From: Lauriemayer@aol.com
Sent: 05 June 2005 16:58
To: eadtletters@eadt.co.uk; eadt.newsdesk@eadt.co.uk
Subject: GANGES

 

Dear Sir,

 

Your report "Housing plan dealt blow" (EADT, Saturday, June 4 page 15) gave a telling insight into the psychology of the developer.  Peter Golds, the community consultant for Haylink, who want to build 325 homes on the Shotley pensinsula, went into overspin expressing his frustration that the application has been recommended for refusal.

He is, of course, paid to protect the developer's interests not the community's.   Apart from sounding somewhat improper,  his claim that the developers "spent a long, long time talking to officers and were "deeply involved" with them, suggests a meticulous attention to local needs which, given the scale of objection, was clearly not the case.

If Haylink really "wants to do what's best for local people" they really should try listening to them rather than trying to maximise their profit with an overlarge development on an unsustainable site.     

Mr Golds refusal to talk of the "other avenues and opportunities"  if the scheme doesn't get the go ahead, smacks of the classic scare tactic - if you don't let us do what we want you might get something a lot worse!   We should ignore it.  Judged on its merits, as Mr Golds requests, the scheme for 325 homes that aren't needed, must fail. 

 

His claim that opposition is "not particularly well thought out" and "emotive" is groundless -our objections to the growth in traffic generated by the development are based on Haylink's own figures.  The developer does not deny it would mean an extra 1000 cars a day on the B1456 - one every 2.5 seconds at peak hours through Woolverstone, a conservation village in an Area of Outsanding Natural Beauty.   

Haylink say the road can take it and the and the environmental impact would be "negligible".  We disagree.

The B1456 is narrow and twisting with a number of hazardous pinch points. We believe the impact would devastate our quality of life.   It is not "emotive" to say that such constant traffic would inevitably generate unacceptable levels of danger, dirt, noise and pollution - it's plain common sense.

 

And why does Mr. Golds even refer to "an element of nimbyism" if he says he's "not critical of that" as "most people will defend their own backyard" ? Dead right we'll defend our own back yard. But we would not do this unreasonably against a scheme that offers genuine benefits and respects the environment.      

 

We know his game - he is doing what he's paid to do - use every trick in the book to undermine opposition - to coax, cajole or bully us into acceptance.  Well, it won't work.   

Haylink should trust to the good sense of our elected representatives to decide fairly on June 8 what is in the best interests of the community. Mr Golds should realise that dismissing genuine objectors as being emotive or nimbyist could backfire and merely fuel the flames he seeks to smother.

 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Laurie Mayer

Chairman, Woolverstone Residents' Association