CONcessions on a 100% Unwanted ‘local plan’ are a CON
Nearly all of those people in the Totnes area who I’ve asked about the so-called ‘local plan’ see it like a box of half-broken crockery arriving at our house with a bill, that we never even ordered! The majority of people interviewed believe it to be an undemocratic top-down imposition from outsiders. Nothing ‘local’ in it. Because of this, I’m with all those who believe we should reject it outright 100%; not ask for a slight reduction on the price of an unwanted pile of crud we never ordered, and then feel relieved if that’s agreed!
No one wants the market square ‘developed’!
– It’s lovely because it isn’t ‘developed’. Promises about ‘retail space’ are totally irrelevant! Let’s not get suckered in! No one wants it! We didn’t ask for any changes! They can shove it!
No one wants new-houses in the car park!
– The centre of town is already jam-packed with ‘development’; any ‘reassuring’ promise ‘to keep the same number of parking spaces’ would likely mean building a new ugly car park to enable that. We didn’t order this; we don’t want it! We don’t have to swallow it!
No one wants KEVICC playing fields sold off to build a large housing estate!
– It’s a disgusting outrage for so many reasons. Kids need outside space more than the school / council needs happy accountants. I’ve heard – not 100% confirmed – that the land was bequeathed by the Elmhirsts for educational use: selling for a housing estate is hardly reasonable. The main road is already heaving with traffic. This is a sick joke to those who use it.
The whole ‘local plan’ package is in one market trader’s description “a gilded turd”, BEST REJECTED IN ITS ENTIRETY!
No one I’ve spoken to wants it! WE DON’T HAVE TO ACCEPT IT! UNITED WE WILL WIN.
It’s all driven by Money, nothing else. The rest is just spin.
Councils are cash-strapped due to huge cuts in central funding specifically aimed to take all wealth out of Our public hands and put it into private pockets – health, education, … even police, and certainly council land and property. Mass sell-off, marketed as a ‘solution’ to funding cuts, as instructed by Cameron himself to his Oxfordshire council.
‘Historic Market Town’ – we need to preserve the HISTORIC MARKET part of that title, and not succumb to playing the numbers game in the purely FOR-PROFIT ‘modernisation’ that not a single soul wants here, bar some accountant at the top of the tree in Westmonster, with council bods nodding all the way down to Totnes. And of course the ‘developers’ want it. Those nice people who gave us Baltic Wharf, and Newton Abbot its ‘charming’ shopping centre.
Our Town, Our Right to choose what happens here, and Our Responsibility to Protect Totnes for kids and their kids.
That means: Preserving the centre, Preserving the playing fields, Preserving the car-parks as they are.
NOT BEING COWED into compromises within horrible unwanted plans we never had a hand in creating.
Comments here:
http://plymouth.objective.co.uk/portal/planning/jlp/shwd_thriving_towns_and_villages
Petition here:
Can find and share these at www.totnespulse.co.uk, aswell as other pieces on it, and at South Devon Watch FB page.
As or more importantly, we need to be united in Believing we have the Right to Democracy on this: Don’t be cowed. We never ordered any fracking broken crockery! We don’t want it! We’re not having it!