Get organising for October 15 protest!

IT IS now less than a month to our protest outside the Conservative Party HQ in Worthing - so get organising and make sure we get a good turn-out!

Throughout its time in opposition, the Conservative Party gave the impression of opposing the tide of tarmac threatening our natural heritage and even won votes on the basis that it would be giving local communities the right to reject unwanted development.

Now, however, it is aiming to introduce a presumption in favour of development, making it virtually impossible for local councils, let alone local people, to have any chance of halting unwanted sprawl.

This is nothing but a charter for property developers to help themselves to our countryside and makes a mockery of any idea of democracy.

Our protest outside the Conservative Party offices in Union Place, Worthing (near the Waitrose roundabout) is on Saturday October 15 at 2pm.

We urge one and all to come and support us - and, of course, to let their friends and family know about the event.

Sussex paper backs campaigners

ONE of Sussex's local newspapers has joined the battle against the government planning proposals.

The West Sussex County Times, based in Horsham, has launched a campaign called It's Just Plan Crazy and praised the formation of a new alliance against housebuilding in that part of the county.

It says on its website, www.wscountytimes.co.uk, "The County Times has long campaigned for planning decisions to be taken directly by those communities affected by them and we welcome this new alliance.

"To mark the event we have launched our own campaign, highlighting the contradictions of the Government’s Localism agenda versus its newly proposed planning regime."

Let's hope more newspapers follow suit and stand up for their readers and their county against the property development mafia!

The Save Our Sussex Alliance has a website at www.saveoursussex.com.

New blow for government plans

ONE of the architects of the Government’s controversial new planning rules has turned his back on the policy, claiming it has been wrecked by ministers.

Simon Marsh, the acting head of sustainable development at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, today disowns the policy he helped devise, saying it is now balanced too much in favour of development. He complains that his original proposals were warped and changed by those in the Government “who don’t place a high value on the environment”.

The result, he says in an article in The Daily Telegraph, is that the draft National Planning Policy Framework “puts the economy first” and “marks a profound shift in emphasis for planning policy”.

Read the full article here.

Bill Bryson is deeply worried

BRITAIN'S leading countryside campaigner, Bill Bryson, has joined a growing wave of opposition to government moves to shake up planning laws.

As groups from the National Trust to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds line up against proposals to ease new development across the country, Bryson told the Observer he was deeply concerned by the direction of policy.

"The government's good intentions risk being undermined by the talk of economic growth at any cost," said the American writer, who champions the English countryside and is president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). "We are deeply worried to learn that environmental laws are regarded as red tape and that the planning system might be weakened to allow for more development."

Read the full article here.

'A recipe for civil war'

A 'RECIPE for civil war' - that's how Guardian columnist and National Trust chairman Simon Jenkins is describing the Government's planning proposals.

He writes: "The government's great planning reform has veered way off course, and needs steering back to sanity.

"It responds to no national calamity, and there is no public gain to the reform itself. An updating of the system in the local government department was hijacked by a group of "practitioners", mostly builders and developers, and slid into print.

"I cannot blame the developers. They cannot believe their luck. They seized a golden opportunity to tip chunks of countryside into their already bloated land banks.

"It was naive ministers who missed the boat. Rather than retrieve the document for revision, they resorted to calling protesters – including the Daily Telegraph, the National Trust (in which I declare an interest as chairman) and swaths of Tory supporters – "hysterical nihilist lefties" and enemies of capitalism."

Read the full article here.

Sign the National Trust petition

THE NATIONAL Trust is campaigning hard against the changes to planning and has set up an online petition.

It says: "For decades our planning system has protected much loved places from harmful development. The Government's reforms turn this on its head, using it as a tool primarily to promote economic growth instead.

"Despite news that the Government has offered to talk through the proposed changes to the planning system, we’re not convinced they’re listening.

"The Government’s planning reforms could lead to unchecked and damaging development in the undesignated countryside on a scale not seen since the 1930s.

"New plans published by the Government contain a core presumption that the default answer to development will be ‘yes’.

"We are deeply concerned that the Government’s proposals allow financial considerations to dominate, which could result in a green-light for poor quality or development in the wrong place, threatening the local places valued by you, while failing to deliver wider benefits to your community. "

You can sign the petition by going here.

Protest on Saturday October 15

THE GOVERNMENT proposals to change the planning law to allow property developers to ruin our Sussex countryside must be stopped!

Throughout its time in opposition, the Conservative Party gave the impression of opposing the tide of tarmac threatening our natural heritage and even won votes on the basis that it would be giving local communities the right to reject unwanted development.

Now, however, it is aiming to introduce a presumption in favour of development, making it virtually impossible for local councils, let alone local people, to have any chance of halting unwanted sprawl.

This is nothing but a charter for property developers to help themselves to our countrsyide and makes a mockery of any idea of democracy.

In order to give expression to local opposition to these horrendous proposals, we are calling a protest outside the Conservative Party offices in Union Place, Worthing (near the Waitrose roundabout) on Saturday October 15 at 2pm.

We urge one and all to come and support us - and, of course, to let their friends and family know about the event.