Stephen Willetts

Member since 23 February 2024

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Stephen Willetts2 years ago The vision is too long and is just a stringing together of the strategic objective headlines and some of the detail. I stopped reading after the first few lines.My effort just from what is written without necessarily agreeing...By 2041, and beyond the Cheltenham, Gloucester and Tewkesbury area will be a thriving, beautiful, energy efficient, safe, resilient and healthy place to live. People’s housing needs will have been met through the provision of sustainable, high-quality market, affordable and other specialist homes. We will have conserved the area’s special landscapes and its attractiveness as a place to live and visit and have a network of interconnected green spaces and waterways to secure a high-quality environment for people and nature. We will have healthy, accessible and walkable neighbourhoods, active and sustainable travel and provision of new transport systems to enable local people to access employment and sport and leisure facilities for a healthy lifestyle.We will have made the best possible use of brownfield sites in built up areas and large-scale, comprehensively planned new development to ensure our valuable green spaces and highest quality farmland are preserved. The area’s city centre, town centres and high streets will be thriving as a result of careful management of development and land uses.We will have attracted and be retaining a younger workforce. There will be new premises and flexible workspaces to support a flourishing economy and we will be a focus for inward investment, innovation and growth in cyber and digital-tech, food/agri-tech, advanced engineering and tourism.

Stephen Willetts2 years ago The lack of measurement is often a failing when presenting strategic objectives. Words that are not measurable against the final proposed plan and then actual development are just a wish list and will not help communities but will allow developers to get around the intent. I challenge the planners to say how they will measure success for each objective and if it can not be measured then change the words. Words like supporting, minimising, avoiding etc are all very well but will lead to much argument at examination and then when a strategic plan is agreed at development control.I also challenge the planners to reduce the number of words and even the number of objectives as there is much repetition and overlap.

Stephen Willetts2 years ago Building strong, competitive and sustainable urban and rural economiesThis objective should include not just home based working but home based businesses that require more than just a desk and computer. Often refered to as a garage start up where a space is used to make protatypes or small batches before progressing to purpose built facilities. In addition there is a crying need for small start up units rather than the larger industrial estate type units to enable a business to take a smaller growth step.

Stephen Willetts2 years ago This is obviously bringing together the options 3 and 6. Experience to date with the Stroud District Local Plan examination which is currently paused given the mess it is in with regard to strategic road infrastructure and new settlements suggests that any plan that relies on wishful thinking hundreds of millions to sort out motorway junctions etc is likely to fail. The challenge I wish to make is to not take what can often be seen as the easy option of new strategic settlements and work to improve the current urban settings, extend those sympathetically and use and build along the strategic transport infrastructure that already exists and that can be improved for more modest sums. Can planners meet this challenge?