Felt the need to quote from Joni Mitchell's 'Big Yellow Taxi' at yesterday's planning meeting (at 1h 43m) in connection with another car park in Billingshurst town centre. Sadly, pursuit of mammon triumphed yet again :(
As mentioned in the previous blog, the Town and Country Planning Association have drawn up 11 Healthy Homes and Places Principles, which are that:
All new homes;
1. must be safe in relation to the risk of fire.
2. must have, as a minimum, the liveable space required to meet the needs of people over their whole lifetimes, including adequate internal and external storage space.
3. must provide access to natural light in all main living areas and bedrooms.
4. must be designed to be inclusive, accessible, and adaptable to suit the needs of all, including the designed surroundings.
5. should be built within places that prioritise and provide access to sustainable transport and walkable services, including green infrastructure and play space.
6. must secure radical reductions in carbon emissions in line with the provisions of the Climate Change Act 2008.
7. must demonstrate how they will be resilient to a changing climate over their full lifetime.
8. must be built to design out crime and be secure.
9. must be free from unacceptable and intrusive noise and light pollution.
10. must not contribute to unsafe or illegal levels of indoor or ambient air pollution and must be built to minimise, and where possible eliminate, the harmful impacts of air pollution on human health and the environment.
11. must be designed to provide year-round thermal comfort for inhabitants.
None of which seems to be an unreasonable expectation in the 21st century, so we will have to see how many of our colleagues agree with us at full council on 9th Feb..
Given the recent changes, it feels a bit like starting at a new school this week, with several 'new boys' (Lib Dems in the NE Horsham wards of Forest and Roffey South) and a new 'headmaster'!
Some of the 'classes' have changed too, to reflect the new cabinet posts. As well as us both being on Planning South committee, Bob stays on Scrutiny, and Mike on Licensing. With regard to Policy Development Advisory Groups (PDAG)s, we are both on the new Environment and Rural Affairs PDAG; Bob stays on the Leisure and Culture PDAG, while Mike remains on Waste & Recycling and Finance, but also joins the Planning PDAG, having shadowed it for a while.
The problems remain though: we should find more about the financial situation this week, and the water neutrality issue remains a potentially useful delay to the local plan review. Mike was particularly taken by the recent blog post by Emily O'Brien of Lewes DC regarding the TCPA's Healthy Homes initiative, and will be looking further into its relevance to Horsham DC's current housing difficulties.
