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11 December 2006
PLANNERS MUST REDUCE BLIGHT AND UNCERTAINTY, SAYS COUNTY RURAL GROUP
Areas of countryside and of towns can be needlessly blighted by
planning proposals that may never come to fruition, says CPRE
Buckinghamshire, the local branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural
England.
Responding to the Bucks County Council consultation on future options
for managing the county’s waste, CPRE Buckinghamshire made clear
a strong preference for plans which identify a small number of specific
sites where development is almost certain to take place rather than
simply set out guidelines for selecting sites in the future. The
consultation paper suggests about 20 sites are needed for major waste
management facilities across the county, though the plan will only
identify 4 of them. The paper explains that not all of the
remaining 16 sites may actually be developed.
CPRE Buckinghamshire’s Chairman, Peter Cleasby, said:
“We accept that new facilities, sometimes on new sites, for
managing waste will be necessary, simply because as a society we
produce too much waste. The County Council has a very difficult
job deciding where these sites should be, because almost no one wants a
waste management facility anywhere near them.
“What we don’t want to see is a plan which fails to grasp
the nettle of where the new facilities should be located. The
approach of setting out some guidelines and then deciding sometime in
the future where a site might be has its uses, but it risks creating
blight and uncertainty for far more neighbourhoods than a list of
specific sites. Although there is some force in the argument that
changing technology for waste processing makes it difficult to plan
ahead with certainty, this is hugely outweighed by the importance of
not unnecessarily blighting neighbourhoods.
“Bucks County Council say in their consultation paper that they
are likely to adopt a site-specific approach to the waste development
plan. We welcome that and hope they will stick to it, without
highlighting other sites which may never be used.”
NOTES FOR EDITORS
1. CPRE, the Campaign to Protect Rural
England, is a national charity which promotes the beauty, tranquillity
and diversity of rural England by advocating positive solutions for the
long-term future of the countryside. Founded in 1926, CPRE has 60,000
supporters nationally and a branch in every county. The
Buckinghamshire Branch, with over 450 individual and 75 corporate
members, covers the areas administered by Buckinghamshire County
Council and Milton Keynes Council.
2. Buckinghamshire County Council
have been conducting a consultation on “Issues and Options”
as part of the preparation of a Waste Development Plan Document,
required as part of the Government’s reforms of the planning
system. The consultation closes on 8 December 2006. The
consultation paper is available on the Council’s website at http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/bcc/content/index.jsp?contentid=-1470363194.
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