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Warrington gets "Growth Point" status


McBain

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This from the esteemed Caroline Flint, Housing Minister:

 

...the long term need to provide more homes has not gone away. We have a growing and ageing population and will only see worsening affordability unless we increase housing supply. The extra homes provided through Growth Points in the North West will deliver a substantial number of affordable new homes and help deliver the homes needed for our families and first time buyers.

 

Happy days are here again :D I wonder how the Council is going to interpret this "build more" imperative when for years the planners have been trying to implement a restraint policy :?:

 

I bet that the planners will just roll back the clock to the 1990's and allocate all of the New Town land in the South of Warrington for development, particularly as it already has the benefit of outline planning permissions that will never time expire :!:

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Knee jerk reactions by a superficial and myopic Government; after years and years of work by Local Councils to develope rational Long Term Plans (eg: RPG,UDP), with umpteen public consultations etc - all wasted time and effort it seems. :roll: And despite the obvious, they are still allowing building in the flood plains and have done nothing to re-introduce affordable rented social units. :roll::wink:

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In light of the problems that the "eco-towns" are running into (e.g. they are not ecologically friendly in the least, there isn't the infrastructure to support them, the local residents don't want them and there are no developers willing to build them) one has to wonder what the "growth point" inititative is actually going to achieve.

 

Perhaps, as you allude, a more pertinent objective would be an "affordable growth" strategy wherein the focus is on providing centralised funding for local Council's to develop its own land for affordable housing purposes. Those that deliver both units and high quality management regimes are rewarded with a bigger slice of the funding pie. Those that don't have their moribund estate's sections replaced with external consultants who will do the job faster and better :!:

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South Warrington could be the obvious 'growth area'.

 

Affordable Housing IS allowed on green field sites and lets face it parts of South Warrington do have a lot of green fields particularly around Appleton area etc.

 

A lot of this land is curently owned by English Partnerships who it seems are now starting to dispose of their land :shock:

 

A recent case is the land currently occupied by Grapenhall Sports Club (as recently reported on the news section) although English Patnerships have given the Sports Club first refusal to buy the land if they can raise the ?80k of necessary funds after 50 years of leasing it :roll:

 

'Onwards, Upwards and Outward' seems to be the motto :roll:

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Did you expect anything else Obs :wink:

 

The limit on housing growth in certain areas was nothing more than a false sense of security and a token jesture to aleviate unrest when it suited and was deemed to be inappopriate (or when elections were looming :wink: )

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