Full Council 25/07/2007

The Full Council met on 25/07/2007 to discuss the recommended route for the relief road. This route was the 1b,2c,3b option that runs through the Area of Outstanding Beauty in Herontye. The MSDC Lib Dem Group opposed this recommendation.

Two of the speeches made by Lib Dem councillors are reproduced below.

Speech by Chris Jerrey.

"I will not be supporting the recommendation.

Whilst I would support improvements to the town like improved traffic flow and affordable housing, I cannot accept the AAP in its present form.

I represent East Grinstead – Herontye ward which includes part of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. This council is pledged to protect this area and there is much on the council’s website about the value of the AONB.

I find the stated aims of protecting the AONB and the intention of driving a road through it to be completely inconsistent.

The AONB in Herontye is not simply fields or woodland. It is a beautiful, working landscape of farms, homes and in many cases, ancient, protected woodland.

The proposed route of the eastern section of the road runs along the line of homes in Coombe Hill Road. It will require high embankments, deep cuttings and bridges to achieve its route through a steeply sloping landscape.

Costs for this route are vague but given the topology of the route likely to be relatively expensive and questionable value for money.

Costs are also likely to escalate as a result of legal challenges to this route. Adopting a policy of road building in the AONB will trigger challenges from environmental groups. Very little research is required to show what difficulties planners have got into when trying to route roads through protected landscape.

Challenges from environmental groups are to be expected, that is what they do. More worrying for this council should be the email from Matthew Lock of East Sussex County Council that was sent to all members. In this email he raises questions about raised traffic levels in Forest Row, the soundness of the traffic modelling approach, whether ESCC would cooperate with a connection to the A22 within East Sussex and the costing of the scheme. Despite Councillor Lock being the Lead Councillor for Transport and Environment at ESCC he does not sound like someone satisfied with the consultation and information he has received.

Is he the only discontented member of a neighbouring authority? Absolutely not. Cllr. Keith Whitehead, Cabinet member for Wealden District has written to MSDC to inform us that Wealden “strongly oppose option 3b”. The letter is on the MSDC website. There may have been consultation with neighbouring authorities but there certainly isn’t any agreement.

I believe the AAP in its current form is short on financial and legal detail, foolishly optimistic as to what can be delivered and hence highly likely to fail at subsequent points in the adoption process.

Tonight we are being asked to vote on a recommended route based on some information which was only available yesterday morning. We should all step back from this crazy process. We should take stock of this plan, its failings and the alternatives. The proper way forward is to reject the recommendation put before us and put the AAP into review to ensure that the plan which is finally put forward to the later stages is actually deliverable and fit for purpose.

To avoid plunging this plan into chaos, we should reject this recommendation and carry out a review."

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Speech by Heidi Brunsdon.

"I have listened while the officers have provided us with more details, yet as I sit here I am struck by how little consideration has been given to the soundness of these documents for the EiP.

Make no mistake, we must all recognise change is necessary for East Grinstead to address years of neglect of its traffic problems, a lack of investment in its facilties, social housing, and employment and a lack of vision for its future.

We have been told that this Area Action Plan will bring prosperity to the town, that East Grinstead is daft not to take this opportunity, that it is East Grinstead’s turn. But the stark reality is that the AAP is a seriously flawed document with many elements that are open to challenge. The information provided by the officers in response to the Lib Dem amendment at BEAG, illustrates that the there are genuine alternatives to the recommended option. In my view, by pressing ahead with the AAP in it’s current form, this Council risks failing in its duty of care to the people of East Grinstead.

Yes we can send this document on to the next stage – with a wing and prayer that we might fix it in the next 18 months, and we might get a sympathetic inspector at the EiP – but what if the inspector rules against us - what is the price of failure? A Core Strategy that puts more not less pressure for houses in Burgess Hill, and Haywards Heath, and provides no infrastructure and relief road for East Grinstead?

The Liberal Democrats are well aware of the pressing need for affordable housing and the problems of deficient infrastructure. It is with this knowledge that the Lib Dems pledged for a full review, following the East Grinstead Town Council inititative in delivering its own community review.

And so I have real worries tonight, worries shared by those who elected me to represent them two months ago.

The new Star report purports to show evidence that traffic relief can be delivered. But this time we’re measuring not traffic numbers, but journey times. We’re told that the average journey time will be improved by a staggering 4 minutes for the princely sum of $67million pounds. But what we’re not told is what has happened to the rat running reported in last year’s Traffic report in East Grinstead and through the villages of Sharpthorne, West Hoathley, and Crawley Down and, the greater levels congestion for our neighbours in Felbridge, and Forest Row.

The Liberal Democrats have repeatedly asked MSDC to provide a business case – to explain for example where the shortfall in monies will come from for M23 junction capacity improvements – now that the North Sector Strategic development is not going ahead. The East Grinstead consortium will pay only £750,000 towards a £8.6million bill.

We have asked how the local authority intends to pay for the short fall in the provision for two primary schools and a new one-site secondary school in the area? “Close our borders and narrow the catchment areas” was one Mid Sussex officer's response.

Is it right that neighbouring authorities in East Sussex and Surrey severely affected by these plans continue to be left out of the negotiations. That Forest Row must suffer a 33 percent increase in traffic without mitigation. These authorities will not stand idly by - they will exercise their full rights at the Examination in public.

We are told that these questions and others such as the legal challenge of a road through the ANOB will come forward in the fullest of time within the planning process, but isn’t it right that the residents of East Grinstead and those affected by these plans should have these questions answered now.

When I stood as a candidate at the recent elections I made a pledge to my electorate for a thorough review of the East Grinstead Area Action Plan – in opposition the best I can offer is my continued support of that pledge.

I will not be voting for the recommendation tonight and I urge everyone here to consider, whatever your views on the AAP, that crucial questions still remain unanswered.

I hope that when members look at yourselves in the mirror tomorrow they do so with a clear conscience – this is the wrong plan for East Grinstead, a bad plan for the area and one that does a grave disservice to the integrity and name of this council. "