[Shuffles back in, looking embarrassed.]
Luckily for the state of the nation, some bloggers have actually got the hang of this regular posting lark. Chris Hutt on the Green Bristol Blog in particular has turned up some very interesting information on the Squarepeg plans for the Elizabeth Shaw Factory, including the fact that what planners designated a wildlife reserve in 2000 is now likely to be built on without so much as even an Environmental Impact Assessment.
But hark! Here's local MP Kerry McCarthy, to defend the plans: apparently Squarepeg are the thinking woman's solution to the housing crisis:
"how else would you suggest we find space for homes for the 19,000 people on the council waiting list? Obviously brownfield sites must be the priority, but it's not the entire solution. I'm also concerned about the number of houses being turned into flats, with associated problems re parking, and often anti-social behaviour from the people who rent them. We need family homes - but they've got to be built somewhere."
Kerry, Kerry, Kerry. Where to start? Have you discussed your plans to fill the development with council tenants with George Ferguson? And why the assumption that the development is going to provide 'family homes'? (An assumption which I suspect is shared by many of the development's supporters in Greenbank.) For all the prominence of the 'cycle homes' in Squarepeg's charm offensive, of the 252 planned dwellings, only 52 will have three or more bedrooms - as against 122 one-bed and 78 two-bed flats.
Let's be absolutely clear - almost 80% of the housing in this development will be nasty investment properties of the kind that have "created a buy-to-let desert and a huge waiting list for family housing in the city" (the Bristol Blogger on the same thread).
More rib-tickling creativity with the truth is to be found in the planning application's Transportation Assessment, of which more anon.
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2 comments:
Kerry's on fine form at the moment. She's now claiming that the collapse of the international banking system is due to a lack of personal responsibility from borrowers - nothing to do with profiteering bankers you understand?
She also sees no relationship between the conduct of financial speculators and the lack of affordable housing.
Yes, and when Labour get kicked out at the next election, it will be the public's fault for voting the wrong way...
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