Wednesday 20 November 2013

Three Campaigns

Email from Councillor Marianne Overton

'Dear Friends and Colleagues,

3 Campaigns: Branston Library, Core strategy and Wind turbines

I hope you are well. Three things have arrived together, not unconnected. The Core strategy is a development plan for Central Lincolnshire which increases housing, stretching public services and encourages wind turbines. Hopefully we can do a bit to have our say in the decision-making.

Branston Library
560 people signed the petition to keep Branston Library. It has over 40,000 people walking through its doors each year, about one every two minutes, 35 per hour. The County Council Executive is proposing to close this gateway to the world unless volunteers take it on, which would be pretty difficult long term.

The Council has a meeting for all councillors to discuss the issue at 2pm in the Council Chamber on 22nd November, open to the public. The Executive is then making their final decision on December 3rd, also in public. There was a debate at full council last meeting which is available on the web.
Can you come along on Saturday 30th November noon in Branston library to show you care?

A readathon  works really well. Watch or join in a line winding round their library and taking turns to read a favourite piece. For the Branston Businesses section, it could be a piece about your business from the web, available via the library. Hats and character costumes optional. Can you come along? It would be designed to catch the press so that we can demonstrate the strength of local feeling on the matter. It would also fit in just before Branston's Christmas bazaar.

Please come along and join the campaign. Please ask your friends along too, poster attached. Having got everyone there, we can raise a bit of funds to send through Rotary to the Philippines disaster fund.

For the two campaigns below, I am available in the morning of the 30th November in Branston library from 11am if you would like to submit a comment or add support. Alternatively, you can e-mail or post comments to me.

Massive House-building
Branston Church Hall was packed recently for a meeting called by “Save Branston Village” Campaign.  Residents were very concerned about proposals for building hundreds more houses at Branston, without adequate money for infrastructure, such as roads and services such as libraries, nor enough jobs.

There was also concern about the added traffic congestion and pressure on local services, such as doctors and school places which will be further stretched as public funding continues to shrink. Branston submitted 32 petitions which I am submitting to the Joint planning Unit for their next meeting. I did put a motion to full Council, raising on the matter, which you can see on Lincolnshire county council podcast, September meeting at 4 hours.34 mins.

Wind Turbines
You may have heard of a new application for very large turbines in Nocton/Dunston Fen. I was called to a public meeting recently to hear resident’s concerns and there is a further meeting on Sunday. Please let me know if you would like to be consulted.

The Core Strategy is at fault here in that it sets a target for 60% of our energy to come from renewable sources, when the rest of the country is on 10/15%, making us a target.

Lastly, my new computer has been in repair for a few weeks now, which has caused my e-mails to back up and temporarily block on the Biosearch address. The cllrm.overton@lincolnshire.gov.uk is working fine. Apologies for the inconvenience. I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind Regards,
Marianne
Cllr Marianne Overton
Independent County and District Councillor for Navenby and Branston District and the Cliff Villages
Leader of the Lincolnshire Independents
01400 273323
www.independentvoice.org.uk'

Footnote:
You will have to contact Marianne for more information about her public meetings regarding the wind turbines as no further details were supplied.

1 comment:

  1. I have e-mailed Marianne about the public meeting on Sunday, but as yet have had no response.
    I'm not quite sure how they are going to implement this 60% of energy from renewable resources? Will this include electricity from offshore wind farms, or are we to end up with the fields and fens of Lincolnshire blighted with hundreds of wind turbines?
    The whole idea seems like pie in the sky to me.
    We need more facts and information.
    Richard Abraham

    ReplyDelete

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