Letter Published in Kirkintilloch Herald

MOC GREENBELT PRESERVATION

Steering Committee

Letter to Kirkintilloch Herald by email.

3 July 2014

The Editor

Kirkintilloch Herald

Dear Sir,

FIGHT IS ON TO SAVE MILTON OF CAMPSIE GREENBELT LAND

As your front page headline on the 2nd of July rightly records “Angry residents staged a protest outside the Council Chambers” before last week’s meeting which considered the Main Issues Report on the Local Development Plan – “Where We Live” Section.

It is proposed that 190 so called “affordable houses” are built on the Greenfield site at Redmoss Farm, representing 20% of the total and 42% of the Affordable Capacity for the whole of East Dunbartonshire. As the Report records “Redmoss Farm in Milton of Campsie was the only site that attracted a significant amount of opposition (during the consultation process) with 160 objections.”

Prior to the debate the SNP opposition introduced an amendment to exclude Redmoss Farm and two much smaller sites from “preferred” status and to “instruct officers to bring back to Council outline affordable options for all Brownfield sites in the Council ownership”

During the debate Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative Councillors from the majority coalition repeatedly referred to “pressure on this authority to deliver because East Dunbartonshire had no Plan in place” (Councillor Alan Moir) and yet the plan they were promoting delivers only half the required number of affordable housing units. It seemed to those of us observing that there was little in the way of constructive argument from the coalition some of whose members seemed more intent on interrupting their opponents with sarcastic remarks than genuine debate.

It was extremely disappointing for us to find two of our local Councillors, Dempsey and Welsh siding with their Labour colleagues in support of the proposals. That made us all the more grateful to have support from SNP Councillor David Ritchie who spoke of the strength of local feeling against building on Greenfield sites. He said there were issues at Redmoss concerning: wildlife, biodiversity, roads, public transport etc. In his opinion it was a “gorgeous site”. There were numerous Brownfield sites which are ideal for affordable housing including Tom Johnston House which is on a bus route, close to the train and across from the Sports Centre.

His colleague Councillor Keith Small pointed out that the proposal is against Council policy – “affordable housing should be integrated not stand alone.”

Independent Councillor Jack Young, referred to the late Cllr Kennedy’s long standing opposition to development on Redmoss Farm. He pointed out that the report considered 475 units on Brownfield sites and 477 on Greenfield. He said that it was “particularly important to look at Brownfield sites first”.

As you reported, despite support from the independent Councillors Young and Cumming, the amendment was lost by 14-10.

However, as Labour Group Leader Councillor Rhondda Geekie reminded Councillors they were “not considering a Planning Application” but the adoption of this report remits officers to develop the Council’s selected option for housing development in the Proposed Plan which will be brought back to the Development & Regeneration Committee for approval ahead of publication scheduled for spring 2015.

So we may have lost a battle but the war is a long way from over.

We have established MILTON OF CAMPSIE GREENBELT PRESERVATION with the objective of co-ordinating action to save and protect the greenbelt in Milton of Campsie. A Steering Committee has been formed and we will be liaising with the local and neighbouring Community Councils and other concerned groups. We have set up a basic web site http://mocvillage.wix.com/greenbelt and in due course this will be moved to the domain mocgreenbelt.org.

A public meeting will be called as soon as possible but in the meantime anybody who wishes to assist should please email me secretary@mocgreenbelt.org. We would be particularly interested to hear from anyone with experience in social media, publicity or fund raising.

Alan Harris

Interim Secretary

secretary@mocgreenbelt.org