Local MP Luke Hall has launched a campaign calling on South Gloucestershire Council to develop a cohesive infrastructure plan for Thornbury towns services this month. He has said that we now need a well thought out plan to ensure that both the existing and new communities in the town can support recent speculative housebuilding.
The MP launched the calls through a personalised survey to every resident in Thornbury. He asked for their views and ideas on what should form part of the plan with questions asking local people on their priorities for health, education, transport and whether the town should see greater greenbelt extensions. The survey also asked for residents’ opinions on how the town should be supported.
So far, there has been a huge early response with more than 1500 responding to the campaign and having a say on a future plan in just the first week.
Luke regularly engages with and invites residents in the town to directly have a say on key issues such as in 2016-17 when the MP took the fight on the Joint Spatial Proposals right to the top. Using the survey results the MP was able to demonstrate the total lack of support for proposals which, until last week, would have seen Buckover designated as a “3,000 house garden village”.
The huge response and clear message from this past survey is said to have been pivotal in pressing successfully for the Government not to support the scheme in its official programme which in the past, as the local constituency MP, Luke had branded it “a town extension in all but name”.
The campaign for a plan comes in the wake of Government inspectors casting doubts on the wider regional housing proposals, which if withdrawn would be a huge success for the MP’s campaign against overdevelopment across rural south Gloucestershire.
It is hoped that a further huge response to this year’s survey, which every resident in the town should have received, will ensure a plan is put in place for public services, transport and community services and one that is shaped by the views of the community, rather than developers or council planners.
Local MP Luke Hall said;
“Fresh in the wake of our success with nearly fighting off the regional housing plans as our constituency MP, I’m now keen to ensure that our town has a cohesive plan for health services, education, and transport – and all of the issues being raised in the response so far. I can only fight for a plan that local people want to see if they take part and tell me what they want to see in it, but the huge response so far is demonstrating people do care and want to be involved”.
