Worth

fighting for'

From M G Northcott:

REGARDING the Binhamy development approval I am dismayed but not surprised as I believe that any large developer will always get their way by constantly appealing and using the best lawyers.

However can you imagine a Cornish developer advancing a similar scheme for 400 houses in Stratford-upon-Avon where Catesby is based?

The city and county councils in that part of the Midlands would soon put paid to any such proposal.

However, a Midlands developer can earmark a part of North Cornwall, ride rough-shod over any opposition and eventually get its way. What does this tell you?

Having been a parish councillor for four years I would urge people to be very sceptical about some of Catesby's proposals.

For instance where a developer builds a high density of properties in a given area, it is normal for there to be an open space to compensate where children can play and people can stretch their legs. In practice however, this is often not worth the paper it's written on.

A colleague worked on a number of sites in Devon and Cornwall with just such a stipulation and none of these estates ended up with the open spaces they were promised — they were either built on or left derelict with no council or other authority prepared to maintain them, and if a developer goes bankrupt, a liquidator can treat an open space as an asset and sell it to a private householder. I have local evidence of this.

As to affordable housing, do you suppose a developer from prosperous Stratford-upon-Avon knows what affordable means in this part of North Cornwall?

As for the 30 per cent figure, this can easily change especially if Catesby runs into financial difficulties.

Cornwall Council would tell Catesby to finish the job as they saw fit rather than leave undeveloped sites and the environmental hazards that would result.

All this of course assumes that Catesby can get on with the job fairly rapidly with no severe financial problems, however if Catesby was to go bankrupt in the early stages then there really could be an unholy mess.

The trouble here is that if contractors involved in site work and earth removal were stood down for a length of time in their critical early stages and God forbid a Boscastle-style flood occurred, the environmental consequences in the lower part of Bude especially are unthinkable.

Any new developer would probably be able to finish the development without having to keep to original affordable housing percentages for instance, and build whatever was most profitable.

I do hope that the Bude people do not give up just yet as there are ways of protesting against this awful decision through the local or even national press, television and of course our MP.

Tourists especially love Bude and they may even get involved.

The history and heritage of Bude and Stratton and its future must surely be a thousand times more important than the profitability of some outside developer and most surely be worth fighting for.

St Gennys.