Thursday 19 February 2009

CAFE for the Top 40


Yes its true we have a song, and a very unique song at that!

Come to its launch at the Lamb Pub, Bilsham Road, Yapton Friday 27th February 8pm meet the producer and have a drink and a dance and catch up with the CAFE news.

In the summer, New York singer / song writer David Francis visited friend, John Mono, in Yapton and was horrified at the Government’s proposal to build and destroy the greenfields of Ford for an eco-town. The plight of Yapton, Ford and Clymping inspired David, in collaboration with John Mono, to compose and record the song in John's Yapton bedroom recording studio!

John already had a lot of interest in our eco-town fight from other musician friends from around the World so decided to get them all to contribute making the recording of the song totally unique by being Global and recorded via the internet.

Come and hear our song 'Anthem For Green England', or better still buy a copy! If the musicians around the World can see the folly of the eco-towns let's see if our song can get the Government to finally listen.

See you on the Friday 27th at the Lamb for a truly unique and fun event. The Government won't read our letters, listen to our protests, look at our petition so let's get them to hear our song!

Wednesday 18 February 2009

Letter to Mr M Watson

Good Grief! Is M Watson, Babsham Lane living on a different planet to the rest of us, is he plain naive or just very good mates with the FAVG (landowners/developer consortium)? The Government are not leading the way – they are in fact 2 year’s out of date with their housing figures which have gone down considerably, neither have they considered the obvious which would be to bring back into use the million properties in this country standing empty.

But let us look at his “stunning” “brilliant” eco towns point by point.
No, the “eco” town homes will not be zero carbon. Code Level 6 has mysteriously been reduced to code level 4 so the “eco” homes will be exactly the same as the requirement for any new building in the next year or two.

Could he enlarge upon the “multitude of other progressive environmental features” please? I’m afraid I can’t think of one!

By transport links I presume he means the bus that is proposed to be circulating round the site, a screen in each house flashing its impending approach, along with some cycle lanes? Could he explain what on earth would be the point of moving the station from the middle of the “eco” site to the west end of it?

Could he enlarge on the “high grade employment” proposed please? What are the proposed 4,000 jobs going to be?

The “affordable housing element” seems to have been left out of the latest plan. Land is going to be set aside for some other developers to provide that. I wonder if anyone will?

M. Watson must have been asleep when the proposed plans to provide energy from wind turbines and the River Arun were thrown out of the mix as not only unworkable but positively dangerous. Using rubbish has also been found to be unworkable as this would entail a HGV bringing waste to the site from all over southern England every 12 minutes day and night! Wake up M Watson. This is not “eco”!

But most importantly, M. Watson, if such an outrageous proposal should ever go ahead our descendants would look on us with disgust not at “failing to grasp realities”. They would look on us with disgust for concreting over fields that could have been used to grow crops so that they would not be dependent on other countries for their very food! They would look at old photos of the beautiful countryside, the meadows and wild-life, the ancient trees and hedgedrows, hear stories about quiet village life and birdsong and look on us with disgust at not trying hard enough to stop the destruction of all that beauty for no good reason, just so a few greedy and selfish individuals can line their own pockets. Who’ll then they’ll be off leaving the rest of us in the complete and utter concrete, gridlocked mess they will have created.

P.Wales,
North End Road,
Yapton

Yet another evasive non-answer from the No 10 Petition Website

http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page18287

The petition asked the the Prime Minister to "abandon plans to build
Eco Towns on Greenfield sites."

Guess which words did not appear in Gordon "I saved the world" Brown's answer?

Ok - he does use the word Green, but only in his usual spinning way of "exemplar green developments" - I wondered momentarily if they were being ironic - but that is beyond this lot!

Not once does he address the actual petition, which tells Gordon that by definition a town built on a green field cannot claim to be green. In the same way that upholstering your Toyota Prius with fur from tiger skin and endangered bats means that you cannot claim it to be an 'eco' car - however big its electric motor!

Tuesday 17 February 2009

Mobile consultation on Arun's housing future

ARUN District Council is taking to the streets, to get residents' views on major development. A public consultation on the council's blueprint, setting out where 6,000 new homes will be built in the next 20 years, will include a website, a display at Arun Civic Centre and a mobile unit, fitted out with maps, plans and laptops.

Leader of the council, Gill Brown said: "We have some tough decisions to make in Arun over the next few months, and the input of local residents is absolutely integral to this process. Click here for more...