| Subject |
Government talks out Bill to protect back gardens
|
| Ref |
PR/07-103 |
| Date |
Friday 2nd February
2007 |
The Government today ignored yet another opportunity to quell the
tide of 'garden grabbing' and flats development by 'talking out'
a Private Members Bill that would have given greater powers to local
authorities to protect gardens and urban green space.
Tobias spoke in this morning's Private Members Bill debate stating
that the character of Bournemouth is changing due to the extra thousand
flats that are built, mostly on back gardens, without improvements
to our infrastructure.
Commenting on the debate Tobias said:
"A combination of huge housing targets imposed on Bournemouth
(by the SW Regional Assembly), combined with weak planning laws,
make our town a developers' paradise.
Back gardens are currently categorised as 'brownfield' and the Bill
would have removed this label and placed power back in the hands
of local and allowed, in our case, Bournemouth Council, to determine
if a garden should be lost to development."
The consequences of overdevelopment without improvements to our
infrastructure are serious; our ageing sewage system cannot cope
with the tenfold increase on the system, parking on our residential
roads is reaching critical levels due to lack of road provision
and unless tackled, congestion of our major arterial routes to a
point of gridlock is only a few years away.
Loss of gardens also has an environmental consequence. As our climate
changes we are more prone to flash floods. The concreting over of
gardens means less rainwater is absorbed and Bournemouth, with its
aging sewage system, will be susceptible to flooding.
Notes:
The Land Use (Gardens Protection etc) Bill seeks to:
" Protect gardens and urban green space;
" Confer on local authorities powers to set housing density
targets;
" Transfer land formerly used for economic purposes to residential
use;
" Transfer to local authorities certain powers relating to
housing and planning.
Parking Spaces
Conservatives have pledged to review national planning rules to
ensure new houses and flats are built with sufficient parking spaces.
John Prescott's current rules (PPG13: Transport) discourage parking
spaces in new developments, meaning cars just spill onto neighbouring
streets.
ed.
|
