Matt
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I also need to add in an additional caveat that any mass development of new housing areas needs to make sure that they ensure appropriate services and infrastructure are put in place to meet the needs of the expanding population and not put a strain on the existing population.
I’m not even sure if the current LDP does factor in things like building of new roads, provision for new schools and GP surgeries etc… does it?
Well if you look at how the LDP process is structured -The main problem is that there are SIX stages – all with opportunities for 3rd parties, including Joe Public and community and other organisations able to get involved at each stage.
How did anyone ever expect something so complicated and multi-layered to ever make it through local councils with all the objections of individual councillors and the amplified voices of concerned citizens and organisations at each stage?
Does anyone have any idea at what stage out of SIX the Wrexham plan has reached, only for the major stakeholders – the local political bigwigs – to have withdrawn their support?
So moving past such a ridiculous and complicated framework, the whole point of the LDP was to address a few key issues, if this is the correct understanding of it.
1) Make sure there are sufficient homes built overall to meet projected population demand in the future
2) Make sure that there are sufficient affordable homes in that mix – in particular for families and young people who want to get on the property ladder (so we are talking about 2 bedroom and 3 bedroom new builds)
3) Deal with a shortage in stock of council and social housing in the county – So we need to get the respective stakeholders building more houses to deal with those sold off over a number of decades.
4) Make sure that all of this building is done in a sustainable manner with a balance of building on green belt and brownfield sites, so that individual villages are respected and don’t end up turning into a giant urban sprawl
I guess when it all boils down to it issues 1, 2 and 3 – getting more homes built of each type falls down to a case of affordability (in the case of councils and social housing providers) or profitability in the case of private developers who regularly cite the margins on affordable homes as too limited in the case of building cheap houses on valuable land.
If you are a big home developer why would you want to build cheap homes at low costs when you can build big expensive homes for commuters who want to then work in England? Likewise with councils and social housing – it’s pointless when you can only afford to build 5 houses at a time if the demand is you need 20+.
I’d read earlier in the year that the Welsh Government were investing millions in the idea of building prefab (not the crap temporary post-war ones) homes to boost building of affordable homes. My guess is that this plan has been stalled somewhat recently due to Covid.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-51613917
But if these homes can be knocked out at affordable prices/at a profit margin deemed worthy then there’s movement there into meeting the quantity requirements in each local area.
Obviously issues 1-3 count for nothing if you can’t deal with issue 4 and the bugbear of everyone – where can you locate this quantity of houses without upsetting the Diamond Joe Nimby’s of each precious ward in our county?
It is my understanding that there is a lot of brownfield sites and these could surely be looked into to place these prefab type houses for affordable and social housing. Anyone who turns up their nose at wanting to live here can surely afford a home on the private market elsewhere.
I mean you only need to look at the recent gentrification of Salford, the huge amount of residential luxury apartment blocks built on former industrial and warehouse land on the gateway into Manchester. That was all brownfield and now very nice affordable (versus Manchester prices) places to live.
If people are still not wanting to build on the Wrexham brownfield sites then you have to offer grants to make it worthwhile and perhaps fast track planning (as long as what is being proposed is considered reasonable).
For more expensive housing and building on greenbelt land, I believe that this whole process is working organically and as intended. Local objections ensure that anything outrageous doesn’t get built but new housing developments are turning up all the time.
If you apply a common sense approach and don’t build houses on flood plains (I believe there was an issue with proposals in Llay) and don’t try and build huge developments that merge village or swallow up playing fields then we shouldn’t have a problem. Does there really need to be a whole level of bureaucracy on something that seems to be working to a certain extent – accepting that you are never going to make everyone happy.
It’s more often than not members of the last new build communities who object to the building of the next new build estates because they spoil their views, which is highly amusing – like migrants complaining about immigration to put in a crude comparison.
So perhaps the LDP really needs to focus on how can they build homes quickly and cheaply on land that will meet the least objections. At least then you can get building and tick some boxes without needing to have a never completed concept that can be derailed at any moment.
I’ve probably missed some finer points and details but I don’t think there’s any easy solution for housing the masses – we’ve tried terraced houses, we’ve tried high rise flats and we’ve tried council estates and there’s always issues with each.
The original LDP concept was doomed from the beginning – even when it was originally ‘signed off’ it was basically one layer of bureaucracy (the Then Assembly) trying to impose a certain set of rules on another layer of bureaucracy who didn’t agree with it from the get go.
Ever since then the council who are absolute experts at decreasing progress of things they don’t agree with to a grinding halt effectively means the LDP was dead in its tracks before it even started. They were stupid to try and include things to do with placements of traveller sites in it for a start. Talk about trying to drive off with your handbrake still on!
It is probably now a sport between different board members and councillors to cook up ever more creative reasons at a ward level why the Wrexham overall LDP can’t work.
The Welsh Government are probably scratching their heads about why it’s not working but when people are actually paid a wage (handsome for the Executive and sufficient recompense for the average councillor) to sit in meetings and oppose things then it’s never going to go through.
We have seen how housing development works in Wrexham – if you are a sufficiently large developer you can grease the wheels of the right members and make vague promises that you can take back later to make some affordable housing then you can get past planning and start building.
The LDP itself means nothing and neither elected officials at Cardiff nor Wrexham should spend any additional ideas of resources pursuing it. It was a nice concept but in reality too fatally flawed to work at local level – at least in Wrexham anyway.
The issues it was meant to address need to be addressed in a different way.
What I don’t understand is why anybody would be annoyed that PCSOs move on because then they become fully fledged police officers for the most part and become infinitely more useful at preventing and catching criminals.
At no point when there’s been a criminal do you think oh I wish a PCSO would turn up rather than the actual police.
Perhaps certain councillors perceive them as a false sense of security having them about to lecture kids for causing a nuisance but the rest of us when we dial 999 we want plod official and not plod light.
I think there is a steady supply of new officers and PCSOs looking to stepping stone their way to a proper career but councillors should be proud that those who had to prove themselves in their wards want to go and do real crime fighting rather than wishing they stayed and holding them back.
Hopefully signs will be returned up as anyone not from the area would certainly not be aware that parking after 11am is free.
If people are paying needlessly, then this is a gesture of poor will from the Council and will do nothing to attract people to return confidently back to the town centre to shop.
Perhaps someone from the council would care to comment?
There’s no policing or punishing that level of stupidity. Anyone who does that is likely to end up killing themselves in the not too distant future and eliminating themselves from the gene pool – hopefully not taking anyone else with them.
Most decent members of the public wouldn’t think twice about going anywhere near an ambulance that was out on call – hence why they didn’t think they needed to lock it and were probably in a rush to potentially save a life.
Yes, will be some kind of time lag but perhaps a light at the end of the tunnel. It is my understanding that it’s still early days yet – but the development was enough to cause both the First Minister and the PM to make a statement on it and also sent the stock market jumping in optimism in a way not seen this year.
Perhaps even if the initial vaccinations go to the most vulnerable and get administered in the likes of care homes it will mean in principle a drop in the fatality rate of the virus and therefore merit some easing of restrictions even before a full roll out.
Of course it’s all unprecedented because a vaccination has never in history been rolled out so quickly – but I am guessing in this case medical advancements and technology has turbocharged even the development phase. We will have to see.
Well you’d think that as the elected representative for any given area a local councillor would want all the data available so that they could best manage the requirements of individuals living in their wards. Especially in these times where health and safety comes to the forefront. Clr Rogers is taking a sensible approach and ensuring everyone is safe by keeping people alert to increases.
However, Clr Wright seems to be taking the absurd notion that he’s somehow going to be put on the naughty step because his area has seen an increase and wants to hide from the information. He doesn’t want his constituents to keep informed and seems to have no intention of helping them stay safe either. I’m not sure what his track record is during normal times, but his comments make him seem wholly unsuitable to the task of being a Councillor and responsible for his area in times of Covid-19. Let’s just hope there are some more sensible community councillors working in the area instead.
Haha sadly not Councillor, I still have to be involved in the daily grind to pay for bread etc… as much as I’d like to rant on here full time.
Regular Councillor updates are missed.
Benjamin, I’m confused as to your choice to question me based on these 2 statements standing alone rather than the full picture. I made it clear in other posts on here that prior to this in October my children had been sent home for 2 weeks leading up to half term and had to self isolate due to repeat positive Covid outbreaks in their primary school.
So clearly this situation had already affected me personally and was concerned as a responsible parent that after losing 2 weeks of school already it would be frustrating that for them to miss out on school and seeing their friends for a further week beyond half term.
Now they have to be off for a further 2 weeks anyway, so after evaluating the failure of the situation where a school is subjected to its fifth Covid outbreak at the school in a period of less than 30 days I am questioning the logic of why even bother sending the children back to school if they can’t even keep year groups in school anyway? They ended before half term with only half the classes in attendance across both infants and juniors.
Pupils from classes that had to self isolate for 2 weeks before half term have been hit again and the same pupils have to self isolate for 2 weeks after half term.
Details of the fire break were only laid out to us shortly before it started on 23rd October and logic of exactly how it would work was explained that basically stopping people from coming into close contact for 2 weeks (similar to a self isolation period) would slow down the virus spread. So by that logic sending the children back into school after 1 week where it is now apparent that spread immediately continued once they.got back into school and mixed in begs the question of the firebreak not being fully effective in achieving its goal if schools remain open.
So yes I can be frustrated about school being disrupted for another academic year, which it has done in my personal situation anyway and also be concerned about the health and welfare and impact that the schools being open has done at the same time. Especially when it seems impossible that the school in question that my children attend is not able to stay open as an education option when their entire years get sent home and their teachers get sent home repeatedly.
The only option available is distance based home schooling. So why bother to increase the risk of spread if a majority of kids have to be off and can’t attend anyway? There’s nothing stopping them from being sent home again for another 2 weeks shortly after they return.
There are other parents in a worse situation that I have spoken to as they have to take time off work and in some cases not get paid so they can be home with their children for the 2 weeks. Some people are quite agitated and anxious about this as the second 2 weeks will mean having had to take 4 weeks of unexpected time off.
Now if schools were formally closed, these individuals would effectively have legitimate employment protection or something via some of the schemes – perhaps could be furloughed to look after the children rather than lose money because of the current nature of things. Or if the schools were only open in the limited capacity they were during the first lockdown for key workers then limited children and limited staff members on site would greatly reduce the chance of on-site infections.
The real kicker is that the reason everyone got sent home today is due to unbelievable stupidity from a parent who decided to send their children in yesterday whilst waiting for results of a Covid test for them, instead of correctly requiring them to self isolate. So then informed the school this morning that they’d sent them in yesterday but then received a positive test. That level of stupidity has caused a major amount of inconvenience for the school and about 60 children and 6+ teaching staff.
I appreciate that this has turned into somewhat of a rant, but I thought I’d clear up the context.
I guess the question is, what’s better – close the schools entirely until levels go down so they can stay open for long periods of time without disruption OR limp on and see kids sent home repeatedly for 2 weeks like a lottery, depending on if their classmates get ill or not?
Sadly this period of stability in the original Covid cycle would have been during the 6 weeks of Summer holiday.
