Chesterfield and District Civic Society have expressed the need to exercise caution and to have some clarity over recent government announcements on mandatory housing targets and the scrapping of some infrastructure projects. This includes the potential cancellation of the Chesterfield to Sheffield via Barrow Hill railway line restoration to passenger services scheme.
Following the Deputy Prime Minister’s recent announcement on planning, the society says that any incursion into high quality ‘green belt’ in the area would not be welcomed, but that it agrees that more, particularly affordable housing is needed.
Says Society Chairman Howard Borrell; ‘As a society we haven’t yet discussed this important announcement on housing and the impacts it will have, but it’s fair to say that there are pros and cons in this. We do welcome, however, the apparent inference that building on brownfield sites is seen as preferential to development elsewhere. We are unsure what the impact locally will be on imposing mandatory housing numbers on local authorities and are keen to find out more about this.’
‘We are also keen to hear more about the Ministry of Housing wanting to introduce what they say is “a universal system of strategic planning across England in this parliament”. This is apparently to be underpinned by necessary legislation, presumably designed to deliver on Labour’s manifesto commitment to plan for growth, on a larger than local scale.’
On the Chesterfield to Sheffield via Barrow Hill railway link Howard comments that the society will be disappointed if this does not go ahead. He says; ‘Its possible abandonment was hinted at when Chancellor Rachel Reeves made her recent statement to Parliament regarding what was billed as a ‘black hole’ in the public finances. One of the schemes cancelled as result of this was the last government’s “Reviving Britain’s Railways” initiative. But we are not sure whether the line’s reopening to passenger traffic had actually received firm funding from another pot – for example money from the abandonment of HS2. If it did is this money part of the ‘black hole’? Another major project that we are fearful might not now happen is the Brimington/Staveley Regeneration route. This has been fraught with funding difficulties right from its time as a bypass road.’
The society now thinks that what is needed, above all, is some clarity regarding these infrastructure projects. Comments Howard Borrell; ‘We understand that the Transport Secretary has announced there is to be a review of projects such as potential rail route re-openings and of transport and other capital schemes in general. We hope that this can quickly but fairly happen. The review must take into account the importance that schemes have on the well-being of the area and the growth in the economy that the government is indicating underpins its various reforms.’