14/10/10…..Town Councillor responds to ‘lack of public consultation’
DEAR Editor, May I be the first Town Councillor to put his head above the parapet by responding to letters featured on your web site over the last couple of days.
Both Mrs Guy and Mrs Jenson are openly critical about the lack of public consultation on the siting of proposed new housing development in Thame, when in fact the opposite is true. Since the original consultation there have been many fundamental changes -not least a change of Government, the abolition of regional spatial strategies, and the eagerly awaited Localism Bill – which have opened up the opportunity to reappraise the options.
In the meantime Thame Town Council have been campaigning and lobbying to influence the number of houses planned for Thame and have been highly
influential in reducing the original 850 down to 530 for the fifteen year period to 2017. It is partly due to this significant reduction that we have been able to reconsider site F, which was originally overuled because it would not accomodate the numbers being suggested.
It is only in the last couple of weeks that the Town Council themselves have been aware of the revised numbers and that SODC have launched a new round of
consultation, and during those couple of weeks Councillors have discussed the issue at length and have attended a number of hastily arranged meetings
with SODC Planning Dept. We have also been putting together as thorough a consulatation process as is feasible within the time constraints imposed by
SODC, and this is now taking place with an exhibition in the Town Hall from next Monday, a stall at next Tuesday’s market, a poster campaign, a detailed
option appraisal in next weeks Thame Gazette, and a Public Meeting at St Mary’s Church on Monday 25 October.
There is also the opportunity to comment through the Facebook Group ‘Thame Location 530’ which has gone live this week and which includes a balanced appraisal of the positive and negative factors relevant to both site D (favoured by SODC) and site F (favoured by
the Town Council).
The Town Council are most certainly not presenting a ‘fait accompli’. We are eager to get a concensus of views from the residents and businesses in the
town and Council Officers have been working hard to launch the consultation process as quickly as possible. I am particularly bemused by Mrs Jenson’s
comment that Thame Town Council want to make a decision on political grounds rather than for sensible planning reasons, and Mrs Guy’s comment that the
Council are trying to move the preferred site by stealth. There is absolutely nothing political about this process, with Town Councillors of all political persuasions coming together to present the facts and the options to the people of Thame and to invite input and opinions which will enable us to best serve the interests of the community in planning any
future growth of the Town.
I can speak for all of my colleagues on Thame Town Council in declaring that none of us are overtly political in relation to local issues and that we put ourselves forward for election because we care enough about this community to give a substantial amount of personal time and commitment to representing its best interests. Our efforts to facilitate a wide ranging public consultation, despite severe time restraints imposed upon us, surely evidence this and we look forward to lively discussions at the Market Stall and at the Public Meeting, and to receiving comments through the Facebook Group and other media. Nothing would please us more than for the whole community to fully engage with this important issue.
Yours Faithfully
Mike Dyer (Thame Town Councillor)
