Tag: green belt

Poll reveals vast majority value countryside access

  • 85% said access to the countryside was ‘very important’ (53%) or ‘fairly important’ (32%) 
  • Strong support for countryside access evident across every age group, gender, region and socioeconomic background 
  • 85% of Labour voters agree that access to the countryside is important

The vast majority of people in Great Britain believe it’s important to have access to the countryside close to where they live, according to new polling from countryside charity CPRE and YouGov.  

85% of those asked responded that access to the countryside was either ‘very important’ (53%) or ‘fairly important’ (32%). Strong support for countryside access was evident across every age group, gender, region and socioeconomic background.  

Strikingly, 85% of those who voted Labour in 2019 agreed that access to the countryside was important. The figure for Conservative voters was 91%.  

The Westminster government has already begun making decisions that will shape our countryside for generations to come.

We are calling on them to listen to their supporters and make good on their promises to protect the countryside – including the Green Belt – and to take action in CPRE’s core priority areas: planning system reform; affordable housing; the transition to clean energy and the need for joined-up decision making on how we use our finite supply of land. 

CPRE chief executive Roger Mortlock said: ‘The results prove the countryside is deeply important to people, whatever their political beliefs and backgrounds.  

‘The countryside is working harder than ever to address the challenges our nation faces but we’ve got to start treating our land as the finite resource that it is.

“We need a strategic, cross-government approach to land use that will help the countryside provide food and energy security, nature restoration, climate change mitigation, health and wellbeing benefits, space for new homes – and space for beauty, too.’ 

Green support for tenant farmer in Old Pentland campaign

Greens say Damhead is wrong location for new film studio

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Scottish Green MSPs joined campaigners who handed in a petition to the Scottish Parliament in protest at the imminent eviction of a farmer from his family’s home of 100 years.

82-year-old tenant farmer Jim Telfer faces from eviction from Old Pentland Farm near Straiton in Midlothian as the landowners want to sell to developers behind a proposed film studio. Planning permission rests with the Scottish Government after Midlothian Council failed to make a ruling on the application within a 16-week deadline.

Midlothian Green councillor Ian Baxter has previously proposed Shawfair as a better location for such a development.

Alison Johnstone and Andy Wightman, Green MSPs for Lothian, were joined at Thursday’s protest by Green co-convener Patrick Harvie MSP.

Andy Wightman MSP said: “The film studio may be a good idea but it’s the wrong location, and the stress this is placing on Jim, his family and the wider community is simply unacceptable. The site is good-quality farmland and should be protected, especially when there are other locations more appropriate for commercial developments.

“The residents of Damhead and Old Pentland are due credit for galvanising support in this campaign, and the Green MSPs were delighted to welcome them to Parliament today. Let’s hope Scottish Ministers heed the strength of local feeling on this issue.”

 

Keir condemns development plan delay

‘There was chaos over Local Development Plan 1 and now the same thing is happening over LDP2’ – Colin Keir MSP

cammoEdinburgh Western MSP Colin Keir has accused the city council’s planning convener of incompetence following news that the City Of Edinburgh Council has deferred decisions relating to the Local Development Plan (LDP2). 

The announcement that the decision on the Local Development Plan, which was due next week, has now been put off until after the General Election in May has been received with anger in Edinburgh Western – which contains the contentious Cammo and Maybury development sites along with other controversial development proposals at South Queensferry.

Mr Keir said: “There are serious questions to be asked of Convener of the Planning Committee Councillor Perry and senior planning officials. There was chaos over LDP1 and now the same thing is happening over LDP2.

“Thanks to Councillor Perry’s actions, my constituents particularly those in Cammo, Maybury, Corstorphine and South Queensferry, can look forward to even more uncertainty due to an avalanche of presumptive planning applications which are sure to follow the non-determination of LDP2.

“Councillor Perry has either shown a serious lack of competence and leadership on this or he is playing party politics with the daily lives of residents and the prosperity of the city. Where is the joined up thinking, what discussions have there been relating to transport and pollution management? These are questions residents need answers to. It’s time for Councillor Perry and the Labour Party to come clean with residents of Edinburgh West and the city as a whole”.

Mr Keir has consistently opposed the proposals to develop green field sites at Cammo and Maybury. He has also raised concerns over the number of new developments proposed for South Queensferry which were only introduced into the LDP last year.

The LDP process has been in development since 2011.

Keir blasts development plan decision

Edinburgh Western MSP Colin Keir has reacted furiously to yesterday’s decision by councillors to approve a new local development plan, and said the fight to save green belt land at Cammo and Maybury will go on.

A meeting of the city council’s Planning Committee approved the latest Proposed Local Development Plan yesterday but the local MSP feels the legitimate fears of local people have been ignored.

Mr Kerr said: “I am deeply disappointed with the outcome of the meeting today. There were a huge number of objections made on good planning grounds to the release of Greenbelt land at Maybury and Cammo from local residents. These objections have been ignored and the sites remain in the plan.

“There were alternatives to the course of action taken by the Capital Coalition councillors today but quite simply they did not have the gumption or backbone to make the right decision for the communities of Western Edinburgh.

“Constituents of mine who made valid objections will be left feeling angry and ignored. Both Maybury and Cammo have been subject to planning applications recently precisely because those sites are included in the proposed plan. Those applications will not go away because of the action today – developers wishing to develop the Greenbelt will merely be encouraged.

“I have campaigned against development on these sites for ten years. I am not giving up the fight and will continue to object to development of these sites.”

Mr Keir is a supporter of The Campaign Against the Development of Cammo & Maybury (CADCAM), which was formed to campaign against the removal of greenfield sites at Cammo and Maybury from green belt designation in order to develop the sites for up to a combined total of 2100 houses.

The proposal to release this land for housing forms part of the proposed Local Development Plan, and the group argues that their communities will be adversely affected by further development.

CADCAM argue that junctions at Maybury, East Craigs and Barnton are already struggling at peak times and that proposed new developments will multiply that problem.

An added concern is poor air quality which affects both St John’s Road and Queensferry Road (both have been singled out recently as among the worst polluted roads in the country) – which is only likely to get worse with increased traffic – and they also believe that the community infrastructure – schools, GP and dental surgeries, etc. – will be put under unbearable pressure.

Community Council will challenge Marine Drive development

Muirhouse Salvesen Community Council will object to plans to develop the former Civil Service Playing Fields at Marine Drive. The playing fields, now managed by Edinburgh’s Telford College, have been earmarked for a World of Football sport and leisure complex but the local community council will not be supporting the initiative.

A local resident has written to the community council expressing concerns over the development. He says: ‘Some years ago there were plans to build the new Craigroyston High School on the Green Belt; the community successfully resisted and rejected the proposal. This new proposal, which is no doubt controversial but no more so than building a school, has as far as is known been agreed in a deal between World of Football and Telford College. The chipping away of open spaces, particularly the Green Belt, has to be vigorously opposed. Communities have had the benefit of the Green Belt through the foresight of past generations; we in turn must leave it for future generations. Will the community council take up this urgent issue?’

Muirhouse Salvesen Community Council chairman Roy Douglas (pictured above) confirmed that the community council will indeed take up the issue. He said: “The first we heard about these plans was when the story appeared in the NEN. why should
the college or anyone else come along and use up greenspace without consulting the community? As a Community Council we will be objecting to any planning for this type of change.”