![]() |
River Arun at Arundel |
I have attended a number of presentations recently by Derek Waller of
Arundel who advises Arundel Town Council on a number of local issues.
The government has recently changed the
policy regarding flooding protection, before it was a hap hazard system of
paying most of the money for flood defences for
the most needy areas, Littlehampton being a clear case of this policy
where the Environment Agency is paying £12m towards flood defences and Arun is
paying £1m.
The policy is now changed, where as the government via the Environment
agency will pay only up to a third of the costs and the balance should be
raised locally. This is good and bad,
the government is making the existing budget go further, and it’s good that
local communities can initiate schemes and rely on money from the EA, but it’s
bad that funds will have to be raised locally to fund the balance.
At the Arundel town meeting this was all explained, the
money required for Arundel’s flood defences over the next 50 years is £23m,
(£10m for the next 10 years), from other schemes that are going forward in the
District (like Pagham), the Parish or in our case Arundel Town Council will
have to find 10% of the funding, that’s £2.3m over the next 50 years (or £1m over next 10 years).
The balance will have to be
found from West Sussex County Council and the District.
If that funding is not found, then Arundel will experience
flooding in 20 years or more, so the community has a choice, I believe that a
fund should be started and funded from the precept, I believe £30,000 per year
should be put aside to at least fund some of the future needs, this would be
prudent and would cost households
approximately 50p per week per household.
I believe this would be a good investment and place us in a good
position to initiate the changes that are needed.
I have received a letter from Tony Dixon regarding
Horticultural Hubs, Tony lives in Aldingbourne and over the last 6 years have
been arguing that Ford Airfield should be developed, he is an advocate of this
because he wanted to avoid development at Aldingbourne, so before I reply you
have to understand what Tony’s position is.
Tony in his letter mentions Chichester District Council, but
fails to mention that they recently turned down an application for a
Horticultural hub. My recent article was arguing that we needed in the local
plan less houses and more jobs.
The
Local Plan will decide House Building and Economic development for the next 12
years, so I do not apologise for advocating Horticultural Hubs and trying to
change the agenda for the betterment of this area of the District. Past
mistakes may have been made, but this does not mean that we should not ensure
good policy for the future.
Until next month, email: pauldendle@aol.com
No comments:
Post a Comment