George Freeman writes to the Editor of the EDP in response to a reader’s letter calling for MPs to do more to tackle over-development of rural Norfolk.

GEORGE FREEMAN MP
Member of Parliament, Mid Norfolk

SIR:

I'm replying to the letter in these pages last week (Wednesday, October 22) highlighting the need for MPs to do more to tackle over-development of rural Norfolk.

Planning and development control is – rightly in my view – a responsibility for local councils, accountable to local communities. MPs have no remit or role in planning which is why most MPs don’t normally get involved in planning at all. But during my seven years as a Candidate and MP here in Norfolk, I have taken the unusual step of being very involved in opposing inappropriate developments such as the proposed SubStation at Little Dunham and the development of the Tiffey Valley in Wymondham, resisting town centre parking charges, and supporting the reinvestment of profits from new housing back into community facilities.

We need affordable houses for local people, but we do not need massive housing estates despoiling our landscape and heritage. That's why I have been passionate in advocating a new vision for rural planning through my Norfolk Way project, showing that, with small businesses and smaller pockets of housing in villages and towns, it IS possible to build new houses AND maintain our heritage, as well as to drive the ‘Rural Renaissance’ we need, making our area a vibrant hub of enterprise and opportunity. That’s why I lobbied for and helped pass the landmark Localism Act – to give local neighbourhoods and councils more control over local planning, and am leading the charge for broadband and fast rail links.

So too in Watton, which your letter particularly mentioned, where I have led the project to get new community facilities for the Blenheim Grange Estate, am working to help raise funds for the Watton Sports Centre, and supporting the Watton Medical Practice. I see it as the job of an MP to help broker local solutions.

My UKIP opponent has said this is ‘too little too late’, a claim that would carry more credibility if she and UKIP had been at all active on these issues in the last eight years. I believe that, with local leadership and fast digital, road and rail links, we can unlock a ‘Rural Renaissance’. That is what I have fought for during the last seven years as both Candidate and MP and what I will continue to fight for if honoured to be re-elected in 2015.

| Letter to the EDP