20 March - Bexley’s Core Strategy
The main subject of
last Wednesday’s meeting, the one where only one member
of the public turned up (apart from Bonkers associates) accompanied by ten
policemen and hired heavies, was Bexley’s Local Development Core Strategy. This
as the name implies is an extremely important long term plan which will affect
everyone’s lives. It is far too complex to easily summarise here but I was
struck by how little of the consultation process had been reflected in the final
report. My associate Nicholas Dowling has gone to the trouble of counting them.
210 points raised by 45 respondents. 147 (70%) dismissed, although in fairness
some were merely supporting council proposals. One must wonder why they bothered. 58 (28%)
resulted in minor changes to the wording of council proposals, many of them trivial in the extreme.
The remainder added references to tall buildings, marshes, ‘green roofs‘
to existing proposals which appeared to have been missed out by accident. One
removed a specific figure that might become out of date over time.
At the meeting a cabinet member said something to the effect of how pleased she was
with the way the public consultation had gone; I suppose she would be, they
didn’t have to change anything of note.