Expansion Plan is not a plan |
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Brian White- I shall refrain from calling him Whitewash because he hits on certain truths- says Milton Keynes is the best place in Britain. Well that's not saying a lot. The world's fourth largest economy, UK Plc, can boast the worst, and most expensive public services in the western world. It can also boast the smallest and most expensive houses. We don't make much anymore either. It's a service- or SERVE US as El Presidento Blairo pronounces it- society. Brian White, MP, doesn't question the reliability of future employment prospects in shopping city. Vote New Labour and the feast will be everlasting. Anyone who doubts that Milton Keynes has unresolved problems should read my book, 'Milton Keynes, Building on the Vision.' There are too many to mention here. A report by industry analyst Datamonitor suggested that mortgage lending would fall by 10 per cent over the next three years as the housing market falters. The whole MK growth plan was justified on the basis of MK needing more houses. The fact that people need an income over £31,000 per annum for the most basic property doesn't seem to bother anyone in power, though fair play to the Rt Hon Mr White, he agrees there's a need for much more social housing. We have the nasty New Tory Mrs Thatcher -and she was very nasty, which is why so many don't trust the Tories now, though it took a long time for the penny to drop, as it will with New Labour ' to blame for so many council houses being turned into a load of bed sit hovels. But good old Brian doesn't seem upset about that, he just says more houses will come because of market forces. He's a good boy, like all the droids in New Labour. If anything goes wrong it won't be the government's fault, or the top dogs in the Management Partnership, it will be the faceless bureaucrats who support them, he implies. What would we do without bureaucrats to blame' We mustn't forget that he is also concerned about the attitudes of certain developers though he doesn't say why. Is it because they probably won't contribute more than they have to for new infrastructure' By the way, are there any compassionate developers' Should we not worry about the attitudes of all developers. I certainly did at the inquiry when they showed so little concern about predicted water shortages arising from too many houses. Mr White has nothing to say about that, has he' If I was in the development business, I'd want to make piles of money, packing in as many houses as possible, to meet Prescott's high density high quality new housing criteria. Then I'd emigrate to a country that had a future outside the virtual reality of politician's spin. Well anyway, old Prezza knows a thing or two about density, and quality judging by the grand houses he has at his disposal! That grand old boxer of the overweight class loves regional authorities. We are ruled by his minions in the east, but alas not by wise men. Two thousand houses dribbling out each year, onto former north Bucks countryside, may not seem much, but the trouble with gradual expansion over thirty years is that it gives them a reason for slacking with infrastructure. They rely on playing catch up, but they never catch up, as our national transport system attests. After two terms, this excuse for Labour, still hasn't sorted transport ( or anything else ) and still talks about the free market as if it were god. Meanwhile we are anything but free. The whole enquiry into MK expansion was a fixvery unsatisfactory from Roger Timms onward. There was no real public consultation and Richardson's report, as I have written before, was a rubber stamp. Mr White may be consulting with the people of Caldecote to get them the best out of the expansion plan, but they can rest assured that nothing will be allowed to upset the grand money making scheme. New houses will no doubt attract commuting professionals from London, where prices are even more ludicrous, but it won't do much to help struggling locals. Of course if you have a ring fenced index linked pension and a good salary like MP White, then you won't have to worry at all. As Milton Keynes Friends of the Earth stalwart, Andrew Lockley told me, 'there are two Milton Keynes'. I agree, and only one of them really gets listened to. So in a nutshell, I don't think much of Brian White MP's comments. They are typical of the party he represents, vague and vacuous, presenting Milton Keynes as if it were toy town or a model village, divorced from the outside world, the perfect councilordom- just so long as they are New Labour men and women of the people. MP White presents little imagery of real people and the inevitable problems they'll have , or even any awareness of life's daily struggles in the existing MK. He talks as if there is a plan, when there isn't, it is just a matter of easing planning laws so that more land can be built on. He must know there is no real democracy. The people who are going to be affected cannot stop it because powerful people want it. |