I aim to uphold the principles of the world’s first Garden City.
These principles are under serious threat, with our Foundation’s proposal to build on our Green Belt (the first planned one in the World) North of the Grange Estate.
The new estate would be bigger than the Fairfield development and all or most of its traffic would go through the Grange Estate.
There is increasingly strong movement against building on our precious Green Belt; North Hertfordshire’s 3 MPs have come out publicly against it.
Building on it is unnecessary. North Hertfordshire’s District Council (NHDC)’s Consultants advised, in effect, that a District-wide increase of roughly 4,000 dwellings from now to 2031 would satisfy local need. Our Foundation proposes 1,000 dwellings not on our Green Belt, so that we would provide our fair share of meeting Districtwide local need without building on it.
I also aim to:
- Increase the number of Governors directly elected by Letchworth citizens from its present miserly 6 to a majority of the 30.
- Increase the influence of individual Governors over decisions made, to at least what it was when our Foundation began.
- Reduce the watering-down of Letchworth-residing Governors by ones residing outside our town. A constitutional change in November, upon which our townspeople were not consulted, now allows the number of non-resident Governors to equal the 6 which have just been elected.
I was a Letchworth NHDC Councillor for fifteen years, a Hertfordshire County Councillor for 4 years and a directly-elected founding Governor of our Foundation for 4 years.
I am worried that our Foundation is moving away from being genuinely answerable to us citizens, which was the vision of those of us involved in its setting-up.
- Elected Governor
