BROMSGROVE District Council has responded to last night’s march and consultation, urging people to have their say on the planning process before the September 22 deadline.
Almost 300 people marched from Sanders Park to the Council House at Parkside with banners and flags. They were expressing their anger at the Government’s demand for 9,000 homes in Bromsgrove District. Read that story here.
Following the lively demonstration, Bromsgrove District Council’s portfolio holder for planning, Coun Kit Taylor, said: “Last night was the 13th of these consultation events across the district, and it’s fair to say one of the busiest so far.
“It shows the value of speaking directly with residents because we all share concerns about the housing targets we’ve been handed, green belt land, and infrastructure, and nothing beats talking to the people actually doing this work to get to the heart of the matter.
“It helps people cut through the noise as we can listen to concerns and explain the facts.
“When someone says, save our green belt, we can show the actual approach to that.
“When it’s about infrastructure, we can go through that. When it’s why do you want to build there, we can say hang on, we don’t, the landowners do, and our job is to consider the implications of all those proposals to make a plan that’s led by the needs of the whole community we represent.
“Events like this help more people engage with those real issues and hopefully encourage more to respond to the consultation. There are half a dozen more still to go so please come along to one if you want to discuss.”
The leader of the council, Coun Karen May, said: “Our thanks to everyone attending these events.
“It’s encouraging to see so many taking the time to engage directly with us on these issues, not least because it helps bust the myths that can sometimes cloud these important discussions – it’s through this kind of open dialogue that we build more trust and make better decisions for our future.
“Please keep on engaging, keep on asking, keep on feeding into this process.”
