... A FORUM TO STIMULATE DEBATE ... ... JUST ADD A COMMENT AT ANY ENTRY BELOW... ... FOR THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF TOWN AND VALLEY ...

Thursday 11 October 2018

Sidford business park >> campaign group's latest updates > public meeting Wednesday 10th October > report >> petition, lobby and community purchase

The campaign to stop an industrial estate from being built on flood plains north of Sidford met up last night:
Futures Forum: Sidford business park >> public meeting Wednesday 10th October
Futures Forum: Sidford business park >> campaign group's latest update > public meeting Wednesday 10th October

Here are the campaign's briefings - from just before and just after the meeting:

Campaign Update 14 - Public Meeting 10 October

A quick reminder of the Public Meeting that the Say NO to Sidford Business Park Campaign has organised for this coming Wednesday (10 October) evening. It starts at 7.00 pm and is being held in St Peter's Church Hall in Sidford.

Hopefully, you will have seen the advert for the meeting that was placed in last Friday's Sidmouth Herald, as well as reading the report on the forthcoming meeting that was also in the same edition of the paper. In case you didn't see either of these we attach copies for you.




Despite the planning application process having dragged on now for many months we are keen to ensure that your voice, and those of the very many other local resident's who are opposed to the proposed Business Park, continue to be heard and acted upon.

Please come along to the meeting on Wednesday evening. Your support and involvement in making sure that the Business Park isn't built remains important. Don't forget to encourage your friends and family to come along as well!

To maintain the Campaign we still are looking for donations. So every £5, £10, £20 (or more) counts! Please bring your purse or wallet with you and make a financial contribution to keeping this issue alive locally.

If you are coming from the Sidbury direction to the meeting please be aware of the roadworks that (ironically) are taking place in the evening literally outside the field where it is proposed to build the Business Park.

We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday evening.

Best wishes

Campaign Team


NOSidfordBusinessPark@yahoo.com

And from today: 

Campaign Update 15



A really big thank you to the hundred and more people who attended last night's packed public meeting in St Peter's Church Hall! It was great also to see that we had the active support at the meeting from so many people locally as well as from those of our local District Councillors who attended - Clr Dawn Manley, Clr Cathy Gardner and Clr Marianne Rixson.

We also have to give a massive thank you to everyone who was present and who made a donation to keep the Campaign going. As we reported last night, in the past four months since the Campaign proper was launched on 5 June, we have had a total of £1,001 donated. Also, as we reported last night, our Campaign funds have diminished down to its last £58.

In response to our plea for additional funds to keep the issue of the planning application in the public eye and to keep campaigning against it going we raised £765.71. Thank you all so much!! In addition, we were promised by a resident that they would help to fund an advert in the Herald! This means that last night we raised over £800. This shows how important people locally take this campaign.

After the weekend we will post a more detailed report on the meeting, but in the meantime we thought that we would we let you have a couple of the headline issues that we reported upon -

1. Petition - At the start of the meeting we had collected 1,376 signatures on our petition from people with an EX10 postcode. At the meeting we collected an additional 19 signatures. This takes the total of EX10 signatures to 1,395!

In addition to this excellent number of local signatures, we had also collected over 200 signatures from people living elsewhere in East Devon, as well as from visitors to the area.

We believe that the large number of local residents who have signed the petition means that the District Council must listen to their concerns about the Business Park and to act NOW to reject the application!

2. Lobby - In order to ensure that East Devon District Council fully appreciates the local strength of feeling against the planning application the meeting agreed to support a lobby of the District Council's next Development Management Committee (this is it's Planning Committee by another name). This meeting is being held on 30 October.

At this lobby we would present the Chair of the Development Management Committee with the signed petitions. We are pleased that the Chair, Clr Mike Howe, has agreed to this.

We are therefore asking all those who oppose this planning application to come along and be part of the process of presenting the signed petitions.

The lobby will be held on TUESDAY 30 October at 9.15 am at the District Council Offices at the Knowle in Sidmouth. Please come along!

3. Community Purchase - as this planning application to build a Business Park is the second one in as many years, Marianne Rixson suggested that it would be worth considering whether the local community could purchase the land in order to secure its future as a community asset, as opposed to it being used for speculative building as is currently happening.

Any community purchase would involve having to raise funds from residents. The meeting support this idea which the Steering Group will now investigate further.

We are expecting that this week's Sidmouth Herald will carry a report with photographs of last night's meeting.

We put a challenge to the Herald last night as we encouraged it to report the story of the number of residents who had signed the petition on its front page. We even gave the Herald the story's headline - 1,400 Residents Say NO To Sidford Business Park.

In the mean time below is one of our photographs taken as people were gathering for the meeting to start.

Thank you for your continuing support.

Best wishes

Campaign Team


NOSidfordBusinessPark@yahoo.com
Say NO to Sidford Business Park - Home | Facebook
SayNOtoSidfordBusinessPark (@say_oto) | Twitter

.
.
.

No comments: