car Hill which are fine as far as they go. However nobody has seemed to have given any thought to the fact that the old village of Greasbrough is already very busy and at times clogged up. Traffic from the proposed development will clog it some more. No plans for infrastructure are yet under consideration and there is no money for major road development.
These developments really have very little to do with the people of Rotherham and what they want. Threats are mentioned that central government will impose house building targets on the borough if agreements are not made, although at the same time another government department is saying that Green Belt should not be developed for this. As far as I can see little or none of it will be the much vaunted social housing and the land, once liberated, will be sold to developers for the highest bidders. Accepting that there is the need for much additional housing in Britain as a whole, and Rotherham in particular, most of it for incomers and not locals as far as I can see, I don't think that this is being tackled the right way around. It is another costly and cynical exercise and both central and local governments should be ashamed of themselves. Moreover since the council and the country are nigh on bankrupt and "we are all in it together" where are the multi-billions needed for all this coming from?
I quote one small section of a letter in the Times on Monday 19 September 2011 entitled "Planning Deterrent" concerning the easing of planning regulations. This states in part "Nobody is talking about building on green belt or in the many areas of outstanding natural beauty."
Oh yes they are! This letter is signed by various masters of industry and enterprise. Obviously they have not read the proposals, or they are practising either economy with the truth or downright lies.
Now I'm going to frighten you myself. At the current level of population, let alone the other ten million forecast, certain pundits are already predicting that there will be major shortages of water in many parts of the country with the next few years, outages of electricity (and possibly gas) as demand rises (hence the government are allowing huge price rises by the supply companies without any protest). This means that even as things stand we Brits may, and this is a may, soon have Third World conditions and no longer have 24/7 supplies of basic necessities.
I can only urge you to have a look at the plans on line, go to your local planning meetings, express your concerns and write to your councillors and MPs to make you concerns known.