Councillor Alison Andrew (Conservative, Hanslope Ward) has criticised the Labour and Lib Dems Cllrs for failing to protect the agricultural land in the North of Milton Keynes from property developers.
Her motion, on behalf of the Conservative Group, called for the withdrawal of MK North from the government New Towns Programme. Despite all sides recognising the importance of the site and its unsuitability for development, Labour and Lib Dems refused to back the motion – citing concerns that even if they backed it, they would be powerless to offer alternative solutions to the government.
‘It was an infuriating admission by the Labour and Lib Dem coalition that they weren’t even brave enough to try and remove this area. We already have 60,000 new homes coming to Milton Keynes. There can be no justification to rip up agricultural land – where we get our food from and the green spaces that protect us from pollution and more flooding’ says Cllr Andrew.
‘I consider it cowardly not to put a forceful argument to Government that pouring concrete on thousands of acres of farmland, much of it in flood zones, is wrong. Areas like Newport Pagnell and all the surrounding villages with suffer. Rainfall, that we see more of each year, will have nowhere to go apart from flooding these historic towns and villages. There are so many reasons that building on MK North is a bad idea – but this new administration doesn’t have to guts to mount a challenge at this formative stage’ she adds.
Almost 1500 people in just over a week signed Cllr Andrew’s petition in support of the motion. But they were ignored. ‘It’s not over’, she adds. ‘I gave them the simplest option to protect our city and they rejected it. So now we will get organised and as I said last night, ‘If you give me longer runway, I’ll land a bigger plane’. Unlike this administration, I’ll always stand shoulder to shoulder with residents, and not in the lap of developers’.
Cllr David Hopkins seconded the motion, playing back both Labour and the Lib Dems previous objection to developing this site and asking, ‘what’s changed’? Cllr Tyler and Cllr Verma also spoke in support of the motion as well as 4 impassioned members of the public.
‘I had hoped for more. For better. But despite the Lib Dems having the most councillors of any party in Milton Keynes we are really just getting Labour 2.0. We offered credible alternatives – tackling the empty homes crisis in the country, focusing limited resources on the sites that already are planned. But it was ignored. But we’ll fight on regardless as no-one other developers wants this destruction of greenfield sites’.
The debate can be watched on the Milton Keynes City Council YouTube channel.
