The fundamental problem that this plan has is that it is suggesting that the ‘more of the same’ mass development and large scale migration into the County, is in some way ‘sustainable’. The experience of the previous 30+ years of significant development in and around Norwich has proved to be exactly the opposite –that it is NOT sustainable. The impacts on traffic numbers, air pollution, water resources, loss of countryside and open space, damage to biodiversity, extreme and dangerous pressure on the health services and social services – all of which are now in crisis – emphasises that this policy of ‘growth’ has not worked. Sustainability is the golden thread that runs through the planning system and is emphasised in the NPPF – to fail this test is to fail to justify the proposals and they should not proceed. – Clearly by any reading of the term sustainability, the current model and policies have failed, and the proposals in this new plan which continue on the same route, must therefore be deemed to fail the basic test of sustainability.
The statements throughout the document indicate time and again that the new proposed development will somehow bring improvements to peoples lives, their environment and their social and employment welfare. However, there does not appear to be any evidential justification for any such statements. Without any empirical evidence to support such statements, and in the light of past experience, to state that ‘more of the same’ will actually bring different results is clearly misleading and wrong. All such statements and allusions should be struck from the plan and in their place, it needs a clear indication of the effects and results of the development of the past 30 years – not dressed up and partially chosen bits of statistics that cover up the real truth of what people know to have happened in their county and to their lives, but an independently undertaken review of all the above areas of the functioning of the GNDP area (by at least two teams of independent academics from universities not in the region – who will allow peer review and accountability to their reports) this will then provide the basis for a new plan and a new set of objectives with information to allow reasoned judgement.
In the meantime, the proposals in the report to continue to add further development to the GNDP area should be halted as it is clearly unsustainable to propose more development when the existing development has failed to produce a sustainable, good society, economy and environment. There is already a vast amount of consented development potential which has yet to be realised in the current Plans – and which will no doubt continue to contribute to the decline in the quality of life of the County. There is therefore NO justification for more until proven evidence is available and presented to the Public in a manner which is not partisan and biased, and which will allow real assessment of the true effects of such development to be understood balanced against any benefits.