Thinking outside the Box

As Hampshire Tories confirm swingeing cuts in youth services, The Box Youth Centre in Wildern Lane is under threat of closure.

Wildern local councillor (and leader of the Lib Dems at county hall) Keith House told The Hampshire Chronicle:

“Residents seeing services slashed, from children's centres and youth services to the cutbacks in buses and bus passes, will be appalled that Hampshire's Conservatives are stashing more and more of council taxpayers’ money into the county bank.

"We said earlier in the year this was a cynical exercise to store up money for election year in 2013. The new figures prove our point. The Conservatives' twisted priorities are a disgrace."


Meanwhile a steering group has been set up with the intention of keeping The Box open.   Consisting primarily of Hedge End Town Councillors and members of Botley and West End Parish Councils the group will work with Wildern School and other interested parties.

Amazingly Hampshire County Council have not confirmed that they will be willing to transfer ownership of The Box if other bodies come forward to keep it running.

A meeting at The Box on 18th July heard evidence from the local police and health professionals that the sort of service provided there helps to keep levels of antisocial behaviour, drug use and unwanted pregnancies below what would be expected in an area with a relatively high population of young people.

Public service cuts such as these and those being made by the Coalition at a national level are short sighted because the cost of not providing the service is never taken into account in the calculations. 

Travellers at Dowds' Farm Park

All the correct bodies seem to be aware of the presence of travellers at Dowd's Farm Park.

Here is a link  to a joint communication being distributed to nearby residents.

Berry Funny

Hedge Enders need something to cheer us up as the Coalition grinds the economy to a standstill and local Lib Dems contrive to cover even more of our green fields with concrete and tarmac.  Step forward the Berry Theatre. 

Clearly keen to build on the success of stand up visitors Jeremy Hardy and Ross Noble (and friends) in selling out the 300-seat venue, our local theatre has recently announced national names Rory Bremner, Shappi Khorsandi and Tony Hawks to appear in November and December.

Younger children and their families will be catered for with a whole week of "Hansel and Gretel" performances in December.

Following my harsh words about the huge gaps in the "theatre" strand for adults between April and the end of September, it is good to see that Forest Forge will be coming back in October with a performance celebrating the New Forest "The World Outside".

Unfortunately there is then another dearth of drama for three months, before they hit us with three productions in February.  "Stalin's Favourite" and "Defying Hitler", elements of Theatre Unlimited's "Living History" project, are described in the company's own words:  "Both the subject matter and the source material makes the plays of interest to a much wider public, attracting a genuinely mixed audience of school groups, university students, as well as interested and informed members of the general public, generating a foment of ideas and reactions."

Eastleigh's The Point Youth Theatre are then in residence for six performances of "Romeo and Juliet" before the Berry's own youth theatre feature in "Strawberries and Steam" in March.

The current programming ends with an adaptation of  "Great Expectations" at the end of March.  Perhaps a hint of great things to come as the theatre starts its second year?

There are a number of productions there that look interesting enough for the Hedge End Blogger wallet to be opened, and I hope that other Hedge Enders will feel the same way.  "Use it or Lose it" seems to be the way with so many facilities we used to take for granted.  I still think it is amazing that we have a professional theatre right on our doorsteps and with imaginative programming, efficient management and the support of the local community I'd like to think it can grow into a genuine cultural asset.

Full details of the new season  (including some stuff I have not mentioned in this post) are on The Berry's web site.

Another Broken Lib Dem Promise

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This is what Hedge End Lib Dems said in May:

"The Liberal Democrats have worked hard for our area.  They will continue to fight any plans from Hampshire County Council to sell off green fields for massive housing development locally"

What did they do in July?  They voted to designate the green fields at Woodhouse Lane "a preferred strategic development location", opening the floodgates for hundreds of houses to be built there.


And who is the landowner who will profit from the sale of Hedge End's countryside?  None other than Hampshire County Council who seem to have gone from enemy to development partner in just two months.

Whatever happened to the Lib Dems who kept their campaign promises?  Are they going down the same path as their national leaders?

Nick Clegg on broken promises

Lib Dem Stay Away Shame Continues

 

 

Threatened countryside at Woodhouse Lane

Back in April Hedge End Blogger pointed out (here) that Lib Dem Borough Councillors (who get a generous taxpayer funded allowance on the expectation that they will actually turn up and represent the people who voted for them) seemed to have stopped attending council meetings.

At the time I thought it was because they were following party orders to deliver more and more of their repetitive campaign leaflets (which seem to have been full of promises they knew they were not going to keep) in their desperate battle to buck the national trend and keep control of Eastleigh.

But the trend continues after the election.  Of the three Lib Dems elected in Hedge End this year, not one, not a single one, was at the council meeting on Thursday when the decision was made to designate the countryside opposite Hilliers Garden Centre in Woodhouse Lane a “preferred location” for large scale development, and rubber-stamping a document which states up to 2320 houses could be built there.

In fact out of seven Borough Councillors, only three Hedge End members were there.

Cllrs Jenny Ann Hughes, Cllr Derek Pretty,  Cllr Mick Wheatley, and Cllr Jane Welsh were all absent.

Cllr Keith House proposed the motion, spoke twice in favour and voted for.  Cllr Louise Bloom  spoke in favour and voted for.  Cllr Peter Hughes did not speak and voted for. 

Local Lib Dems Misled Voters (2)

Countryside at Woodhouse Lane is a “preferred location” for large scale green field development according to local Lib Dems.  Just two months after campaigning on a “Save our Countryside” platform and talking of how the Lib Dems “stand up against more building and even more traffic”, local Lib Dems have betrayed their voters by opening the doors to massive new developments in and around Hedge End.

They are claiming that one thousand new houses could be built on the fields opposite Hilliers Garden Centre, but documents rubber-stamped by the Lib Dems at Thursday’s full council meeting threaten up to 2320 dwellings on what is one of the few significant stretches of countryside left inside Hedge End’s boundaries.

They are also looking at fields north east of Boorley Green  (nominally 1400 but again with potential for up to 2840 dwellings according to the detailed documents) or Allington Lane (up to 5000 houses) as another possible location.

If the Boorley Green development goes ahead combined with Woodhouse Lane, the amount of traffic trying to get to the M27 along Woodhouse Lane, across the Maypole roundabout and along Kings Copse Avenue does not bear thinking about.

But it gets worse.  A thousand more houses will be built on smaller green field sites still to be chosen.  The Council have a list of fifteen green field locations in and around Hedge End that they consider suitable for development.  There is no guarantee that these will be safe from housing.

Just a year after the Lib Dems took credit for tearing up plans for a small town of 6000 houses to the north of Hedge End, they are planning for huge new developments of their own on our doorsteps.

I expect they will come up with their usual platitudes of “having to plan responsibly”, “we are not NIMBYs” and “wanting our children and grand children to be able to live locally”, but the question remains, why target Hedge End, West End and Botley for the majority of Eastleigh Borough’s housing needs?  If the requirement was spread evenly and equitably throughout the Borough, allowing organic growth of our existing communities, Hedge End could expect 300-400 houses on its green field sites, not the thousands threatened by the Lib Dems.

Council's Secret Agenda

A council meeting on Bastille Day could be a risky business.  Perhaps that is why Eastleigh is keeping the full agenda for tomorrow's meeting secret.

According to this report  in the Daily Echo, there is due to be a debate on the Liberal Democrats' plans to build nearly five thousand houses on green field locations across the Borough.

You wouldn't know it from the agenda published on the Council's web site though.  This is all it says 24 hours before the meeting is due to take place:

RECOMMENDATIONS (INCLUDING CALL INS) REQUIRING A DECISION
CABINET – 11 JULY 2011
To follow.

No indication that directions are going to be set which will see acres of countryside disappearing under concrete, thousands more car journeys up and down the Borough, and the quality of life of thousands of Eastleigh voters affected.

And there was me thinking that the Lib Dems were the party of open government.