Paradise lost? Time to say NO!

The English - even more than the Scots and the Welsh – don’t take kindly to being told what to do by men in suits from Whitehall or Town Hall. That is one reason why communism never took off here and socialism is dead. Nor will we submit to the sort of regulation and bureaucracy enjoyed by the Germans who follow rules on mowing lawns and washing cars.

It was probably as good as it gets for control freaks under the Normans who imposed one-size-fits-all national assize courts (good) and regal control of the traditional feudal system (bad). In our Magna Carta King John was forced to compromise and accept trial by jury and no imprisonment without trial and due process (another freedom our sinking government is trying to extinguish and which I will defend).

In the Second World War our parents and grandparents accepted central control of the war economy and food rationing out of necessity. As a result the country was carved up into economic planning regions which is why we in Salisbury are lumped into South West England (where we are not) rather than good old Wessex or the more prosaic Central Southern England (which is where we actually are).

They tried it before
Some of us remember that back in the 1960’s (when we were still using log tables and slide rulers) Harold Wilson’s government boasted of ‘the white heat of the technological revolution. They tried to impose a 5-year ‘National Plan’ run by a new Department for Economic Affairs (DEA). I know, because I had just started teaching and it was part of the ‘A’-Level economics syllabus. The National Plan, the Minister (George Brown) and the Whitehall department all collapsed without trace.

Until, that is, Tony Blair had to find a job for John Prescott. But, having failed to convince the electorate, even the Geordies, of the merits of Regional Government, John Prescott’s revenge is being visited upon us. The Regional Assembly which drove policy across the South West is to be abolished. So are Wiltshire County and Salisbury District Councils, in May 2009. But not before they have rubber-stamped the imposition of house building and job numbers for the next twenty years that are based on volumes of economic statistics and analysis.

But, hold hard! As a former teacher of the dismal science (as Thomas Carlyle called it) I agree with Benjamin Disraeli that there are lies, damned lies and statistics. And as a former Minister for Housing and for Local Government Finance I recall the best advice from officials – “garbage in, garbage out”!

There are good, democratic reasons why the Whitehall diktat on new house numbers should be sunk. But there are two other reasons why they are holed below the waterline.

Fact or fantasy?
First, the intellectual and statistical base of the whole exercise is thrown into disarray by the changed global, national and local economic situation. When the guiding assumptions were made, some five years ago, the global economy was expanding and the booming British economy looked untouchable. Today, the world faces shortages of energy, water and food, the City of London may loose 40,000 jobs (equivalent to the population of Salisbury) and locally we are losing 440 jobs from one factory at High Post. The Army is set to move out of Wilton (another 1000 jobs). What next for our local economy?

Secondly, it is folly for our either our dead-duck (or should it be dead parrot) District Council or our dying County Council to be taking any strategic decisions on twenty-year housing plans. Fortunately WCC has expressed strong reservations about these damaging proposals – and they have more experience of strategic decision-making than any District Council. It should all be put on hold for at least a year, so that the new, unitary Wiltshire Council can consider the matter afresh. I have asked the Government to do this.

Remember Twyford Down?
Woe betide the developer and house-builder who takes on the citizens of Firsdown or Winterslow - or any other village or suburb, if the local people do not want his houses. They will have to add 15% to the contract tender just to pay for security. I learnt that when sparring with Swampy on road protests when I was Minister for Roads!

Something even more important is at stake than the arithmetic. Those of us who love South Wiltshire (and I’ve lived here, on and off, since 1947) must convince a very wide range of interests and a very large number of decision-makers that the whole idea of the English countryside and our rural heritage is at stake. This is not just about saving Salisbury from over-development.

This campaign is about saving the identity, the personality and the very soul of Salisbury, our villages and our countryside. We are talking about changing the face of the place we live, love and work in. We should fight this planning nightmare town by town, village by village, field by field and hedgerow by hedgerow until common sense prevails.

Robert Key MP
April 2008