Change of view on horrific scheme
IS there a lack of honesty, integrity and transparency in local politics? I have been shocked at how some local politicians feel they don’t have to take any responsibility for their actions.
The electorate is entitled to honest answers – and before the elections. I have done my research.
There is nowhere in this country where 280-houses and an hotel has been built on top of 700-tons of asbestos on the edge of an estuary with the asbestos buried beneath the water table. Are we being used as human guinea pigs?
Staff and pupils at a school in Scotland, built on a waste dump, now have some serious health issues Northern Burrows has serious problems of erosion and the very earth spewing out our garbage. Asbestos was found at the Army Camp and Anchorwood.
In January this year Fremington Parish Council voted unanimously against the largest, most controversial planning application to come to North Devon, ie developing a gated housing estate on the
Yelland Asbestos Site on the banks of our Taw/Torridge Estuary.
This unanimous decision to object to this horrific scheme was taken despite the developer’s agents telling us at the public meeting that: ‘There was nothing we could do about it; it’s all been decided; it’s in Local
Plan – it is going ahead’.
The district/county councillor told us this was not correct – as did the planning department.
However, recently the chairman of FPC, Cllr Sue Kingdom has suddenly agreed with developers and stated in her chairman’s report: “This site has been recognized within the Local Plan which was agreed in October 2018.
This means the most we can do is to make sure that the development has conditions and controls attached to the application”.
This is not true - unless this current ‘consultation period’ is a sham. I have asked councillors to put this issue on the agenda for the next Fremington Parish Council meeting.
I would hope via the media, to keep residents informed. Please send in your objections to PA
60823 for 280-houses & Hotel on Yelland Asbestos Site on line to planningcomments@northdevon. gov.uk or in writing to: Strategic Development & Planning, North Devon Council, Lynton House, Commercial Road, Barnstaple, EX31 1DG. We have until December to get our objections in.
Green ‘whitewash’ is making us all sick; councils including FPC rushing to sign up to “climate emergency”, whilst covering the land in concrete; calling it progress and then having the audacity to ask us to vote for them in the next election.
Joanne Bell Barnstaple, Devon