Bedford Borough’s Mayor Dave Hodgson ‘continues to misrepresent and insult’ those who criticise his botched Local Plan, according to Conservative Group Leader Cllr Stephen Moon.
Cllr Moon wrote to the Times & Citizen this week arguing that the Mayor is ‘failing the most important task now facing the Borough’ after the collapse of his plan to create a ‘Garden Village’ at Colworth, a green field site adjacent to Sharnbrook and Souldrop.
The Council’s Local Plan is set to allocate sites for around 8000 homes to the year 2035. The Colworth Garden Village would have contributed 2500 homes in this period and 4500 thereafter, but the Mayor now has to go back to the drawing board after the site promotors failed to reach an agreement over noise mitigations with the owners of nearby Santa Pod Raceway.
Cllr Moon’s letter to the Times & Citizen is reproduced below:
The Mayor has as usual responded to disagreement with accusations of ‘shameless political scaremongering’. He is, of course, the expert in political scaremongering.
What cannot be denied is that he is failing the most important task now facing the Borough. That task is the development of a plan that enables Bedford and the surrounding villages to cope with the necessary and inevitable growth in housing over the coming decades. There is already a serious shortage of housing; particularly housing suitable for first time buyers, young families, those looking to downsize and those simply wanting quality and secure rented accommodation.
A coherent plan would provide the types of housing most needed in the places where people most need it. That means locating development around existing and proposed major transport links, both road and rail, ensuring convenient access to employment, education, shopping and leisure facilities and other necessary services. It means making clear provision for the organic growth of existing rural communities. It also means that current plans must be compatible with the continuing growth that will go well beyond the initial plan period.
The Local Plan which the Mayor has just been forced to withdraw is deeply flawed, not just because of its dependence on an always doomed new town at Colworth. It simply meets none of the criteria set out above.
At no time has the Mayor actually led this process. He simply sat back and invited landowners to offer sites for development. He has then, after many changes of mind, decided to rely on a few large estates plonked onto greenfield land in villages where there is grossly inadequate road links. There was a belated change last summer which replaced a few village sites with sites in Bedford town, the viability of which is at best uncertain.
Securing the future growth of Bedford is a vital task which should be a matter for proper public debate. Despite its importance it has never been debated in Council. It is the Mayor who has made every decision and who continues to misrepresent and insult those who believe the process should be opened up.