Difficult questions

The headline in Monday’s Times proclaims ‘Johnson to relax rules on building new homes’ and that one of the intentions of the proposed new legislation is ‘making it more difficult for existing homeowners to block new housing schemes’.

The only protection would be designation as a ‘protected area’.

It is likely that this bill will be ‘bulldozed’ through as it a win-win for the party, feeding wealthy developers and shareholders with more easy profit whilst offering discounted first-time buyer housing for large swathes of previously Labour strongholds.

However, for the already overpopulated South East and West Sussex especially, where strong Conservative councils have no reason to oppose the central intent, it raises a number of questions for us in the supposedly democratically ‘represented’ electorate.

It is easy to waste words on what is wrong with covering our green fields with lines of houses, on ruining the uniqueness of little villages and hamlets, of failing to ‘hear’ the very people who have kept you in power for years – better to rationally consider what are the key issues for local folks that need raising. For me some of these include:

We need a grown-up apolitical discussion among the electorate as to where greenfield new houses should be built locally. We will need new housing stock but with such limited space and countryside – where should that be? Some give/take will be necessary.

Is the creation of a new village a possible option? If it is, lessons from the massive issues associated with Crawley need avoiding and learning from successful current local village communities included.

Should established communities then be protected in terms of population size and outskirt spread to avoid losing the very fabric that makes the place successful?

Why do we vote for local council representation when patently they do not have the power to represent us? Is it time to accept that ‘elected’ local councils are actually central government administrators? Where is our MP? Difficult questions need consideration before statute makes our reality much worse and much more untold damage done to the environment.

BERNICE BAKER Tower Hill, Horsham