Representation by Anthony John Booth
- Date submitted
- 19 July 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
This is an anachronistic and unnecessary development for a number of reasons: 1. This is a dash to cash in with income from land value uplift and 227 millions of public finance, before water shortages, climate breakdown and hardening public opinion make such a move unviable. 2. It involves taking greenbelt land of great agricultural value which will hugely affect the historic villages of Fen Ditton and Horningsea. 3. It is planned in order to release a contaminated brownfield site for housing and job development (14,000 jobs, 9,000 houses), when there is already full employment in the area and the houses planned are beyond the means of local people. 4. It is part of the push for unsustainable growth in the South and East which will breach the legally binding carbon budget for the area to 2050 within a couple of years. 5. The carbon budget of the scheme, including demolition, building and running emissions – which include great numbers of daily lorry journeys to the site – have not been properly evaluated. 6. It is supporting the move of jobs, homes and water from the North of England to the South and East in defiance of the assertion of the necessity to reduce regional inequality. 7. The Environment Agency has said that there is insufficient water to support the planned building of homes in the vacated site. 8. The envisaged provision of reservoirs in the Fens to support this level of development will be under threat from ground sinkage and salination because of the low-lying area and accelerating sea level rises. 9. At a time when we are struggling to restore and save the globally important chalk streams and chalk aquifers this development will pose considerable further threats through ground water contamination. 10. This is an unnecessary despoliation of a beautiful rural setting for its human inhabitants and for the diverse bird and animal populations that live in, around and under the proposed site.