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Hypocrisy from council
LAST week's article, "Halting the Village Green 'Saboteurs' ", quotes High Peak's press release of 5 June 'Affordable housing stopped in tracks by village green bids' pretty much verbatim.
That's fine by me.The wider the exposure given to this press release the better. It is the clearest expression yet of the depths of hypocrisy and misrepresentation to which High Peak is prepared to sink in its attempts to stigmatise Village Greeners.
The recent meeting referred to with Mr Irranca–Davies is not the first that Tom Levitt has orchestrated between local big-wigs and a Minister in an attempt to stifle the Village Green movement.
He organised a similar one last September with Baroness Andrews, an Under-Secretary in the Department for Communities and Local Government. Six months earlier in a parliamentary debate, he urged that decisions on town and village greens be incorporated into the process of strategic planning, where other decisions on local land use are made.
In other words, he wants to take away from ordinary people the little bit of power given to them by the Commons Act of 2006 and hand it back to local government bureaucrats.
High Peak claims that its implementation of the government's housing policy is being sabotaged by Village Green applications. In fact the policy was doomed to fail from the start.
To make it work, would involve a grotesque, and, in practice, unattainable, distortion of the free market. However its protagonists were guilty of much worse than mere economic naivety.
They knew that the policy could not be achieved without putting a great deal of what remains of our natural heritage under concrete and bricks. They cynically ignored the fact.
But clearly Tom does not like Village Greeners. They have different values from those of the greedy, materialistic, dishonest, self-serving world in which he moves. As a group they are vulnerable, have no legal protection and are an easy target.
So why not back High Peak and Derbyshire in scapegoating them for the failure of his government's housing policy? After all, Nero got away with blaming the Great Fire of Rome on another defenceless group, the early Christians. Perhaps the trick might work again.
I mentioned hypocrisy and misrepresentation. According to the press release, Village Green bids are preventing the development of Brownfield land and putting more pressure on Greenfield sites to meet the housing target.For most Advertiser readers the term 'brownfield site' will conjure up images of sterility, old railway sidings, abandoned mills and decaying warehouses. But that's not how it is at all.
In planning legislation, one small building on a site is sufficient to qualify it as 'Brownfield'. Temple Fields and Brown Edge Road Field are both the subjects of Village Green applications. There is just one building on each.
Therefore both are Brownfield sites. However, that's not how most people perceive them. High Peak and Derbyshire are concerned to avoid building on greenfield sites - that is true - but only as legislation defines a greenfield site. That is to say, a site with no buildings on it whatsoever!
That leaves Temple Fields and Brown Edge Road Field up for grabs. The landscape and countryside of the Peak District is uniquely beautiful. Its amenity and recreational value to ourselves and to the generations to come, is inestimable.
If it was not for the lobbying of government by the limestone industry in 1948, the whole of High Peak would be in the National Park. All of what remains of our natural heritage should be protected from development. That includes so-called 'brownfield' sites such Temple Fields and Brown Edge Road Field.
That is not to say that the Village Green applications have simply been used as a way to stop development. Contrary to the suggestion of the press release, none of the Village Green applications in Buxton and none that I'm aware of elsewhere in High Peak are frivolous or vexatious.
All are soundly based on the evidence of local people, many of whom have used the application land for recreational purposes for decades. This includes the application on Brown Edge Road Field. Although, after a recent inquiry, it was recommended for refusal, the Inspector acknowledged in her report that there was substance to the application.
Again, Councillors Thrane and Ashton told the Minister that High Peak Community Housing received up to 70 applications for each family home. Now nobody doubts that there is a demand for affordable housing in the Borough but perhaps Statistics is not these Councillors' strongest card.
The figure they quote is not representative of that demand. It exaggerates it, possibly grossly. To make an informed judgement as to the extent of the demand, we need to know the average number of applications per family home.
And not everybody is looking for a family home. Councillors Thrane and Ashton would have made a more honest case if they had quoted the average number of applications per housing unit.
We have to ask, which is more important to these Councillors; to provide more affordable housing or simply to demonise Village Greeners? If it is to provide more affordable housing then why did they not draw the Minister's attention to the 1200 housing units standing empty in High Peak and the 1400 in neighbouring Derbyshire Dales? (see ref 1].Where are their proposed changes to the law designed to coerce the owners of these properties into selling or letting them? Again, what about a law to force a developer to sell his site on if he does not create new housing units on it within a given time frame? It might save buildings such as Haddon Hall Hotel from deteriorating to a point beyond which they can be restored to provide housing. What a wonderful opportunity to influence government passed up!
Why is High Peak saddled with this housing problem? It stems from housing provision figures imposed on the Authority by the East Midlands Regional Government. These figures oblige High Peak has to meet a housing target of 6000 new housing units by 2026.
The Council is very uneasy with this. Linda Baldry herself, in an earlier press release, commented that to meet the target (in one place] would require a new town the size of Whaley Bridge and Chapel put together. In fact, there is no objective justification for this ridiculous figure.
At one point during the brewing of the Regional Plan by the East Midlands Government, the target figure was actually much higher. But then Manchester stepped in with a complaint. The proposed target for new housing units in High Peak would prejudice its prospects of regenerating East Manchester - so the target was reduced.
In other words, it came down, simply because it was deemed that High Peak (and Derbyshire Dales] had been assigned an unfairly large slice of the action.
Ultimately the target figure stems from a government obsession with growth at any environmental price. The philosophy behind it is embodied in the government-commissioned 'Barker Review of Housing Supply' (ref
2]. In defining housing need the Review throws everything into the pot. Not only must everyone who wants their own housing unit be provided for but there must be sufficient units built everywhere to depress the market.
The idea is that this will enable greater mobility of the population which will in turn encourage greater and continuing economic growth.
Kate Barker was obliged to defend her conclusions before the House of Commons Environmental Committee in 2004. The chairman accused her Review of being environmentally nave. She conceded that she had not done enough to point out the environmental consequences of her recommendations.
Roger Floyd
St James Terrace
Buxton
for Keep High Peak Green
References
www.emptyhomes.com/usefulinformation/stats/em08.htm
www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/barker_review_of_housing_supply_recommendations.htm
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Wednesday 08 February 2012
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