Many thanks for your very well-informed e-mail. I am hugely grateful to you for the efforts you have already taken to have your say, and also for seeking to alert others to the timescales and the key documents. I appreciate your frustration with the process, but I hope that you will persevere.
As you say, I had a meeting with the IPC last week at Yate - partly prompted and inspired by your efforts - and found it a fascinating (if rather startling) chance to go through the process. I think that few people among the general public realise that, despite the various newspaper headlines about Oldbury being 'given the go-ahead', a planning application is not even expected until late 2011, and no final decision is expected until the Summer of 2012. This does not, of course, mean that it will be easy to influence or fight these proposals, but it does give us at least some breathing space in which to organise and plan.
The key in my view is to take one consultation at a time, and as you rightly say, the key one at present is the DECC consultation on the draft national policy statements. Whilst I fully accept that even responding to these is a big job, it is also crucial. Although there are questions on a whole range of issues, i don't believe that respondents are under any obligation to comment on them all. A short response focusing on Oldbury issues, for example, would be perfectly acceptable. I plan to put some information on my website shortly about which consultations are being undertaken and how to respond, and I will also be issuing information to the local press in the hope of increasing local response rates.
I do hope you will persevere and that you will keep in contact as we seek to ensure that we make the best of what is, I fully agree, a fundamentally undemocratic process.
With best wishes,
Steve Webb MP
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment