Dear Editor,

Cllr Andrew McCormick was right in his recent letter to highlight that the decision to pause the Local Plan is ‘nuanced’. The Conservative council leaders have paused the Local Plan after months of being lobbied about the scale of expansion in our borough, but they don’t have a Plan B. In fact, their hope rests on the Government, well good luck with that! 

Given the fact the former PM's (Liz Truss) Government has betrayed renters over plans that will see a promised ban on no-fault evictions ditched and affordable home requirements on developers dropped, her approach to housing is simply shocking given the need we have for truly affordable homes. It’s just one crisis followed by another. 

The latest local debacle over Basing View and the council sacking Muse Developments doesn’t help, nor do the plans for nearly 500 flats on the Viewpoint site. Let’s not forget New River Retail’s abject failure on the Leisure Park and six lost years; nor the fact that still after 28 years not one house has been built on Manydown; nor the continuing saga of SERCO and the failing waste collection service. They say you know if a council isn’t doing well when they can’t collect your bins! 

There is huge frustration on so many fronts from all parts of the borough. People are angry that they are just not being listened to. People are hanging on, hoping that things change, that the chaos we’re living through can be brought under control. People are facing crisis – mortgages, rents, food and energy prices rocketing – all made so much worse by the former Prime Minister’s and Chancellor’s mini-budget and the local council leaders who simply have their heads in the sand. 

SEE ALSO: More needs to be done to achieve carbon neutrality

The energy crisis is biting down hard on those least able to cope. Warm homes, cooked food, hot water – all cut back or cut out. Debt is spiralling. Physical and mental health are suffering.  

It’s not good enough for the same old Conservative Leadership to carry on managing failure. We need to break the cycle and do something positive.  

It’s palpable talking to people about their aspirations for our borough, their hopes and desires for their families and we need to unleash that ambition.  I’m saying there is another positive approach to running the council, to working across groups and parties to really reflect localism – a coalition of the willing. 

I say it’s time we unleashed our potential. We have an amazing public sector in Basingstoke that deserves far more support than it is getting. We have a private sector that knows what can be achieved if we just listen to them too. Bringing the private and public sector together has always been the foundation of our success.  

We need to enable affordable housing that means what it says, so local people can get that first foot on the property ladder – either to rent or buy; we need to tackle the housing crisis we have locally with partners who are willing to insulate homes, directly tackle inequality and address people’s aspiration to have a home of their own they can actually afford. We have to address the costly insecurity of living in rented housing and a lot of it is of a poor standard. 

We cannot keep on paying lip-service to climate change, let’s see Borough/County owned land set aside for solar and wind power; let’s tackle recycling with a can-do attitude and offer separate food waste collection; let’s make sure all new housing built is zero carbon and ‘passiv haus’. Let’s protect our precious rivers and ecology for all our children’s future. 

We want to revitalise our town centre not by dumping thousands of flats in it, but by listening to people’s desire for shops, restaurants, community uses and leisure. We need a whole town strategy, not something that is piecemeal and it needs to work with Basing View, surrounding communities and a rejuvenated Leisure Park where we think big. Unless we join up our vision into something more coherent the council are just playing monopoly. 

We really need to mean what we say when protecting our villages. Sustainable growth must mean something very different from endless housing estates without infrastructure. We want good health services, not to hang endlessly on the phone hoping someone will pick up at the other end.  

I passionately believe in localism, that through civic leadership that is founded on people's aspirations we can do our politics differently and deliver for our communities. We have such a job of work to do;  I say let’s unlock Basingstoke & Deane’s potential together. 

Cllr Paul Harvey

Leader of the Basingstoke & Deane Independent Group