Council needs to get a move on with Local Plan

THE Lib Dem Council needs to raise its game in handling planning issues for our community. It needs to make a stronger case to demonstrate that the recent high rate of building has more than taken care of the targets in the current local plan.

It needs to demonstrate there is plenty of land with planning permissions available for the rest of the plan.

It also needs to get on with producing a successor plan.

The government has made it very clear that if the Council does not have an up-to-date local plan then Inspectors may well grant more housebuilding permissions and may well choose locations local people do not want to see built on.

I have worked with a group of MPs to secure the promise from the government that they will not impose mandatory top-down targets for numbers of homes to be built.

More power will rest with local Council to design a suitable local plan.

An up-to-date local plan will be a key influence on any planning appeals after it comes into force.

So, get on with it, Wokingham Borough.

All the time we have a global system of national accounting for carbon dioxide production the UK will come out well from the numbers and China and India will come out badly. UK policy has driven a lot of heavy energy using industry out of our country to force us to rely on more imports.

The imports from China mean more carbon dioxide produced in China and less in the UK.

The UK has stopped most of its coal-based electricity production and come to rely more on imported electricity. Given this is the approved system why don’t the green campaigners rejoice at the UK’s success in driving down its carbon dioxide output?

According to global figures China accounts for 30% of manmade carbon dioxide in the world and the UK under 1%. China’s increase in carbon dioxide output in a typical year exceeds total UK output for that year.

These numbers do tell us a truth about carbon dioxide and should encourage the campaigners to pressurise China to do far more than she is doing.

They could turn their attention to the Chinese Embassies if they do not fancy trying a protest in China itself. China and India do rely on coal much more than the advanced countries to generate their power. They are opening new coal power stations and mines.

One of the reasons many people who accept the climate change theory do not do more in their own lives to buy green products is their sense of futility given the way carbon dioxide worldwide continues to expand whatever action the UK government and consumers take.

Despite all the COPs, law changes in advanced countries and the resolutions in world bodies world carbon dioxide output continues to expand as the tenth anniversary of the Paris Agreement draws near.

So why do Green campaigners attack our own country instead of concentrating on the sources of so much carbon dioxide growth?

Protesters wanting a quicker green transition should praise the UK and challenge others