Our green and pleasant land is being concreted over due to the relentless, though thoroughly predictable demand for housing. As a councillor I see applications come in weekly for the destruction of green field sites around Lincolnshire. The most recent being 600 homes around the Wolds town of Spilsby. This is in addition to 200 homes around the village of Sibsey.
I am sure none of these towns or villages mean a lot to those outside the area, but there are many places like them all over England being ruined by new housing. Rural communities built up over generations with minor amendments along the way to ensure the appearance and identity of the villages are being swamped and destroyed by disproportionately large housing developments.
Whilst I was a Surrey County Councillor, some years ago I could see the same thing happening there. The Green Belt around the M25 was being threatened again and again with housing applications. The boundaries were being eaten away with thousands of homes replacing the undulating green of the Surrey hills.
As we know there are many brown field sites which could be built on and there is supposed to be a presumption of using these. Developers however, make far more profit from building on green sites and of course the building industry spend millions lobbying the government and local councils. Even so, brown field sites are finite, and eventually even if the developers were to use them, they would run out, such is the demand for housing.
If there was not such a high housing demand, then the developers would have no reason to destroy our countryside. Maybe it would not be so bad if the need was from local people, but this is not the case.
I campaigned against a proposed development whilst in Surrey, called the Horley Master Plan. It was during the start of the last Labour government in the late 1990’s. There was talk then that half of these thousands of homes may be needed for immigrants.
When I protested at public meetings about this, the screams of “racism” came thick and fast from every quarter, even Conservative colleagues accused me of scaremongering.
All I protested about was wanting to protect our green belt, ensure our own people had homes and proper immigration control so that the housing demand was also controlled. Nothing I said was about where the immigrants came from, it was about the numbers. As it has now turned out the Labour government then had plans to flood our shores with migrants, but nobody other than Blair’s gerrymandering cronies knew about this secret agenda.
Since that time the numbers of immigrants have escalated. First of all with the Labour government actually searching out migrants from all over the world to come here in their millions. Then Labour and Conservative-led governments drew us ever closer to the European Union (EU) with its open borders policy. Now Cameron is allowing hundreds of thousands more to come here despite at election time telling voters there were going to be controls.
558,000 migrants came here in the last year, which is ridiculous. We cannot sustain these numbers.
With the policy of dispersal, the government is moving immigrants around the country. Developers will be putting in more plans for green field sites.
I remember thinking when I left Surrey that the area I lived in, which was near Reigate, would be changed beyond all recognition within a few years. The Green Belt eaten away with housing demand so intense, that from London to the coast there would be nothing but modern estates, with patches of green here and there. Depressingly, this is happening in some parts, with the rest under threat.
In Lincolnshire, it will not be long before our unique villages will be merged into urban sprawls. We cannot go on like this. Most of those who cry racism tend to live in ivory towers in nice parts of London or in cosy rich areas where the price of property alone, precludes anything as nasty as a modern estate ruining their views.
I have just been notified that another 50 houses have been approved on a green field site in a small village near me. I see in the media stories of hordes of migrants coming here with EU encouragement, and a weak government scared to act in case they are called racist.
Such cowardice is beyond contempt when they were elected to act in our best interests. Worse, the leaders of the Liberal, Labour and Conservative parties are so scared of losing the migrant vote, they dare not do anything sensible to stop the flow, but just talk about it.
Our green and pleasant land will soon be no more unless we can control our borders. We need a government with the political will and courage to put our country before self interest.
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