FORDBRIDGE MONITOR                                                                                      August 2007
Reporting on the Environment Agency and Spelthorne Council

RIVERSIDE COMMUNITY
UNDER THREAT

Fears about latest plans		 If your home is anywhere near to the Environment Agency's Fordbridge Road Works
THIS MEANS YOU


The recent submission of the Council's Local Development Plan for approval by The Secretary of State reveals how the Council planners and the Environment Agency are conspiring to destroy our local community by permitting a huge housing estate to be built on the Environment Agency site at Fordbridge Road, Sunbury.
All about money
Such a development would almost certainly include blocks of flats to provide so called affordable housing.  It would make millions for the Agency and even more millions for the greedy developers - it would give nothing but massive disruption, severely over-stretched infra structure, more traffic problems and a complete reversal of the peaceful nature of our small community.
Property  values
The urbanisation of this area will adversely affect the value of  your property, not to mention the cost in human terms.
They  know  what's  'best ' for us
No-one living close to the site wants this.  That has been made patently clear at all the public meetings many of us have attended over the decade in which the Agency has sought to sell the site for development.  Neither the Agency nor the Council have taken the slightest notice of the almost unanimous opposition to these plans by local people.  They know best.
The Agency lies
The Agency has told lies and misled us by repeatedly promising that they would consider alternative and more environmentally favourable uses for this site.  Most of us know that this is rubbish and they always intended to sell the site at maximum price for housing. The more they can squeeze in the higher the price.
Misuse of Flood Plain
The site is artificially built up within the flood plain.  Because it is there the homes at the lower level around the site suffer from the effects of regular flooding.  Today such a monstrous raising of the flood plain would be rejected but the Agency works on the principle that as it is already there it might as well  make money out of the site.
One solution
The ideal solution would be to restore the site to flood plain level and for it to be used for the benefit of the riverside community but clearly the Agency is more concerned with making money than protecting our homes.  The compliant Council planners also think this is a great idea but neither they, the elected Councillors nor the developers live anywhere near the site. Now that's a surprise isn't it.
VISIT OUR WEB PAGE
www.1-ix.com/fordbridge
Email your support to
environment@ 1-ix.com




This is the Environment Agency's own plan of the flood area around the Thames in Sunbury.

Quoting from the EA's own description:
It is in an area that has a significant chance of flooding. 'Significant' is the HIGHEST level of flood threat.

Just above the word 'Weir' on the map is the Environment Agency's Fordbridge Works. It is patently and irrefutably wholly within the flood plain and in an area with the highest classification of flood threat.all around it

The Agency is committed to advising against and preventing new building within flood plain.
The Agency has said, "We object to developments which could be at risk of flooding themselves or are likely to increase flood risk elsewhere."


The Map shows in  blue, the areas liable to flood - the Flood Plain.
The red circle is where the Council proposes upward of  FIFTY new homes


CAN THIS PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT BE STOPPED?

In the past we have successfully opposed every plan put forward by the Environment Agency.

Here is a summary from our web page.  Please visit the site at www.1-ix.com/fordbridge to read the full story

Over the past ten years our local community has banded together to defeat every crazy plan which the Agency has come up with for this site. Each one has had the support of the lame-brained, backside licking council planners, each proposal has been defeated by the elected councillors who, at least, had the guts to stand up for the local community.

The community attendance at the relevant Council Planning meetings where these proposals were enthusiastically put forward by the puppet planners of the Council was so great that we could not all fit into the council chamber and the passages were filled with our supporters. We heard the Leader of the Council declare that this was "the worst proposal to come before the council in his memory" - a proposal on which the Environment Agency spent hundred of thousands of pounds of public money and still lost the battle.



  
Only time will tell whether the successors to the brave councillors who stood up against their planners and supported their electors will have as much courage and concern for the ordinary rate payers to oppose this part of the Development Plan and possibly other equally destructive ones. Just one question remains - Why were the planners not sacked for their incompetence after this and many other serious errors of judgement? Pity we could not have a local vote on that one.

OUR CAMPAIGN
Now our campaign starts again and it is already gathering even more than the anticipated local support. The Council has sent its plan, unaltered despite public opposition, to the Secretary of State. When an enquiry is held in early 2008 there will be massive support for the opposition. Please add your name to the list, give us your support and visit our web site frequently for updates.

Email us now to add your support

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