I'm glad you asked me that

The trouble with meeting voters is that they ask you questions; the job of a politician is, of course, not to answer them. But sometimes it’s good to try.

 

 

Someone asked me the other day: if you were elected, what is the one thing you would want to do? I have listed the reasons I want to stand here on my blog, and I’ve referred to them in my leaflet/introductory letter, but what would be the one thing?

 

 

I said it would be to help create a consistent planning framework for the area.

 

 

I would feel I’d done my job if, in four years time, each Parish (Adderstone/Lucker, Bamburgh, Beadnell, Belford, North Sunderland) had a “neighbourhood plan” (or we all had one plan) to give us more control over development in our area.

 

 

At first sight, this isn’t a very gripping or demanding objective. It’s not a promise that local unemployment disappears. Or that it will not rain during my four term. It doesn’t deal with the day to day provision of services locally, or the grind of looking at Council expenditure and trying to improve value for money and how the figures are reported. But it is important. The planning framework is a critical factor in our quality of life. This area tends to have things done to it. We need to change that, not to discourage development but rather to encourage helpful development.

 

 

A “neighbourhood plan” establishes general planning policies for the development and use of land in a neighbourhood, usually a parish council area. Provided that they are supported by voters in an area and they are consistent with the County’s plan then they become the framework for development in that area. It’s a new (2011) power given to communities and the first one has recently been completed. The Bamburgh Division, with its emphasis on tourism, its part time and low paid jobs, its expensive housing, its relatively high proportion of elderly people, and so on, needs an overall framework that is locally developed and approved.

 

 

The Council is preparing a strategic plan at the moment; it is possible until 20 March to comment on a draft here (and I’d urge you to do so). Once this plan has been agreed, I think we should start work in this Division to prepare our own.

 

So that is my answer. And why.