HAVING today received a copy of Forest Link, I was pleased to read that "September 11th sees the start of Local Democracy Week 2000 when councils throughout the country will be making a special effort to raise public awareness of something all too often taken for granted – your right to have your say in your future." It made me wonder how, if you don't know what the Forest of Dean District Council planners have in store for you, you can have a say in your future? I refer, of course, to the District Plan Review.
Having recently spoken to many local residents about the Plan – by many I mean well over a hundred – I was astonished to find that about 30 per cent had never heard of it, about 60 per cent had heard something about it but knew few details, the rest had a more detailed knowledge, mainly provided by word of mouth, not from information supplied by the planners.
When I brought this subject up at Coleford planning office I was told: "As far as providing information to the public is concerned, we have met our statutory obligations." And they have.
Under the Department of the Environment 'Guide to Procedure,' I do not doubt that a notice has been published for two successive weeks in two local newspapers, although I never saw either of them. There is also some belated information in the Forest Link. I believe that they have also advertised in the London Gazette, a publication which, we all know, is delivered to every household in the Forest of Dean on a regular basis.
When I asked why they couldn't send every household in the Forest of Dean some information by post, they said it would be too expensive. I do not know who pays the bills for all this planning, but, if it's the Forest of Dean District Council, I cannot see the cost preventing them from notifying us about the amount of the rise in our council tax bills next year. The information that has been provided, assuming that you were lucky enough to have seen it, informs you that you can go to various places to see the Local Plan, or, you can buy the lot for £60, or, you can buy bits and pieces for varying amounts.
When you get your hands on the Plan you will find that it contains about 900 pages. After you have sorted out the bits that you are particularly interested in, there are still about 500 pages of relevant information to wade through. If you don't fancy paying £60 then you are obliged to read and try and digest this mass of information, wherever it is available. I have spent about 15 hours in Newnham Library in the past few weeks trying, with difficulty, to sort the wheat from the chaff.
How many homeowners realise that, since the issue of the Plan, their main asset, their home, has been infected by a viucious virus – it's called planning blight. – N.J. Lewis, Sheen's Meadow, Newnham-on-Severn.