I thought that the West Northamptonshire Development Corporation (WNDC) was set up to smooth the passage of the provision of the extra large number of homes that government has planned to be built in the area.
This was alluded to by one member of the committee at the meeting to consider the Danetre Village application held at the Barceló Daventry Hotel. I would expect WNDC to be indicating the where, what and when of housing and community needs that they r
ecommend after balancing the conflicting interests and in so doing, make financial and practical provision for the timely availability of drainage, roads, water and power supplies.
It is the failure to provide services, especially major roads, in advance of house construction, that is causing a considerable amount of ill-feeling not only here but for the proposed eco towns.
There seems to be an official wish for roads and traffic to go away, but they won't! Norton can very easily be by-passed and a better road provided to Long Buckby station with coordinated planning of developments!
Three developers have invested a large amount of money in preparing their applications, presumably encouraged by government's regional offices. Their combined proposals will provide far more houses than planned.
WNDC appears to have been set up too late for its task or has been too slow in its actions. Has it pro-active powers to specify the preferred areas for the housing or only the power to reject these proposals, piecemeal?
If it has the pro-active powers then the appeal by the developers against the prolonged period without decision should be cancelled by government and recompense for delays agreed. How the Danetre application comes to be split across the Daventry and WNDC responsibilities shows another lack of foresight somewhere!
Let's stop wallowing about and show some characteristic Northamptonshire zeal for progress!
Geoff Pullin
Badby
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