After months of heated debate and consultation, Bedford Borough’s Local Plan 2040 received nearly 1500 responses from interested parties and residents.
Despite over 50% of these representations voicing objections which the Mayor chose to ignore pushing forward an unchanged plan that threatens to harm a number of villages and concrete over large parts of Bedford Borough.
At Full Council, his administration forced through the Local Plan 2040 essentially offering Councillors an ultimatum, vote for the plan to meet the January deadline or risk Bedford Borough not having a five year land supply and exposed to speculative planning applications.
Many Councillors were left with little choice but to vote in favour for fear of unwanted, unplanned housing in their wards.
Conservative Councillors voting against the Local Plan included Councillor Sarah Gallagher criticising the Mayor for ignoring local concerns saying: “This plan is an open assault on our countryside by threatening to dump a large number of houses across vast swathes of the Borough.
“I cannot, in good consciousness, vote in favour of a plan that so utterly disregards the needs my residents and the wider Borough.”
Conservative Councillor Martin Towler stated the choice of route for East West rail would cause: “Total devastation to the whole of the north of the borough.
“It did not need to be in the plan and there are solutions that do not endanger people’s homes. I cannot support a plan that walks over people’s lives without a care.”
Conservative Group Leader Graeme Coombes condemned the plan: “This plan leaves residents of Wixams boxed in by developments to the east while piling on additional traffic pressures when the Mayor hasn’t even bothered to sort out the current traffic problems around Wixams.
“Taken a as whole, this Local Plan will do untold damage to the character of Wilstead and lead to a vast urban sprawl of development along the A421. Therefore, I voted against the Local Plan proposal this evening and I will denounce it as ‘unsound’ when it comes before the Planning Inspector.
“For large parts of Bedford the Local Plan has disaster written all over it. It will destroy village life, concrete over large parts of the Borough, and put further pressure on as yet undelivered infrastructure. I believe it will be the defining legacy of Dave Hodgson’s Mayoralty, a plan that delivers for nobody and fails to help the Borough.”
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