After seeing Geoff Percival’s column in last Fridays Evening Echo, the four Lib Dem District Councillors wrote a letter to the editor in support of what he said:
We were delighted to see Geoff Percival highlighting how unfairly West Rayleigh has been treated over the past couple of decades. We have had far too much development, without enough extra amenities and facilities. When the Liberal Democrats led the council for a few years, things were helped somewhat – an allotments site was saved from development, and one housing site in Rawreth Lane was delayed for five years. However the trend has been clear.
As councillors for the area, it is probably the biggest issue we face, and it’s something we think about practically all the time. In fact back in 2003 we submitted a motion to Rochford District Council that pointed out that West Rayleigh has received more than half of all the district’s large scale development in recent times. Rather grudgingly , the council agreed that things had not been fairly balanced, and future allocations of land would be based solely on their planning merits.
Now the council has to start allocating land for development in the next fifteen years or so, and we hope that it will act fairly. There are possible sites all across the district – most of them are NOT in West Rayleigh. We want to see things done properly, so that no part of the district is ‘victimised’ in the same way that ours has been.
Yours Sincerely
Cllr Chris Black
Cllr Chris Lumley
Cllr June Lumley
Cllr Ron Oatham(Lib Dem Group, Rochford District Council)