Bus woes

Dear Editor,

We citizens are being encouraged to leave our cars at home and use public transport, in order to limit carbon emissions, but the local authorities in Basingstoke to not appear to be heeding the message at all.

I use the bus station on a regular basis and the waiting room has been closed to the public throughout lockdown, forcing passengers to wait outside in all weathers. I made enquiries today regarding the re-opening of the waiting room now that Autumn and Winter will soon be upon us and was told there would be no waiting room in future as it is being turned into a control room.

This town is expanding at an alarming rate, with tens of thousands of new houses sprawling into the countryside surrounding the town, with obviously no concern about bus passengers being protected from the elements when they venture out.

I have visited smaller towns than this with far superior facilities, those such as Retford and High Wycombe, where bus stations have very spacious interiors with specified waiting areas and very important toilets and washrooms.

Why would anyone, particularly the many elderly and infirm passengers that use the bus station, leave the warmth and comfort of their cars to wait in the wind and cold?

Linda Morris, Foyle Park.

What is going on?

Dear Editor,

Our town centre is losing lots of shops, now it seems the rents for units are going up which will send more to the wall. Houses are to built in Festival place too if the reports are correct. What is going on? One thing is certain and that is the Council make decisions with no regard for local people’s wishes.

Ian Mackay, Coniston Road, Basingstoke.

We need fewer houses, not more

Dear Editor,

Tonight (Thursday, September 16), a handful of elected officials will make a decision that will affect us all for the next 20 or 30 years. The environment, planning and housing (EPH) committee will decide whether to accept that an additional 18,000 home should be built in Basingstoke by 2039.

They will do this without any evidence of either the need for this much housing or the impact this will have on our environment. Yes, we face a dilemma. On the one hand our young people are desperate for decent, well built affordable homes for themselves and their families; but on the other we hand we face a climate and ecological emergency. Our air is polluted, just three years ago a high court judge had to order the Council to deal with illegal levels of air pollution in our Town, in terms of phosphates the Loddon is one of the most heavily polluted waters in England, on an almost weekly basis raw sewage is pumped into it. We already live in one of the most water stressed regions in Europe. Our fauna and flora is under threat.

We have declared a climate emergency and want to be zero carbon by 2030. This is just the bare minimum we need to achieve. 1.5-2 degree warning is now inevitable and we need to plan how we adapt to the new, extreme, climate particularly in terms of rainfall, heat and flooding. We can no longer pump over a million tonnes of climate changing gases into our atmosphere each and every year.

Our atmosphere, our water and our environment has been pushed beyond its limits. Before the EPH decides on what to do it is imperative that they have all the evidence before it. Evidence on the impact these houses will have on our water and air and on climate change. They also need to ask “Just how many homes do we need?” Only then can they make an informed decision. All of the evidence we do have points towards building fewer homes and not more.

All we can do is ask the members of EPH to step up to their responsibilities to the people of Basingstoke (now and in the future) and ask for proper evidence before they jump to the (wrong) conclusion on how many homes we need.

Martin Heath, Old Basing.

We need to create a charming town

Dear Editor,

There is a growing sound coming from the residents of Basingstoke that, at this critical time of reviewing our Local Plan, must be heeded. The questions that are being asked are “why must we feel forced to agree to such a huge burden of new houses? Why is it happening yet again? Some local authorities are calling for breathing space – why not us?”

The more we jump to it to meet the ever-present top-down demand for eye-watering numbers of new homes, the more we find ourselves throwing up houses that do nothing to help us achieve the carbon neutrality that our world so desperately needs and that we as a Council have pledged to.

We must take a step back and take time to re-assess our Borough housing, look at some facts (what about water supply?) and take a breath before we bow yet again to government demand.

Our world is changing and we must change with it, not remain stuck in algorithms to assess housing requirements that are out of date. Today, more people work from home and don’t need to be on London’s doorstep; the birth rate is beginning to dip below the death rate; we have a care crisis and need to look to draw family generations together, not facilitate their fragmentation.

People need a sense of belonging – to be part of an identifiable community – not simply dwell in one of the “little boxes … that all look just the same”, to quote the late Pete Seeger’s song. Basingstoke has already swallowed up several villages – must it consume even more?

Basingstoke’s transformation to a London overspill was rushed, and the consequences have taken a long time to begin to remedy. That is history and we are where we are, but we must learn from it. Let us take a step back and create a town of character, charm and well-being for present and future generations.

Cllr Diane Taylor, Oakley.

Half-baked climate report

Dear Editor,

The recent report to the borough council’s Environment, Planning and Housing Committee is written as if there were no Climate Emergency. Where is the baked-in climate protection thinking? I mean inclusion of such things as zero carbon buildings, household water management, generous green spaces, local energy generation. Where is the respect for the council’s fast-aging Climate Emergency motion?

The report is half-baked. It has about as much validity as the “oven-ready” solutions being offered by our PM in other contexts. I suggest this because I cannot see how one could possibly prepare a sound and creative plan – which attracts public buy-in – without first publishing completed and reviewed transport, water, sustainability or infrastructure studies? That done, and ONLY THEN should one start to seriously consider where and how many houses can responsibly be accommodated.

I do not blame council officers; they have to work to the agenda set by political masters. So this is in the hands of the Council Leader and cabinet.

I cannot see a Planning Inspector expressing satisfaction given the failure to so far comply with the NPPF and much other government guidance.

The report, outlining proposed updates to the current statutory Local Plan, makes no mention of the plans for the long awaited Chineham Rail Station nor proposals for dealing with the fast approaching expiry if the permission for the Chineham Incinerator. It also makes the remarkable observation that Basingstoke has a: “dedicated cycle network that is good in some areas”. There are certainly some short stretches of usable cycle path, but in no way does it deserve to be called a “Network”.

I award the report 3 out of 10; so could do much better.

Martin Biermann, Reading Road, Chineham.

Disgusted by cllr’s overspill view

Dear Editor,

I write to you with absolute disgust in response to Councillor Ken Rhatigan’s comments in last week’s Gazette about the London overspill (“Town could be set to take on overspill”, September 9).

His comments are completely wrong. There were people relocated to Basingstoke in the 1960s and 1970s because of their jobs. My nan and grandad were relocated as per the Greater London Authority which Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council welcomed with open arms. The only thing they didn’t consider was the families with children.

I would ask Cllr Rhatigan to rethink what he has said regarding this. Either he hasn’t done his research or looked into the history of Basingstoke.

I do feel this discussion over houses will cause lots of controversy. There are teenagers leaving school now and going to colleague but won’t be in a position to get their own property. Will there be anywhere to look for new houses [if they can’t agree where to build them]?

I really do think Cllr Rhatigan needs to retract his words.

Name and address supplied.

Amateurs in charge at council

Dear Editor,

In a knee-jerk world council town planners have always been blamed, largely unfairly, for badly designed buildings. In reality they have little control over what buildings look like. Their job is to control where buildings can be built and for what purposes. Most private sector buildings are effectively designed by banks and other investors who lend the money for construction and by accountants who drive costs down to improve profits.

Take a walk down the very depressing High Street, Winchester and its terrible 20th Century buildings. This, a city with Roman, Norman and royal heritage and with the HQ of the County Council just a few yards away. If Winchester can’t get high quality design with such a background what chance does Basingstoke have? You only need to drive by the thousands of new homes currently being built in our town to realise that the battle is already lost. It will be interesting to see whether the deliberately delayed and overly manicured Manydown development will actually generate better quality homes once land is sold.

No, the real job for planners is to determine where development should be allowed and to ensure that the process for doing so is democratic, understandable, relevant and sustainable. This is where things have gone badly wrong over the last few years and are now leading to disastrous policies for future house building.

Our democracy requires that ‘amateur’ councillors make decisions on very technical and political subjects like planning. It is a highly flawed form of democracy because the professional officers, who are supposed to inform them, do a very bad job. Take a look at any of the agenda papers presented to the development control committee, whether dealing with current planning applications or the future development of our borough and you will find literally hundreds of pages of dense, verbose and technical “advice”. It is extremely unlikely that our councillors ever find the time to read all the way through them or understand them before they have to make vitally important decisions – they have normal lives to live as well!

Those poorly advised Councillors are now faced with the hugely important task of determining where new development should take place over the next decade or so. But they have the impossible task of understanding the huge volume of papers before them. Not only that, but so much vital information is missing.

It’s high time the councillors took back control over the planning process and demanded succinct reports but with all the information they need to make good decisions. They should refuse to make such decisions unless they understand all the issues and have all the information before them.

Tony Vines, Lychpit.

It is time to pause on housing

Dear Editor,

Tonight, Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council’s employment planning and housing committee will consider the selection of sites that will be included in the draft local plan. Despite the Borough failing to deliver its previous target of 850 homes per annum, the committee has been directed that in its revised local plan it should deliver 900 homes each year. Who has set this target? Is it central government or our local council? Why the haste? The future of the government’s planning legislation is unclear; local evidence required to make planning decisions isn’t complete. The committee cannot make an evidence-led decision on Thursday evening. It is time for a pause.

Cllr Julian Jones, chairman at Dummer Parish Council.

Please consider us with allergies

Dear Editor,

I am writing to plead with you to consider the allergies of your shoppers. It is a little known fact that the most common spice allergy is in fact to cinnamon. Around 2-3 per cent of all known allergies are from spices, myself being a sufferer.

Due to the lack of recognition of this allergy, it makes it very hard not only for sufferers to identify what foods contain cinnamon, but to also shop when a lot of products contain cinnamon.

Around the Christmas period especially, many shops and markets begin to sell their winter range fragrances, which typically contain a form of cinnamon. What most don’t think of, and is certainly true for me, is the serious risk of anaphylactic shock and this risk makes it incredibly hard to shop for those with a cinnamon allergy. I myself, was hospitalised last year due to a simple spill of a cinnamon cleaning product by the shop workers themselves. The fragrance was released into the air, and I began to choke in the middle of the store.

I am kindly asking that all cinnamon products be not only clearly sign-posted, but that cinnamon products are wrapped well and not put on display (such as cinnamon foods, candles and open fragrances products).

Maddison Rock, Carmichael Way.

Unfair levy

Dear Editor,

Liberal Democrats have slammed local Conservative MP Kit Malthouse decision to break his promise to the electorate and vote for a 1.25% rise in National Insurance. Mr Malthouse was one of the 317 Conservative MPs to support these plans. The changes, which go against the Conservatives’ manifesto promise not to raise taxes, will mean hard-pressed local families and small businesses will be left paying hundreds of pounds more in tax each year.

Liberal Democrats voted against the government plans, arguing that they fail to fix the ongoing social care crisis. We are calling for a cross-party agreement on social care, to find a long-term solution to funding high-quality care for everyone who needs it.

The lack of detail in the government proposals suggest that this is going to be more of a tax grab rather than a workable solution to fix social care. There are three reasons that it will not work. There will be no new money for social care for three years as the initial focus is recovering from pandemic backlogs within the NHS. Local authorities are responsible for funding social care yet have been seeing their central government grants progressively cut such that many are effectively bankrupt, including Hampshire. Finally, there is no guarantee of the necessary capacity building required in the NHS and care system with the result that the money will be frittered away.

The Conservatives stood on a clear promise at the last election not to raise taxes, including National Insurance. Now they have voted to break that promise by hitting hard-pressed families and small businesses in North West Hampshire with a tax hike at a time many are still reeling from the impact of the pandemic. Our people deserve better than this. They need MPs who they can trust and who will fight for a fairer deal for our area.

Liberal Democrats opposed these unjust plans in Parliament. We have been clear about how to fix the social care crisis in a fairer way, instead of hiking taxes on those who can least afford it. We want to see cross-party talks on how to fund social care in a fair and sustainable way, along with urgent action to fix the staffing crisis in care homes and give unpaid carers the recognition they deserve.

Cllr Luigi Gregori

Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesperson

North West Hampshire