I have always felt proper planning requires better consideration of a community’s ‘Green’ needs – in order to preserve their rural identity in our part of the world and, more generally, preserve local physical and mental wellbeing.

I am pleased to continue my support for the residents of Saham Toney, who are opposed to an application for 54 homes and their associated infrastructure.

After many hours of tireless community work, the Saham Toney Neighbourhood Plan Referendum was voted through earlier this week – with over 96% of ballots cast approving of the proposals put forward.

As part of my ongoing work to help communities in Mid Norfolk create their own Neighbourhood Plans, I am delighted to highlight the efforts of Saham Toney once again, as they now look to take their Plan to Referendum on Tuesday 26th October 2021 – with voting taking place at the Wells Cole Community Centre 7am and 10pm.

There is widespread public anger about the lack of real local planning in recent years and the move to a system in which local council control and discretion is reduced, infrastructure funding is cut, and large scale out-of-town volume housebuilders are able to make billions from lazily dumping large scale commuter housing on the outskirts of villages and towns with wholly insufficient infrastructure. 

All of our market towns face the familiar challenge of balancing new growth and development with the needs of the communities living in, and around, them – all the while preserving the unique rural heritage and way of life that we all cherish, and that makes our part of the world such an attractive place to visit.

I was delighted this week to hear that the appealed planning permission for a development on the outskirts of Dereham known as “Dumpling Green” has finally been stopped.

Many parts of Norfolk were badly hit by heavy rainfall back in December, and in the first couple of months of this year. The flooding caused followed similar problems back in the summer of 2020, and on several occasions over the preceding few years – continuing an increasingly common trend.

It is no secret that I have deep concerns about the high number of applications in our part of Norfolk – many of which are, often, highly inappropriate and on a scale that is unsustainable and out of keeping with the heritage and identity of our largely rural area, lacking the services and infrastructure needed to support them and the existing community, as well as clearly breaching the sustainable development criteria set out in the National Planning Policy Framework and 2011 Localism Act.