Speech given by Councillor Sue Blount at Rushcliffe Borough Council Extraordinary Meeting Thursday15^th   June 2006.

I would also like to register my outrage that Councillor Evans wasn't allowed to speak earlier; I know how he feels, at the full council meeting on 16^th March I begged that that the mayor read out why I wasn't there, I was in three inches of snow in Scarborough at the Green Party Conference, but my request was refused. As a result I received a large number of emails, probably some of them were sent by the some of the people here tonight. I was tarred with the same brush as many of those opposite. Confronted with them one night I sat in front of my computer and cried; because people thought that I and my party didn't care.

In the debates at the Local Plan Working Group and tonight, in particular by Councillors Perdue-Horan and Tiplady, the issue of affordable housing has come up. In fact, at the meetings of the Local Plan Working Group some other councillors mentioned it so often that I had to keep checking to see whether it was 100% affordable! But no, councillors, let?s not forget that 70% of the proposed development isn't affordable. At Cotgrave there is a high percentage of affordable housing so a development with 70% not affordable would make the area more mixed. Of course we need affordable housing in West Bridgford and we need sheltered accommodation too, ask the elderly people in Lady Bay !

I want to reduce traffic more than any other elected member on this council - probably! Planning advice has for many years suggested that one of the jost successful ways to reduce traffic is to provide employment opportunities in amongst housing so that people do not have to travel to work, the city council have a plan like this for their Riverside development. This type of mixed development would be ideal for Cotgrave, where there is a need for employment, instead of housing only at Sharphill, where everyone will commute into the city.

Councillors, do you really want affordable housing? At the moment Rushcliffe Borough Council asks developers for 30% affordable housing on sites of fifteen or more. The Green group on Oxford City Council asked for 50% on two or more dwellings. That is how much I and my party support the provision of affordable housing. They didn?t get it; they got 50% on ten or more. Developers want to build in Oxford just as they do in Rushcliffe, they might complain, but we are a borough council representing the people, not an agency providing sites for developers. If you want affordable housing, as I do, I might be on the waiting list for it in a couple of years! Then change the planning rules! Make sure developers provide 50% affordable housing on sites of ten or more, that way you can support affordable housing and not build on Sharphill.

Another issue mentioned often is transport  I wonder how many councillors came to this meeting tonight using one of these (holds up bus pass) as I did? It took me forty minutes to get here from Lady Bay ; on the number 11, then waiting 20 minutes at Trent Bridge , then on the number 10. I wonder how far you can get in forty minutes in a car - I wouldn't know; I don?t drive but I bet a lot further than from one side of West Bridgford to the other! I'm afraid at least 70% of the people who come to live in the Sharphill development, were it to be built, will be travelling by private car, or two! Not by bus.

Not voting for Sharphill doesn't mean we will have more flats built on private gardens as was suggested earlier, we already have plenty of plans for that! I know, I am on Development Control! But hopefully, at the next full council meeting, on 29^th June, we can vote to support Greg Clarke's (a Conservative from Tunbridge Wells) private members bill to remove the government loophole that classifies gardens as brown field sites.

Councillors, I urge you to follow the advice of the inspector, vote for the amendment and do not build on Sharphill, nor, as he also advised, at Lady Bay !