Vin West, Secretary of Arfon Access Group submitted comments on the plan after attending a workshop in Caernarfon on November 27 2003. You can download the file or read on below.
More here on how to add your own comments.
Response to Wales Spatial Plan
• While this is a strategic document the wording seems dangerously woolly and non-specific ~ a cruel summary of the document might be: “we must do everything better!”
• From reading this document it would seem that disabled people do not exist in Wales! While this is a not unfamiliar state of affairs, it is nevertheless disappointing, especially as Sustainable Development is stated as the core concept. Sustainable Development has social equity now and in the future at its heart. The authors may say that disabled people are included implicitly, but it is the experience of disabled people that if their needs and aspirations are not detailed explicitly then they are forgotten.
• Broadband Internet connections are crucial in enabling disabled people equal employment opportunities
• If disabled people were included in the equation you would see that much of the societal change that is coming about due to pressure from disabled people will be of enormous benefit to society generally and to the environment:
Examples such as:
i) improved accessibility to public transport, which has the potential to reduce private transport use
ii) improved integration of public transport, likewise
iii) improved access to buildings, which will increase business profits
iv) increased economic activity of disabled people entering employment or self-employment or becoming employers themselves
• I find it very worrying that the document claims Sustainable Development as its central vision and yet continues to use crude financial measurements (GDP) as a means of judging development, when economic growth is the driving force behind global warming and we should be moving towards developing local economies and increasing the time that resources are cycled locally to increase potential for sustainability
• There seems to be no links or references to Planning Delivery for Wales or the Design Advice Notes
• Like to see much greater presumption in favour of wind power development on land
• Like to see pressure on builders to re-use grey water for toilet flushing and to extract residual heat
• Like to see mindset on resource management altered so that all resources are harnessed and re-used rather than majority considered as ‘waste’
• Like to see incentives to re-forest uplands instead of wasting the land having sheep wandering about uselessly
• We need tax incentives to encourage the development of renewable vehicle and heating fuels, such as MWVF
• How can increased consumerism be an indicator of a move towards sustainable development? Surely we should be looking for the development of industries that improve our quality of life and have positive environmental impacts
• The phrase “sustainable economic growth” is an oxymoron! Until we have found sufficient sources of renewable energy and reversed global warming and spread an equal quality of life to the rest of the planet economic growth in one region can only be at the expense of the quality of life of another region!
• There need to be incentives to encourage organic farming. The real hidden costs of inorganic farming should form part of the equation: cleaning up chemical spills; costs of ever increasing mechanisation and fuel use; health costs to the population and the nhs of consuming an unknown cocktail of interacting chemicals
• Government should intervene to prevent supermarkets driving down farm profits by use of their monopoly power.
• Dependence on tourism is a sign of a failed economy. Tourism should if anything be a spin-off from a thriving local economy that visitors are attracted to. The concept of building and running activities purely for tourism is intrinsically unsustainable, depending on the unnecessary profligate waste of fossil fuel, contributing to global warming
• There should be support for creating medical centres of excellence in Wales, such as a children’s hospital for North Wales. The argument runs that our population doesn’t warrant it, but people have to travel from Wales to Liverpool, Manchester and Oswestry for specialist treatment ~ wouldn’t there be greater health benefits from travelling into the beautiful surroundings of Wales for treatment for English Patients than having to go to Manchester or Liverpool? And that would put up the numbers treated to a workable experience base for consultants
• The claim that we are subject to the whim of external economic drivers (P. 30) is poverty consciousness ~ it is possible to generate a strong local economy, where finance and resources are locked in as long as possible by developing local specialities such as farmers’ markets and local makers using local materials and specialities and crafts and cornering the market in renewable energy and recycling technology, so that profits move inwards: the exact opposite of ‘inward investment’ where profits move rapidly outwards.
• Safe routes to schools desperately needed for both health and environmental and child safety reasons ~ walking buses seem like one of the best options
Vin West 26/11/03
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