The Green Parties of Newcastle and Gateshead have submitted their formal objection to the One Core Strategy, calling on Newcastle and Gateshead councils to go back to the drawing board.
Their objection calls the Strategy a "developers' charter". They say that, if given the choice, developers will prioritise executive-style housing on greenfield sites, contrary to what councillors and planners say about brownfield site redevelopment. The result will be just more unsustainable urban sprawl, while areas like Scotswood and Walker, neighbourhoods that urgently need regeneration projects, will be marginalised again.
Instead of duplicating the excellent work of bodies such as the CPRE, local Greens decided to produce a broad critique, questioning the basic assumptions, some unspoken, beneath the Strategy. Key points they make include:
· The Strategy is nothing but the same old ‘growthmania', even more inappropriate at a time of on-going economic recession and the growing threat from adverse climate change, ‘peak oil' and many other ecological constraints.
· Its so-called ‘evidence base' is more like a "dodgy dossier", with out-of-date statistics, unsound assumptions and poor reasoning.
- The ‘retail-led' development envisaged in the Strategy will just lead to more empty shops.
- The speculative housing developments is economically unsound and will not help those most in need.
- Fit housing that should be refurbished will instead be demolished in Bensham while many other areas will be blighted as the threat of large-scale development hangs over them,
- Any jobs it might create are not those that will help to really reduce unemployment.
- Traffic congestion will be made much worse in several parts of Newcastle and Gateshead.
- Farmland we will need in the future will be lost
- There is a real danger of serious sewage pollution of the Ouseburn from the new development
- A critical wildlife habitat, Gosforth Nature Reserve, will be irreparably damaged as will other vital open spaces in areas like Dunston Hill.
Local Greens criticise the way councillor Henri Murison tried to get the Strategy through ‘under the radar'. Few had even heard of it until a mass protest at the November council meeting forced the council to extend the consultation period and give more publicity to the plan.
Greens are also worried that the Strategy might be a smokescreen for big road schemes in areas like Haddrick's Mill roundabout. It will inevitably create such severe congestion which could then used to justify the bulldozing of property to make way for new road works.
Andrew Gray, the Green Party candidate in South Heaton ward, made the following comment:
"The Councils wrongly claim that there is no alternative when, in fact, there are plenty of examples of better initiatives in several other cities and towns. We draw attention to many in our Objection.
"The two councils are using the forthcoming National Planning Policy Framework to justify a bad plan. It is the same old mix of wishful thinking and bad policy we saw in the ‘Going for Growth' programme.
"We Greens think that the current Core Strategy is so flawed that it would be better to go back to the drawing board. Otherwise a Planning Inspector might just throw it out and we'll be left with the nightmare of a developers' free-for-all."
The full response is downloadable in PDF format from here or from the Downloads section of this website.
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