01/08/2006 - Goole Town Council accepted discussions on alternative renovation schemes
Last night Goole Town Council voted on and accepted the following proposal by Councillor Kevin Flynn to discuss alternative renovation schemes:
"During the recent presentation by Westdale Services, it was suggested that Full Council would have the opportunity to debate Renovation or Demolition re. Phoenix St. and Richard Cooper St.
When we communicated prior to the last Council meeting, you said it was pointless including the issue on the agenda as Madeleine Bell wouldn't participate in the presence of Westdale or any such developer, and I perfectly understood your explanation.
However, now that the renovation argument is being aired in the local public domain, and there is evidence of local support (BE consultation), shouldn't Goole Town Councillors be given the opportunity to send such a message to ERYC? Perhaps this could be in response to the letter sent to you from Madeleine Bell.
Should this item be included on any future agenda, I propose that as Goole Town Council have so far never been allowed any input concerning the demolition proposals, GTC should put in writing to ERYC that renovation should not be dismissed as an option and any well costed and designed plans presented by any specialist in this field, should be considered as an alternative."
Todmorden Strategy
Fight for our Homes says - "No, they did it themselves
One of the ways they won was by having a residents group that stuck together with determination and refusing to give in to their council, they pooled all their resources, so they all knew what everyone else did and was doing, in other words they formed an approach and stuck to it.
They contacted Radio Leeds and got a slot on their show, also contacted all the local newspapers and kept the pressure on.
Their local council have little power in Todmorden and are run from Halifax, it is their good fortune that their administration is administrated from a distance. They (Tod' Council) were not informed about any of the things that were going on in detail, so they made them aware of it by calmly talking and convincing them by researching all the right questions and answers so that they got their argument straight and by not including politicians or politics into the equation as that is fatal to any of the relevant points and their cause. (we all know that councillors profess to want to help us, but they all have their own hidden agendas!)
Their advice to any one going through the same thing, is get the local council involved, (using the sugar rather than vinegar approach.) They went around their area, which is around 100 houses and did their own door to door surveys and came up with an "Alternative Plan" and a plan of action, then stuck to it.
They asked for a lot of information and found a lot of inconsistencies in the surveys, (very much like everywhere else) that had been done in their area. They attended every meeting and made it hard work for Calderdale Council to do anything without them, asking questions that they wouldn't or couldn't answer. It was a team effort and it worked for them, and I am so proud of them! "
ERYC and Demolition
Madeleine Bell reckons her funding implies necessity for demolition. Don't forget, British Archaeology submitted to all-party select committee that demolition was NOT inevitable.
ERYC apparently agreed to demolition condition in return for funding - and no doubt it will not harm the subsequent development potential if a cleared site can be offered to Yorkshire Housing. As well as saving of VAT on new-build by contrast with renovations.
TODMORDEN won their fight for the amount of demolition and where it is placed in Harley Bank, Todmorden. And it is thought this group were aided by same planning adviser as Goole.
The Renovator
And from the party across the parliamentary benches, here's what David Cameron's eco-friendly Renovator has to say about the sustainability "of John Prescott's housing initiatives".
"They're often short-sighted but aimed at making a big impression. Politics is too often short term. Maybe there needs to be a body outside party politics that can take a longer view about housing policy."
Interviewing Alex Michaelis for The Guardian on Saturday July 15 2006, Stuart Jeffries continues 'Nor does he like the government's free and easy way with the wrecking ball on northern terraces.' "If we can be less wasteful in the building process and the way we demolish and refurbish current houses, this will help a great deal in reducing our energy needs."
SO THE MESSAGE IS CLEAR ENOUGH -
First - HOUSING POLICY NEEDS AN OUTSIDE BODY TO TAKE THE LONG VIEW! How about Save Britain's Heritage and the Architectural organisations, who are not phased by 100 year old buildings? How about holding housing in perpetuity - beyond the grasp of Goole's Gauchos?
Secondly - the argument Goole people have been making these past 18 months - reducing our consumption is about more than thermal emissions from 100 year old sash windows. We need to apply for wind turbines on our roofs and recycle our water. Do Madeleine B's consultants take those into account?
And just to add a local context -
does anyone know about the house for sale in Marshfield Road, backing on to this development site? Halifax has its board up but do the particulars spell out the likely scale of renovation going on at the end of these gardens?
Perhaps we should all enquire.
Co-operatives
Ref. Goole-on-the-Web comments about how it's done in other parts of the kingdom - it seems that the nation is not just up against officialdom, but also government, wherever you happen to live.
GUARDIAN LETTERS Thursday July 6, 2006
The community buy-out of Fordhall farm by the 5,500 members of Fordhall Community Land Initiative is as significant for England as the 1996 Isle of Eigg community buy-out was for Scotland. This sparked the 2003 Scottish Land Reform Act giving the community right to buy, start-up help and the Scottish Land Fund. Fordhall shows English support for community land trusts, which mutualise landholding using cooperative, non-profit models. Mutualising land enables it to be forever affordable to individuals and accessible to the community. Land is taken off the market, rather than privatised.
Norman Warner, however, and New Labour, are busy privatising public assets on a massive scale. Health minister John Hutton described the Standish Mutual Care bid for the redundant 32-acre Standish hospital site to David Drew, Stroud's MP, as the "preferred bid". But then Warner, Hutton's successor, vetoed the community bid. This would have delivered a range of local health services; affordable homes for health staff, kept the site in community land trusteeship and reinvested any surplus. Warner awarded Standish instead to an unnamed private bidder in a secret deal. Isn't it time we mutualised assets for community benefit?
Martin Large
Stroud Common Wealth
Community Farm Land Trust Action Research Project
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