Rochester South and Horsted Focus - Horsted Valley

Threat to Green Spaces

HORSTED VALLEY

At a time when the National Planning Policy framework , the Planning Inspectorate, are placing ever greater demands on Local Authorities to build even more houses, Medway's own Conservative-run Council is continuing to cut staff from the Council's Green Spaces Division.

In the last three years alone, the demand has risen from 18,000 new houses to 35,000, meaning Medway will have to expand by a third.

Councils always need to have five years supply of housing land. If developers fail to deliver enough houses, councils are punished by being forced to release more land for housing, which could put at risk any green space land the council owns, including our own Horsted Valley.

According to the Council for the Protection of Rural England, where a Council is unable to demonstrate it had a five year supply of land because it did not have a 'local-plan' (just like Medway), 72% of appeals to the Planning Inspectorate were approved, which means that such Councils could become unwilling to refuse any development for fear it will be overturned on appeal.

HORSTED PARK

Countryside Properties are hinting they might want to alter their development at Horsted Park. They are now thinking that building blocks of flats on the Maidstone Road frontage would compromise what is otherwise a prize-winning development and instead, they are wondering whether to continue with a development on the same lines as at present.

However, they are also thinking of building on the old farmyard site, which means yet more intrusion onto a Greenfield site.

Please let me know what you think!

Despite UKIP's By-Election Win:

It is comforting to know that the people of Rochester & Strood are still benefiting from those excellent policies introduced by the LibDems in the coalition government, details of which, as a reminder, can be found on the back page.

The indomitable Cllr. Geoff Juby, striving to secure a stronger economy in a fairer society.

Geoff Juby says: "Thank you for your support in the recent Rochester & Strood By-election."

• "It was always going to be a tough fight and in what effectively became a two-horse race."
• "Other parties, including the LibDems, were going to be severely squeezed, and so it was."
• "In the absence of a fairer (P.R.) voting system, many people found themselves voting negatively, that is to say, voting for a party other than the one they are naturally drawn to, in order to try to keep out the party they least desire."
• "Hopefully our natural supporters will return to us in May 2015, appreciating what the LibDems in government have done for the people of Rochester & Strood, including: the 'triple-lock' guarantee for pensioners and the £800 annual income tax cut for ordinary workers as well as thousands of local workers taken out of Income tax altogether. And what of those vastly increased numbers of local apprenticeships, not to mention the Pupil Premium and Free School Dinners."
• Isn't it comforting to know that the LibDems have stopped the Tories' 'Snoopers Charter' and very importantly, prevented the Tories from allowing employers to sack employees for no good reason"

If you have any problems you would like to raise with Medway Liberal Democrats about issues in Rochester South and Horsted, please take this survey.

WHAT DID THE LIB DEMS EVER DO FOR YOU?

Your Rochester South & Horsted FOCUS team was most delighted with the Lib Dem Pensions Minister, Steve Webb's recent announcement that a deal has been signed with the Post Office Limited to ensure the Post Office Account, due to have been withdrawn in 2015, will now remain available until at least 2022. This will now serve to protect services for vulnerable pensioners and benefit claimants in Rochester South & Horsted as well as safeguarding the Post Office network.

Held by some 2.5 million people, the Post Office Account provides simple banking services for people without the traditional banking current account, to ensure they can still receive those benefits, tax credits, state pensions and war pensions to which they are entitled.

The Post Office Account also provides the option for claimants who need someone else to collect their money for them to apply for a second card.

Yet another LibDem success!