Danger to England's green and pleasant land

IN reply to the letter by Tony Burton (Gazette, January 14), the consultant working on behalf of Greencore, I understand that, despite what he says about 'extensive public participation and consultation', many Littlehampton residents have absolutely no idea of the sheer vast scale of these proposed developments.
By The Newsroom
Published 20th Jan 2010, 12:08 BST
Updated 20th Jan 2010, 12:08 BST

Those who do know are concerned and puzzled at how many homes will be built.

Let's be absolutely straight here – this plan could mean up to 2,000 new houses. I really challenge the idea that this "extensive consultation" has managed to get on the radar of most local folk.

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Last year, I attended one of these consultation meetings. Most of the people there appeared to have some sort of political or professional interest in these developments.

Personally, I did not see many ordinary residents – my main point is local people must be made fully aware of the size of the proposed developments, and a few meetings with adverts in the local press to publicise them really will not do. This smacks of a "tick box" mentality.

I challenge Burton Property to publicise to all Littlehampton residents, maybe via a leaflet, exactly what is being proposed by Greencore, simply and unambiguously.

Surely, this will allow people to know about the proposed scheme and then make a sensible judgement on its merits or not?

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Secondly, I welcome the statement that the value-added facilities will be "secured by legal agreement", because at the end of the day, Greencore (and to an extent Mr Burton ) have no intrinsic interest in this area whatsoever, apart from the simple fact that they wish to maximise their assets and selling this land for houses will deliver their company a substantially large financial bonus.

In my view, having seen so many of these developments go forward, unless local politicians at county, district and town levels put up a united front, this massive house-building scheme may well proceed.

The bottom line is – profit for the landowner (in this case Greencore) and the fulfilment of central government (Stalinist style) proposals to build over yet more and more of England's green and pleasant land.

Dave Sax

Arundel Road

Littlehampton

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