Anyone know an Oligarch?
Yes folks we're looking for someone with deep pockets (or a lot of nearly broke people) to help us pay the fee of one of the best transport consultants in the country. This is because amongst the hundreds of pages of traffic data churned out by the developers consultants, there are many suspect conclusions - the problem for us is how to prove it.
Common sense would suggest to most people that when you build houses they would be occupied by people who own cars - the more occupants in the household the likelihood the higher the car ownership. Ah but you see the developers consultants have used tricky computer models to work out things like car ownership and car trips and believe me they can turn dark gray into fluffy green.
So that's why we need a specialist who is better than theirs and we know one, but it will cost a lot of money. You might ask why bother to prove their transport data wrong. Well we believe that Titnore Lane will become a death trap if it's used to access the development should it be built. Without doubt this will lead to calls for the Lane to be widened etc and yes you've guessed it loads of irreplaceable ancient trees will be felled.
So if anyone can spare a bit of cash or organise a fund raising event please, please e-mail us.
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Anyone In The Dark?
TODAY is Sunday 5, October 2008 and there are only 4 days left in which to lodge comments on the proposed West Durrington (Titnore) development with Worthing Borough Council (Last date is now early 2009). Yet despite the council promising to explain to local residents what the impact on their lives will be, no such explanation has been received. This worrying fact emerged at the open day arranged by those camped in the Titnore Woods in their brave attempt to protect them from the effects of the planned development.
Comments from local visitors such as 'I walk my dog in the area daily and when I speak to people many say they're not fully aware of what's to be built'. Clearly the council have a duty of care to ensure everyone is made aware of the full implications that 5+ years of dug up roads and heavy lorry traffic will have on normal life. It's only right that the deadline of October 9, 2008 for comments must be extended so that can happen.
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OR you might like to read this excellent piece we have just received:
THE PORKBOLTER
Issue 88, October 2008
Destroying our woods is wrong, wrong, wrong!
IT’S COMFORTING to know, in these very uncomfortable times, that
ordinary people can still tell the difference between right and wrong.
This was superbly displayed by the trial of the Greenpeace protesters
who climbed up a power station chimney as part of their campaign against
burning coal for power.
Having heard from a number of highly respected expert witnesses about
the serious threat posed by climate change, the jury decided that
compared to wiping out millions of lives and wrecking the planet’s
environment for ever, daubing the word ‘Gordon’ on a chimney in a
desperate bid to get somebody to stop the madness did not amount to a crime.
The direct action protesters walked free and, although this does not
officially count as a legal precedent, many others will have taken note
of this triumph of common sense over a ‘justice’ system that is so
biased in favour of property, wealth and power. The same moral viewpoint
applies to Titnore Woods at Durrington and the long battle to save it
from the clutches of greedy property developers. Aided and abetted by
Worthing Borough Council, the developers (Heron, Persimmon and
TaylorWimpey) are trying to pretend that the ‘new’ application for the
875-home housing estate (to rise to 1,200 in subsequent phases), is in
some way ‘green’ and will spare many of the Titnore trees.
But, like the original plans, it includes access roads that will cut
right through the beautiful ancient woodland currently occupied by the
protest camp. A wood is no longer a viable bio-system with a road
cutting it in half. Wildlife like dormice and crested newts will not
survive in what will be no more than roadside clumps of trees surrounded
by tarmac, executive homes and a mega-Tesco.
And no, planting a lot of new trees around the new estate is not going
to replace the ancient woodland - which is a living habitat that has
evolved over hundreds of years.
Needless to say, the battle against the destruction of our countryside
in West Durrington goes on! Campaigners are urging everyone to send in
their letters of objection to planning application WB/04/00040/OUT
before October 9 (see www.protectourwood
land.co.uk). Write to James
Appleton at Worthing Borough Council, Portland House, Richmond Road,
Worthing BN11 1LF or email planning@worthing.gov.uk
As usual, the council has tried to pull a fast one on the people of
Worthing by giving such a short time for people to get their comments
in. The paperwork associated with the application is huge, running to
literally tens of thousands of pages – one local campaigner had it
delivered to her front door in a wheelbarrow, it’s so massive.
Clearly the council and their very close chums in the property
development firms think they can bulldoze this application through with
the sheer weight of professionally produced bullshit that ordinary
people will not have the expertise or the time to be able to respond to.
But they are wrong if they think they will get away with it.
For a start, the obvious complexity of the application, as well as the
huge amount of public opposition, obviously points to the need for a
full public enquiry - something the council have been running away from
all along, because they know it would expose the disastrous,
unsustainable nature of a development that would not only ruin the
environment but cause traffic chaos and major flooding on the River Rife
towards Ferring .
The council also don’t realise that the people of Worthing are not so
stupid that they can’t see through all their spin and smooth words.
Nobody wanted this development in the first place (the original
application attracted 1,000 letters of objection and none in support!)
and nobody wants it now. Like the jury in the Greenpeace trial, we can
tell right from wrong and we know this scheme is wrong, wrong, wrong.
The council and their profiteering fellow conspirators also seem to have
forgotten about Camp Titnore and the plucky protesters who have been
occupying the woods for more than two years in a bid to stop the
development. Do they think nobody will bat an eyelid when they send in
the chainsaw gangs, heavy machinery, bailiffs and riot police to drag
these young people - kicking, screaming and bleeding - from the trees
they have pledged to protect?
Do they think we will accept that, because their destruction of the
living planet is ‘lawful’, according to the rules laid down by those in
power, that we will sit back and watch, that we will passively go along
with what they are doing?
How do they think the council will be viewed by the people they are
supposed to serve if they use lies and brute force to steal one of our
last pieces of green space away from us? Do they imagine they will ever
be forgiven? Now is the time for our elected so-called ‘representatives’
to show that they too can tell right from wrong - and throw out this
despised scheme, once and for all!
These new homes are not for local families
ACCORDING to the developers, 30% of homes on the estate would be
“affordable” - meaning 70% would be unaffordable!
In fact, it’s nearer 100%, with the houses mostly of the ‘executive’
kind, well out of the range of people on Worthing wages. The developers’
documents suggest residents could be employed in local shops (ie Tesco),
but that hardly supplies the sort of dosh you need for one of their posh
houses with five bedrooms and two garages! Maybe residents will work as
gondoliers when the flood waters rise on this notoriously wet piece of
land? The Venice of the South Coast has a certain marketing appeal...
The truth is that the homes are not for local people at all, but for
commuters from Surrey and London, who will add nothing to our community
but extra traffic and a drain on our overburdened local facilities.
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