Spokesperson’s BLP claims on repeat

There was an interesting letter in Viewpoint (July 28) from Stephen Perret regarding the consultation (a word I use loosely in this context) on the council’s Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) for the proposed South West Maidenhead development.

It comes as no surprise that the council have made it extremely difficult to make comments on the SPD and one can only assume that this has been done deliberately in order to minimise the number of people responding to this consultation.

This ploy has been used in the past by our council – for instance for residents trying to register to sign petitions on line.

I totally agree with Mr Perret that the current consultation should be suspended and a simple form should be sent to all households in the borough, thus enabling a fair and democratic sounding to be taken.

Sadly, even if this were to happen, the exercise, in all probability, will have been in vain, given the council’s stubbornly blinkered determination to develop S.W. Maidenhead in the face of reason and public opinion.

It is vitally important that residents maintain their opposition to this unpopular, wholly unwanted and totally unnecessary development.

In its present form the BLP will create sufficient new homes to accommodate a 40 per cent increase in the population of Maidenhead – now.

Given that there has been only a 10 per cent growth in the town’s population in the last 10 years, this expansion rate will mean that many of the houses scheduled to be built by the end of the plan in 2033 will not be occupied until around 2077.

Clearly, there is little or no logic to this programme.

Where are all these new residents going to come from?

Has the council done a secret deal with some London boroughs with Maidenhead destined to become a London overspill town?

A ‘council spokesperson’ has recently been repeating the council’s misleading and disingenuous statement regarding the loss of greenbelt due to the BLP.

The statement claims that the BLP ‘still protects 82 per cent of the borough as greenbelt, and just 1 per cent has been released for new homes and employment’.

It is essential that this untruthful statement continues to be challenged, otherwise residents will begin to believe it, and to think that the BLP is not so bad after all.

These figures are mischievous at best, because they include vast areas of Crown Estate land, ie belonging to the Royal

Family and thus not eligible for consideration.

This approach significantly and neatly distorts the message repeatedly trumpeted by our council.

Furthermore, how, I wonder, is the destruction of over 150 acres of precious greenbelt compatible with the statement ‘the BLP protects our valued natural historic heritage’?

It is also significant that the council is

very careful not to publicise the fact that the development of the golf course alone would result in the destruction of approximately 48 per cent, almost half, of Maidenhead's greenbelt.

This would be a disaster for the town and for all our current and future generations. Roll on the local elections in May 2023...

JOHN HUDSON Rushington Avenue

Maidenhead