Letter from Brian Burrows

2:21pm Thursday 15th May 2008

THE letter in the paper for May 14 from the chair of the council for the Protection of Rural England entitled Town Can't Cope With New Houses is of vital importance and any sane person will agree with this.

As a member of this important organisation I have been asking the question why so many politicians are under the elusion that expansion will bring prosperity because it will not. As a retired market researcher and strategic planner I have been arguing for a long while that the world of work is changing.

I moved here in 1998 and attended meetings and wrote letters to the local paper pointing this out. The view was expressed that most of the offices and factories would not be let and most are still empty. Also there has been little inward investment and many of the companies here have greatly reduced their staff. One forecast I got wrong was that unemployment would increase but this did not happen. Many of the people who were made redundant either obtained employment with smaller firms or set in business on their own. There is a very strong entrepreneurial spirit in Swindon that is neglected by Swindon Borough Council. They should monitor all the young people going into Swindon New College many of whom will create their own jobs. This is the age of the e-business entrepreneur.

Since I have been here Swindon Borough Council has built many houses due to Government pressure when all we need are low cost houses. The policy of building three million houses by Gordon Brown is a policy of disaster and as his government is in melt down we should ignore all these plans and make our own local decisions.

On a national level, if we wish to save our countryside and farm land from the developers then join the CPRE who have set up a coalition in order to save this country from economic disaster. These include Friends of the Earth, Green Peace, all the wild life and wetland trusts, the Civic Trust, the New Economy Foundation, the Ramblers Association and the National Farmers Union who will object to any attempt to build on farm land. Many years ago Schumacher said that small is beautiful but today small is powerful. Therefore the answer is no to all housing development except for low cost housing on brown field sites.

Brian Burrows Fairlawn Swindon

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