GOVERNMENT IGNORES PARTNERSHIP AND GOES FOR POWER GRAB’ - CITY LIB DEM

Cllr Tim Bick, leader of the Lib Dems on Cambridge City Council, issued the following statement in response to the government’s proposals for a Greater Cambridge Development Corporation, published yesterday:

"We had two tests for the governments on this. One was: can their development corporation credibly tackle the issues that are beyond the control of the local authorities - co-ordination and funding of infrastructure such as for water and power and delivery of development itself? The other was: can it be part of a genuine partnership with local authorities, so local people feel a stake in the future through their elected representatives?

"There is possibly a good story on the first of these. The proposal looks like it might be giving the devco the powers that are needed to address the well known constraints on high quality development that respects the environment that we have in this area. This is welcome to enable us to relieve local housing shortage and enable an economy that is inclusive to thrive.

"But on the second, the proposal looks like it’s just paying lip service to local accountability. Stripping out planning powers from the councils is an act of centralisation that is simply not justified by token representation on otherwise technocratic committees. It is completely at odds with recognition of the positive local record of shaping development. It will emasculate the recently created local planning service, which has just been distinguished as planning service of the year. It will leave our area with less democratic control of its future than any other part of the country.      

"So in total the government has used the need for targeted help as an opportunity to ignore local partnership and is going for a power grab. Development corporations do not have to work like this and not all do. In the consultation that is now on, we need local voices to challenge Labour’s undying control mindset.”