Letter: Fears for the Shropshire countryside
Monday 12th September 2011, 6:00AM BST.
Letter: The ConDems’ planning laws will see vast swathes of unprotected rural England opened up to building developments.
The laws – which are reportedly already being implemented – will force a ‘responsibility’ on towns and villages to accept new projects, replacing the strict limits on building in rural areas that have been in place since the 1940s.
Brought about by successive governments’ unlimited immigration policies, the measures threaten to open the door to a virtually unregulated proliferation of concrete – including wind farms, factories, incinerators, car parks and housing estates – on an unprecedented scale.
N Pritchard
Shrewsbury
UK News
Most Commented
- Clampdown on Shrewsbury chuggers
- Bishop's gay marriage views do nothing to support bible teachings
- Planners ordered to stay on Newport visit bus
- Letter: Angered by close encounter of the furred kind
- Letter: Alcohol price plans annoy me
- Shrewsbury’s broadband speed one of slowest in UK
- Letter: No sense in overseas job adverts
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
Entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
I agree, the only thing we seem to hear these days is that there is a shortage of housing – why? Agreed, people rarely live as extended family units of more than two generations these days, but why such an apparent shortage. Perhaps those who have allowed and continue to allow, large scale immigration to this country to take place, should study a map of the world and realise just what a small speck of the earth’s surface Britain takes up. For goodness sake – Britain is full !!
Report abuse
Not surprising since, according to the Daily Telegraph, developers have paid millions to the conservative party. This is their pay-off and, as with New Labour and 24-hour drinking, it takes priority over all the problems facing the country. Who says we have a democracy?
Report abuse
I currently work on 2 Regeneration Sites in South Wales that will between them provide 7,500 new homes when fully developed. One is a former Steel Works and the other a former Power Station. The homes will be created without the need for any green belt development. My company currently is involved in Regenerating 7 of these sites throughout England and Wales, why is there any need to develop our countryside whilst such large sites are widely available?
Report abuse
That’s the sort of development we need.
There seem to be acres of unused industrial land in the West Midlands, but ‘developers’ (what a misnomer -’destroyers’ would be closer) are casting their evil greedy eyes over green fields to the west: probably because they can make more profit selling some rural fantasy to people escaping the urban areas…
Report abuse
Can we steer clear of whether or not immigrants are the problem and focus on the new planning rules themselves?
It is likely that they will be very damaging to the countryside outside of designated areas. in Shropshire these areas include the Shropshire hills AONB, a sliver of greenbelt between Telford and Wolverhampton and that is pretty much it. Everywhere else will be fair game to be built on. Expect Telford to sprawl further, expect the market towns to have more supermarket and business parks built on their outskirts and don’t expect to be able to refuse anything in Shrewsbury town centre based what it looks like.
The situation will be more serious in Shropshire as the direction for brownfiled land to be built on first is removed and development for Birmingham and the black country leaps over the greenbelt to the unprotected countryside around it.
If you have a tory MP I’d suggest writing to them pretty quickly expressing your fears for the countryside as the government is trying to rush these changes through. Despite the consultation still being open the government has told the Planning Inspectorate that they should start considering the presumption in favour of development already as it is the “direction of travel”.
I bet the housebuilding companies are rubbing their hands with glee.
Report abuse
First the trolling about immigration – I think you’ll find imigration has been to cities and urban area a provided a growth and variety of service industries which we needed as the mass-employment dissapears off to the East. Monetarism and Thatchers hate for British workers saw to mass employement when at least a good chunk of it could have been modernised, but no – the red mist of workers wanting to be paid just enough to bring up thier children and not worry they’ll lose their homes.
So now, we have spare people – people who used to work in mass industries – we have a government who treats them like it was their fault. Next year they’ll be making life worse for them. Since the start of the 20th century big business of various sorts have influenced the development of the UK twisted to suit their interests – the money system is messed up through THIER greed. We, the ordinary population, pay up for it, as ever.
Builders don’t want to build brown field sites because they dont want to clean them up – because companies can just go bust and leave the place in a state (and you complain about travellers leaving a mess it’s nothing compared to the mercury and toxins industry leaves us to pay for). See the pattern?
These rules could see Wolverhampton and Telford join, followed by Shrewsbury.. Welshpool next? Every last inch of in-town/city industrial area land should be used before destroying green areas which cannot be replaced. Green belts have saved the trashing of life and land for years – these lazy politicians should do what we pay for, work for us. Not business and bungs.
Report abuse
“First the trolling about immigration – I think you’ll find imigration has been to cities and urban area”
Yes. but there’s a domino effect. As migrants move into urban areas the existing population moves out to the suburbs and countryside, putting more pressure on suburban and rural housing (and generating a lot of extra commuter journeys)
Obviously the more bodies we have in the UK the more houses we need regardless of where the incoming migrants end up originally.
Immigration policy has added huge numbers to the UK population since WW2, which is why we are stumbling towards a population of 70million. No party has a good record on this but the last Labour gov were the most irresponsible and reckless, adding huge numbers through net positive migration. It has been suggested there was a ‘Social Engineering ‘aspect to this- which was confirmed by Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett – the plan was to “”rub the Right’s nose in diversity”
Report abuse
DevilsChair says:
“First the trolling about immigration”.
The definition of trolling is: ‘In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an an online discussion forum’
Pointing out the direct scientific, mathematical and statistical correlation between mass immigration, a population boom (exponential) and the need for massive house building is not trolling. It’s a simple truth.
On the other hand, you are a troll, sir – by definition!
Report abuse
DevilsChair says: “First the trolling about immigration”
A troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum.
Pointing out the direct scientific, mathematical and statistical correlation between mass immigration and the current population boom (exponential)is not trolling.
However DevilsChair, you sir, are by definition a Troll
Report abuse
What about local families being unable to afford or buy properties in the village or town they grew up in ?
Many of the ideas put forward would make it easier for people who grew up in a local area to be able to buy or rent housing rather than move many miles away from jobs and families? I agree that mass house building in green belt areas may not be the best plan but a relaxation on converting properties or building small hamlets of properties around villages will bring new life and blood into the areas helping small local shops, Post offices and pubs stay in business.
Report abuse
locals in a pretty hillside villiage near me
have long been priced out by the mancunian commuters grabbing anything vacant
and as for the retail trade—there will be a tesco hiding in a field somewhere
Report abuse
With the anti Tory leftwing trolling aside, this is a worrying move by the government. Not thought through and put on the table as a quick fix under the view that people in rural areas will welcome such a move. I think you will find that it was not successive governments that dismantled our immigration controls it was new labour under a deliberate political plan to social engineer the voting population, all documented all true. However that aside the rural MPs need to speak up against this planning move or face a backlash in 2015.
Report abuse
‘all documented all true’
Where? Can you point to a single specific change in policy that led to the mythical ‘mass immigration’ you talk about?
There has been much upheaval in the world in recent decades, with the fall of the Iron Curtain, the expansion of the EU trading block, and unrest in the Middle East and other areas. In such circumstances, population moves for all sorts of good reasons – whether it be increased freedom to leave one’s own country, or the need to move due to threats to life and limb, are perfectly natural.
There is a housing crisis in this country – it dates back to the loss of much of our social housing in the 80s when the council housing stock was depeleted and not replaced – we have seen rent inflation caused by the buy-to-let phenomenon, and a general property price boom – but there is absolutely no evidence that immigration has any significant effect on the housing crisis – despite the lies put about by right wing parties and the tabloids, study after study has shown that there is no preferential treatment for immigrants and that they have no significant effect on the overall availability of reasonably-priced housing – as usual, and as history shows us, they are simply scapegoats.
Report abuse
Well peter please tell us where the 1 million plus immigrants are living.
Report abuse
The current UK population is something in the order of 62.5 million – why are you so obsessed with such a small proportion of our population.
Many recent immigrants to the UK will doubtless live in relative squalor, and in cramped conditions – so they’re unlikely to be taking a significant proprtion of the available housing market.
There’s no evidence to suggest that social housing is provided on a preferential basis to immigrants – despite the tabloid hype – in fact, they are more often than not entitled to relatively little help, dependent upon their immigration status – as a result many will live in self-funded, privately-rented accommodation.
Even where legal status has been granted, immigrants have to take their place in the queue with everyone else when it comes to social housing – there is a shortage of social housing, but as James has pointed out, this ridiculous scapegoating of people actually doesn’t help – in fact it simply provides a pointless diversion to addressing the real issues, such as the uneven geographical distribution of work in this country, the many derelict and empty properties – particularly in urban areas, the greed of (some) landlords, the huge damage done to social housing stock in the 1980s, and the proposed damage to be caused by cuts to housing benefits for the working, but low-paid population.
Report abuse
Peter:”immigrants have to take their place in the queue with everyone else”
True – but that makes the queues LONGER…
More people = more housing required. Unavoidable fact.
Report abuse
Peter. A true fact. I read in a history book of the British Isles that there were only 6,000 non white people in the country after WW11.So how many do we have now?
Report abuse
@PT73 – Of course the queue is made a little longer the more people join it – but the effect of immigration on that queue is very monor – despite all of the lies and propaganda to the contrary.
@John – why are you so obsessed with the colour of people’s skin? Are you really suggesting that it makes any quantifiable difference to the quality of the human being underneath? If so, what kind of a person does that make you?
Report abuse
you mean the ones from Uganda and the West Indies that were invited into this country to boost the working population after so many men were killed during the war..
Report abuse
they will be living in all of the houses the emmigrants have moved out of….
Report abuse
Peter::”Of course the queue is made a little longer the more people join it – but the effect of immigration on that queue is very minor”
Whatever the rights and wrongs of immigration I don’t see how the effects could ever be described as ‘minor’. Massive net inward migration since WW2 has added MILLIONS to the population – both directly, and due to immigrants tending to have larger families.
Report abuse
PETER. I’m not obsessed by the colour of their skin. I go on holiday 4 times a year to try and get a good tan like theirs, and thousands of British holiday makers do the same.
Report abuse
John,
I can just see you on holiday – shouting at the foreign people in English in the hope that they will understand you, and insisting on eating English food rather than the local cuisine. Bet they love you…
But if you are really solely concerned about levels of immigration – I wonder why you choose to point out figures for ‘non-white’ (whatever that means) immigration. The vast majority of people who are ‘non-white’ in this country are not immigrants – many have lived here for generations – but I suspect that you regard them all as ‘immigrants’.
There were recently some pictures published on the BBC website taken of Earth from a distant NASA probe. Just a tiny blue orb in a massive Universe.
You’re a man who struggles to find anything good to say about people from the next town to you – let alone another country.
I suggest you set aside a little time to study those images and give them some thought, in the hope that such study might offer you some much-needed perspective, and make you realise what petty, mean-spirited, differentials you and those who share your narrow views seek to make between human beings.
Report abuse
Given Iron Flag’s attempts to persuade us that 80% of UK social housing is occupied by Somalis – and his failure to respond when it was pointed out that this was patent nonsense – I won’t be taking his ‘all documented, all true’ claim too seriously.
I kind of envy him, though. When you can lay the blame for every social ill, from unemployment to crime to the disappearing green belt, at the door of one group of obvious scapegoats, it does save you the trouble of actually having to think.
Report abuse
So, James, all the extra people -are they not living in houses then ? Did they bring their own accomodation with them ?
Report abuse
Before I answer your question, how about helping out Iron Flag and giving evidence of Labour’s plan to ‘socially engineer the voting population…. by uncontrolled immigration’? He says its ‘all documented, all true’ so it shouldn’t be hard, should it? But I would like facts, verifiable truths, not just spite and prejudice.
I would never say immigration shouldn’t be debated. It’s an important topic and it can have implications for housing and other services. All I’m asking from those calling for stricter controls is a bit more humanity and less demonisation of people who, in the vast majority of cases, want to better themselves and contribute to society.
As for housing, there’s another angle worth considering. Immigrants often share houses to save on living costs. Many, if not most, of those from central/eastern European countries (Poland, Slovakia etc), share with friends or rent single rooms. That can lead to a quite different problem – the driving down of wages (because, contrary to what some on here will have us believe, these people simply want to work). But, like Peter I suspect, I would tend to see that problem as the responsibility of exploitative employers rather than of the immigrants themselves.
Report abuse
Here you go: (assuming Shropshire Start dont edit out link as they sometimes do)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html
Quote:
“The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and “rub the Right’s nose in diversity”, according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.
He said Labour’s relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to “open up the UK to mass migration” but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its “core working class vote”
Report abuse
I’ve got nothing against EU migrants personally by the way – I think they are an excellent bunch on the whole . I live in West London and know a lot of Poles/other E Europeans.
Report abuse
Well, it’s documentary evidence of a kind, certainly more than we’d ever get from Iron Flag, John Jones and the like. So thanks.
But is anything said in it that’s really so sinister? Essentially, Mr Neather (and I’ll join you in assuming he has no agenda of his own to peddle) is saying that Labour had the ‘hidden purpose’ of making the country more multicultural. But then increasing multiculturalism has been a feature of our country throughout its history, through Jewish migrations in the middle ages, to French protestants in the 1600s, Irish migrants in the 19th century, people from the former colonies in the 50s and 60s (many invited by that great hero of the right Enoch Powell) to the post EU expansion wave after 2000. Like it or not, our country is multicultural to its core. I find it depressing that no political party wishes to admit that.
The ‘rubbing the right’s nose in diversity’ line is, I’ll admit, a silly piece of point-scoring, no better for the fact that it was meant to be kept private. But, odd as it might seem now, immigration was widely considered necessary by many on the right as well as on the left in the early 2000s, for the economic reasons Labour did publicly acknowledge. If it hadn’t been for immigration back then, a lot of fruit wouldn’t have got picked, a lot of offices wouldn’t have been cleaned and public services in the big cities would have suffered under-staffing. There were (and probably still are) many available jobs the ‘indigenous’ population didn’t want to do.
The accusations of ‘cynical engineering’ made in the article are, of course, made by Labour’s opponents, not by Neather himself, and are simply their rather overblown interpretation of his ‘revelations’.
Report abuse
@PT73, Thanks for providing that link. I did reply 24hrs ago – might have been too long to get past the moderators…
Report abuse
Re the Telegraph article – whilst the right-leaning Telegraph is hardly a sourced of a balanced view on immigration – I accept that it is a more serious article than the tabloid-sourced uncorroborated drivel that so many put forward.
The article represents the view of one, possibly disgruntled, former advisor. Clearly I would expect Labour to have a more positive view of immigration than the Tories, who despite some members who understand the benefits of immigration are constantly held back by the right wing ‘Little Englander’ element of their party.
The former advisor himself admits that immigration was a positive thing in general – and even denies the statement the Telegraph reports in another article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/26/labour-immigration-plot-andrew-neather
The fact remains that there was no change in immigration law during this period, and that the increase in movement of migrants was much more as a result of changes in the world order – in particular the fall of the Iron Curtain – and, as stated in both the articles referenced, a significant demand in the labour market at that time.
Whetehr one chooses to believe the Telegraph or the Guardian articles, I’ve seen absolutely no credible evidence that out current housing crisis is caused by immigration – the numbers and the economics simply don’t support that view.
Furthermore, the more people allow themselves to be distracted by this ridiculous, scapegoating blame game, the less likely the government are to look at the real causes, which remain a shortage of social housing (largely caused by the deliberate depletion of this back in the 80s), the idea that the property market is a panacea for all financial ills, and finally, the ridiculous distribution of work here which sees far to much wealth and too many jobs located in the overcrowded South East.
Report abuse
YOU CAN say good buy to meole brace golf course sadly as i and most of the players in shrewsbury learnt how to play there,the council will sell after osbornes got his way
Report abuse
I dont think people will want to live in the country with no jobs or public transport. Towns may expand in an uncontrolled fashion.What we need is more affordable housing in the countryside to keep villages and small towns alive but I cannot see it happening as any industrial or work related development will be opposed by the rich.
Report abuse
To get the traditionally conservative and placid National Trust to condem government policy wholesale suggests it must be bad law. Yet the Con-dems reacted to this by calling them Lefties. Lol!! Having previously been a Conservative voter and member but also a life long National Trust member I have been forced to pick sides and today I amm officially cancelling my Conservative party membership over this outragous comments and poorly judged legislation, I shall be voting UKIP in future and I shall remain a National Trust member til I die
Report abuse
Sadly the view of most of the comments seems to be ‘I’m alright Jack’, yes everybody would love to retain all these green field sites but what do we suppose was there before our homes were built?
Life is and always has been a balance of give and take, although it seems the learned submissions believe in the latter than the former.
Let’s give the next generation an opportunity to live and progress, they are after all the future and will be the source of most peoples pension funds.
Cast them adrift at your peril!
Report abuse
When do we stop though ? When the last field is under concrete, and ALL our food is imported.
No countryside, no woods or trees, no meadows ?
Sounds like hell to me. I’m fighting it all the way…
Report abuse
Developers are sitting on existing planning permissions for 330,000 homes. There are 750,000 empty homes in the country and enough brownfield land for 3 million. How about we start there before we suburbanise huge chunks of the countryside?
Report abuse
Agricultural land produces food and employment so if you build on it you have solved one problem by creating two more.
Report abuse
Less profit for developers with brownfield sites…
Report abuse
No one can wreck the countryside more than the Labour government did, banning fox hunting and closing rural pubs, they were a disgrace, now Cameron knows what he’s doing ok so stop worrying and relax you are now in safe hands with a great leader
Report abuse
Whether banning fox-hunting has ‘wrecked the countryside’ is a debatable point which I’ll leave aside for now. What is not debatable is that, while the legislation was introduced under a Labour government, it was passed on a free vote in Parliament. Some Conservatives are, in fact, as passionately anti-hunting as their Labour counterparts.
As for Labour ‘closing rural pubs’, I’m sorry but you’ve lost me completely there.
Don’t want to get too party political but Cameron, like his great hero Blair (see, told you I wasn’t party-political,) was, is and forever will be, nothing more than a PR man.
Report abuse
Why doesn’t the Star give old blue boy a weekly column – we need cheering up at the moment and his tongue in cheek (I hope!) fawning over the tories is even funnier than Lady Tart’s hilarious spoof “Royal Correspondent” articles.
Report abuse
What a load of drivel stop reading the Sun and get real.
Report abuse
I’m sorry for my lad’s delusional outbursts, but I just can’t get him to take his medicine at the moment.
Report abuse
“I just can’t get him to take his medicine at the moment.”
Just smear it on a brick, then hit him with it – the way we showed you at the clinic….
Report abuse
Yes I tried that – using it as a suppository as you suggested. But he keeps talking!
Report abuse
…if the suppository isn’t working it’s worse than I thought…..there’s only one thing left to try – you’re going to have to be very brave and pump up the Thatcher doll….whatever you do don’t look into its eyes!!!!
Report abuse
#10
Sorry to disappoint you carl….
Clivedon Village – billed as an “elegant gated development nestling within the stunning
376-acre National Trust Clivedon Estate.” Who is behind this scheme to build houses on land donated to the trust by Lord Astor – on the stipulation it should not be turned into a,
” speculator’s building estate ?”
Countryside Properties, in partnership with the National Trust!
As previously reported by Private Eye magazine,local residents fought a long and bitter campaign against the development and at the NT’s AGM in Portsmouth in 2003 they won the backing of a majority of ordinary members for a resolution deploring the decision to build. However, far from heeding the voice of its members, the NT’s leadership used 19,000 discretionary votes to defeat the resolution.
Report abuse
…so support the CPRE !
Report abuse
It appears some on here are more National Front than National Trust..
Report abuse
You mean:
Chop
Planning
Reforest
Everywhere
or their real agenda:
BANANA
Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything
Report abuse
Shropshire will be turned into Telford! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH SCAREY!
Report abuse
Well done bob your alphabet lessons are coming on nicely. Come back tomorrow and have a go at
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
Report abuse
Bob,
Have you ever been to Telford? Other than the Town Centre I mean?
Have you any idea of the large number of jobs the town has provided to people living elsewhere in Shropshire over the years?
Report abuse
The countryside is being turned into a themepark for people who want to have the best of both worlds by working in the city and living somewhere with a view. This means that the local housing market gets so inflated that people who actually work in an area and contribute to the local economy can’t afford to buy homes and farmers find they can make more money selling off their farms than running them. Why are we wanting to build on even more agricultural land when there is a world food shortage and lack of jobs in the rural economy?
Report abuse
I totally agree with you, N Pritchard.
England is full up – we haven’t the resources, the infrastructure or space to cope with anymore immigration.
Report abuse
they are still building on brownfield sites and flooded brownfield sites. luxury houses with moored coracles on the gay meadow, the wakeman school to be turned into luxury flats, shrewsbury is a developers paradise.
what next split level houses on grinshill, luxury flats next to longmynd international airport.
Report abuse