NIMBY – Not In My Back Yard

Why are Government housing targets all being dumped on Welwyn Garden City, and not shared with the surrounding areas?

Councillors from surrounding areas like Brookmans Park, Welwyn Village, Hatfield Village, Northaw & Cuffley don’t want extra flats in their area, so they all gang up and vote to have Welwyn Garden City do all the heavy lifting in satisfying the government housing targets.

82% of councillors who do not represent WGC, voted in favour of having high rise flats built on WGC land.

The developers have asked for these ugly tower blocks to have extra floors.

The headcount of councillors who voted for extra flats on Broadwater Road is below.

Outside councillors that do not represent Welwyn Garden City but get to vote on passing the government targets onto another town, our town.

Had all the Welwyn Garden City councillors rejected these high rise flats, the votes for would be 18 and the votes against would have been 20. The Welwyn & Hatfield council would have had to come up with a fairer distribution between the towns and villages that make up the Welwyn & Hatfield district.

These are the Welwyn Garden City councillors that voted for allowing developers to build out of character high-rise flats in our Garden City, and risk us losing our Garden City status:

Property developers gave the conservative party £891,000 in the first quarter of 2021

Labour has accused the Conservative party of “selling out communities to pay back developers” after figures revealed that 13% of the Tories’ recent donations came from property tycoons and companies.

Labour’s analysis of declarations released by the Electoral Commission shows the firms gave £891,984 to Tory central office and eight local associations – a sizeable chunk of the £6,418,295 the party reported receiving in the first three months of 2021.

It comes as the government prepares to launch sweeping changes to the planning system that Labour says will remove communities’ right to object to inappropriate individual developments in their area.https://b03932ccc31ae0746844f6dfed27b9a1.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

Ministers are aiming to centralise and accelerate the housebuilding process in England to help boost homeownership in areas across the north and Midlands, which have seen increased levels of Conservative support.

But opposition among Tory MPs has been well aired in advance of the planning bill being introduced to parliament, with the former prime minister Theresa May among the potential rebels who told the government to “think again”. Another backbencher, Bob Seely, said last month that the plan “threatens to give our opponents throughout England a rallying cry of ‘save local democracy from the Tories’”.

It has now been revealed that 36 donations from developers were made to the Conservatives in the first three months of this year.

Most sums were paid to the Conservative central office, with the largest single donation made by Bloor Holdings Ltd, which gave £150,000 and has reportedly had an application to build 1,000 new homes at Sandleford Park in Berkshire “recovered” by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, meaning it will be ruled on in Whitehall.

Local associations that received money directly include Witney – the constituency of the junior transport minister Robert Courts – as well as Tatton, Suffolk West and Enfield Southgate. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by the donors or the party.

The images below have already been approved by the council. The developers want to raise the level up to nine floors.

Developers have applied to build up to nine-floors high in Broadwater Road, but the Council’s own policy (The Masterplan) says five-floors maximum.

Together they plan nearly 3000 flats — and just 9 houses. This does not meet the Council’s own housing needs assessment. It’s making it worse. Your help is needed today, before it’s too late.

The 3 separate sites, each with their own plan, are:

  • The Biopark,
  • ‘Wheat Quarter’ — north of Hydeway
  • Southside – south of Hydeway

More like Inner London than a world-famous Garden City.

Write to Planning@welhat.gov.uk Call or email your ward Councillors
Email shappsg@parliament.uk

To see the promo video go to What’s consented? (thewheatquarter.co.uk) Go to the bottom of this page, and click [You can watch a flythrough of what’s already been consented]

This is the newly updated proposal, with lost green and extra stories.