URGENT - Everyone who is opposed to the Newton Mearns incinerator proposal - SEND YOUR OBJECTION TO THE COUNCIL'S 'MAIN ISSUES REPORT', 16 December 2011

(Return to main Newton Mearns page)

Briefing note 11, 16th. Dec 2011

Contents

1. Broadening of scope of Briefing notes

2. Call to 'arms.'

3. Actions required now.

4. Further actions.

5. Why object to the MIR?

6. The Politicians' views.

7. How to object and addresses for objections.

8. Councillors and their contact details.

Broadening of scope of these Briefing notes

I have been asked to specifically point out that these briefing notes are not connected to Newton Mearns Community Council in any way and I am delighted to do so.

Whilst the concept of the briefing notes was originally designed (by me) to inform and update East Renfrewshire residents of the proposal for a waste incineration plant by Lifetime Recycling Village at Loganswell, I consider it advisable to broaden the scope to include any proposal that will majorly impact on our area.

On the 8th. November I released the then named LRV10, which outlined the scope and general thrust of ERC's main issues report. (MIR) Many of you kindly took the time to reply, commenting favourably on my report, if not the thrust of the Council’s proposals. However, I was asked a number of times for guidance on how you should individually proceed. This briefing note (BN11) hopefully will assist you with that.

Call to 'arms'.

This is the time for your direct action and there are only 12 days left, and that includes the holidays. The consultation closes on Wednesday 28th. December and ERC's office is closed from 2pm on the 24th, re-opening on the 28th December with the likelihood of only a skeleton staff being available. ERC's Customer First have said there might only be one planning officer available during the holidays, so act now!

Newton Mearns has about 29,000 residents. Unfortunately you are one of the minute number, i.e. less than 5% of residents, subscribed to these briefing notes. Much of the Main Issues Report (MIR) also impacts on the other ER areas so it potentially affects the East Ren population of about 89,000 residents.

Action required right now.

1. Write to East Renfrewshire Council objecting to those elements of the MIR you oppose.

2. Have each member of your household write separately voicing their objections. Individual objections each count as one. Joint/shared/copied objections have been determined by ER Councillors to only count as one regardless of the number of signatories they contain. For this reason, petitions are useless.

3. Knock on every door in your street and make sure your neighbours know exactly what is being proposed, the impact it is likely to have on your community, the potential impact on our schools and on the likely value of your property, and encourage every member of their household to voice their objections.

4. Ask every neighbour to help us in reaching a critical mass by emailing their name and address to briefingNM@gmail.com with 'subscribe' in the subject line so that we can broaden our church.

5. Raise points 3 and 4 with every ER resident you meet, be it at the shops, restaurants, golf clubs, work or even with those you meet in the street.

N.B. There is unlikely to be any second opportunity to stop these proposals from forming the basis of the forthcoming Local Development plan. 

Further actions.

1. Copy your letter, or email it, to all twenty ER Councillors. These are the people we elect to represent us and reflect our needs and wishes for our communities. Their names and contact details are available at:-

http://www.eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk/index.aspx?q=councillors&continue=Search&articleid=7&searchmethod=ALL

Councillors will, or at least should, be mindful that we have the council election next May and we will be monitoring their performance and voting record over this and other matters. All Councillors are paid a salary nowadays so do not think you are in any way imposing on their free time. You elect them, you directly pay them and they are there to reflect your wishes rather than party political dogma.

2. Please reply and advise whether you would be prepared to participate in a protest at ERC headquarters at the time of a council meeting? If there is sufficient interest, it might be a way of clearly demonstrating to Councillors the groundswell of opposition to the MIR.

Why object to the MIR?

1. It could potentially provide the building blocks necessary to enable a successful application for incinerators to be sited in Newton Mearns in the vicinity of housing and schools. The areas it will impact on directly include ALL of East Renfrewshire. The key objection to the incinerator from the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) is the amount of waste heat just released into the air. If, however, this heat could be used to heat 1200 nearby homes, this key objection would be void.

2. I am grateful to Councillor Jim Swift for correcting my assertion in LRV10 that the MIR seeks to build 600 'affordable' houses stretching from the edge of Mearnskirk across green belt farm land all the way to the Glasgow Southern Orbital  (GSO) road. Cllr. Swift points out that, in fact, it proposes up to 1200, yes you are reading this correctly, one thousand two hundred affordable homes. He also reminds me this is in direct conflict with the latest (2011) proposed Glasgow & Clyde Valley Structure plan, which provides for only an additional 23 new homes between now and 2025. I say additional as this is over and above the 3000 homes already in the system prior to release of this plan.

3. The MIR proposes to extend Newton Mearns southward, reducing the divide between East Renfrewshire and East Ayrshire. In effect, we will have houses from the top of Cheviot Drive, the current boundary, all the way to the GSO bypass and stretching back into Mearnskirk. There is a proposal pending for phase 1 of a development here too at Humbie Rd. - 85 houses, but that is only phase 1, again on the greenbelt. You know where this is going and if we don’t act we will get what we deserve, A once pleasant up-market area surrounded by leafy greenery transformed into a massive urban sprawl.

4. The twelve hundred affordable houses will not be restricted to occupation by key workers such as teachers, Police, NHS staff etc. They will be used to provide  houses to those highest on the council waiting lists, some of whom live chaotic lives. Somewhat perversely, one unique sub-set of people who will get access are priority groups, e.g. those who work for the Council as part of the equality target group for affordable housing. So in whose interest  is this Council acting, yours, or theirs? This list takes no regard of whether they currently live within the communities of Newton Mearns or not.

5. The MIR seeks to blur the boundaries between Newton Mearns and Barrhead. It has already been suggested that the development in Barrhead at Lyoncross will be marketed and possibly named 'Lyoncross by Newton Mearns' due to the perceived enhanced value of association with Newton Mearns and the disassociation with Barrhead. This pays no credit to the good people of Barrhead, who have worked tirelessly to improve the image of Barrhead. 

6. The developer who owns the site for the 1200 houses bought that site way back in the last century for the then very low agricultural value. That purchase price has since been written down to zero by offsetting it against taxable profits. Therefore, ERC eye it greedily as they believe they can extract huge sums from the developer by way of planning gain to be used, or squandered, you decide which, for their other pet projects. We already know that one of those projects includes a new link road between junction 5 (Maidenhill) of the M77 and Barrhead. This represents an estimated expenditure of 16 times the cost of building the link road to junction 4, where it would provide the necessary infrastructure to assist the new but vacant business park at Greenlaw (apart from a hotel) and more than pay for the cost of turning junction 4 M77 into a proper four way diamond junction allowing entry and egress to the M77 in both north and south directions thereby reducing traffic on the local roads.

7. We do not have the sufficient spare capacity in our schools to cope with the likely uplift in numbers demanded by 1200 affordable homes. The MIR does make  mention of plans to build a new primary school in the new development, but no expansion of our secondary schools that are already full .

For your information, it is worth noting that the funding for the underlying report, which which started as an exercise to review the M77 corridor on which the MIR is now based, was partly funded by developers. This explains much of its radical content with total disregard to the welfare of our communities. It is believed that the developers are already engaged with the planners at East Ren in anticipation of the MIR going through early in 2012, so please believe that only your strident objections now, can prevent much of the MIR from being delivered. I am on record as levelling the charges of the dangers of turning Newton Mearns into a 'sink' estate with the attendant social tensions and of describing the quantity of affordable housing being thrust upon Newton Mearns as blatant social engineering for political gain. People bridle at Castlemilk, which was an estate built with no amenities, building 1200 houses with few or no amenities cannot add to local cohesion, nor is it sustainable, meaningless words that appear all too frequently in the report. 

2.3

Much discussion followed with Councillor McAlpine stating that he was committed to social housing and this was confirmed by the Councils demand that all new development must hand over 25% of housing stock to Council for social housing use. Chairman summarised Cllr McAlpine’s comments on 25% commuted payment by asking ‘If you are saying developers have to pay a 25% commuted payment to avoid social engineering (forcing a mix of, mixing, affordable and private housing) are you saying that this is a 33% tax on private house buyers, which in turn forces up the cost of private housing, which increases the need for affordable housing?’ Cllr McAlpine ‘Yes, what is wrong with that?’

How to object and addresses for objections.
To comment on the proposed local development plan and greenbelt destruction please do so on the web, in the on-line consultation to the Main Issues Report at:- (the Council changed the link in the middle of the consultation, how's that for making life difficult)

http://www.eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=2872
and use the form
http://www.eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=2816&p=0

or in writing to:- 
The Development Plans Team, 
East Renfrewshire Council
Environment (Planning, Property & Regeneration)
2 Spiersbridge Way, 
Spiersbridge Business Park, 
Thornliebank, 
G46 8NG.

There are currently 37,000 homes in all of East Renfrewshire. 15 years ago there were in excess of 34,000 homes, yet we have seen substantial expansion, just think what another 7,000 homes would bring to our roads, schools, our far away green boundary and our  local environment.

If you believe you want 4000 additional houses on top of the 3000 as yet unbuilt, but approved, houses, then vote for option 2a or 2 b, if you want
limited development, then please support option 1.
Option 2b, will deliver an expansion of over 20% for East Renfrewshire, but an expansion of over 40% to Newton Mearns.