Comment

Representation ID: 9776

Received: 22/07/2022

Respondent: Rob Allen

I just wanted to make a final comment regarding the local plan 2040.
Firstly, I’d like to congratulate you on the sheer amount of work that has been done – it really is quite impressive. You’re to be commended.
I do however have ongoing concerns with some of the processes used to get to this point. Whilst I can only discuss the neighbourhood plan in Turvey where I reside, it was really a farce and I suspect almost illegal. The final referendum was highly close (within a couple of percent) and it was dogged with improper practices. We had people breaking into people’s gardens to take down signs, smear campaigns on social media, it even transpired after the fact that many of the elderly had been told to vote to approve the plan by trusted confidants under the guise that a yes vote was in fact one saying “yes, we don’t want the plan”. All in all, the owners of the land got their way as is usually the case in these situations and the village will be the worse for it – the access road alone was impassable for 6 hours at the weekend. I see that there is already an application to increase the 25 approved houses on the same plot by another 100+ houses which will make the village practically unreachable from that side. Who approves a site that has a single lane access that already cant flow for the majority of the day? Especially when so many good sites are available around the village that were proposed but bullied out of the way by the developers contacts (hell almost everyone on the plan committee no longer lives in the village and just owned land here).
Such a shame – I know you do your best but I’m now looking to leave Turvey. The money has won out against popular opinion, and it is a slippery slope from here on.
I know that you cant investigate fraudulent behaviour in these referendums but it really was distressing to live through and to now live with the results.