Town council slams Vision 2031 as sleepwalking into decline
Friday, 2nd August 2013.
Haverhill Town Council has delivered a devastating critique of the latest Vision 2031 planning document for the town’s future, in the spirit of ‘constructive help’ for St Edmundsbury Council’s planners who drew it up.
The public consultation period on the final draft of Vision 2031 ends a week today, but Haverhill Town Council’s response, in a letter to St Edmundsbury from town clerk Will Austin, raises numerous issues of discontent.
The response was agreed at last week’s meeting of the town council, and is in stark contrast to the straightforward approval of the document by Haverhill Area Working Party, which includes three representatives of the town council, two months ago.
The central issues of disagreement highlighted by the town council are in the areas of infrastructure, the town centre, health provision and green space.
Without incorporation of its comments in their entirety, the Town Council says it would consider it necessary to address the Government planning inspector at the Hearing Sessions, where the document will be approved or rejected at the next stage of the process.
The town council says to provide a strategic vision that really does cater for the next 20 years of Haverhill’s development, two key issues need to be recognised:
* By 2031 Haverhill will be, in population terms at least, roughly the same size as Bury St Edmunds; and
* Although Bury St Edmunds remains the administrative centre for the borough, Haverhill is already emerging as the more important town in economic terms. Population growth, allied to the town’s reach across county boundaries make Haverhill vital both within and beyond St Edmundsbury, and in particular as part of the Cambridge sub-region.
The town council goes on: "The investment made by the borough council and others to date in Haverhill is welcome but is insignificant relative to needs if the town is to become a sustainable community.
"Key areas of infrastructure such as the town centre, transport, roads, drainage, health and open space need major additional investment, just to cater for population growth to date let alone provide for further expansion.
"The Vision documents must acknowledge these deficits, and must set out how they will be addressed.
"Otherwise, Vision 2031 is at best a damage limitation exercise, aiming to minimise the adverse effects of population growth, and at worst leaves the town sleepwalking into a steady decline in living standards.
"Vision 2031 must raise its sights and its ambitions. It must aim primarily to make Haverhill a sustainable community, and to do this the borough council must look beyond the local area, engaging with the more forward-looking counterparts in adjoining areas, particularly in Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire.
"The borough must also act to drive inward investment – public and private – by highlighting both the need and the potential of Haverhill.
"Part of this effort must be to give Haverhill a unique selling point, building on the success of its pioneering town expansion roots, its Spirit of Enterprise, its accessibility across three counties, its thirst for localism and its unusually strong community cohesion.
"This combination will act as a catalyst to draw attention to Haverhill’s unrivalled economic potential, although efforts should be made to add a new attraction to enhance the Haverhill ‘brand’."
Haverhill Town Council says it will partner St Edmundsbury in this venture to revitalise this part of. It recognises that, although necessary, the challenges are daunting, particularly for principal authorities in Suffolk for whom Haverhill appears to the local community to be somewhat remote and inconsequential.
That their counterparts in Cambridgeshire seem more interested in the town’s plight is perhaps an opportunity – not to adapt county boundaries but to look to them to take a lead in driving Haverhill’s future within the region.
The public consultation period on the final draft of Vision 2031 ends a week today, but Haverhill Town Council’s response, in a letter to St Edmundsbury from town clerk Will Austin, raises numerous issues of discontent.
The response was agreed at last week’s meeting of the town council, and is in stark contrast to the straightforward approval of the document by Haverhill Area Working Party, which includes three representatives of the town council, two months ago.
The central issues of disagreement highlighted by the town council are in the areas of infrastructure, the town centre, health provision and green space.
Without incorporation of its comments in their entirety, the Town Council says it would consider it necessary to address the Government planning inspector at the Hearing Sessions, where the document will be approved or rejected at the next stage of the process.
The town council says to provide a strategic vision that really does cater for the next 20 years of Haverhill’s development, two key issues need to be recognised:
* By 2031 Haverhill will be, in population terms at least, roughly the same size as Bury St Edmunds; and
* Although Bury St Edmunds remains the administrative centre for the borough, Haverhill is already emerging as the more important town in economic terms. Population growth, allied to the town’s reach across county boundaries make Haverhill vital both within and beyond St Edmundsbury, and in particular as part of the Cambridge sub-region.
The town council goes on: "The investment made by the borough council and others to date in Haverhill is welcome but is insignificant relative to needs if the town is to become a sustainable community.
"Key areas of infrastructure such as the town centre, transport, roads, drainage, health and open space need major additional investment, just to cater for population growth to date let alone provide for further expansion.
"The Vision documents must acknowledge these deficits, and must set out how they will be addressed.
"Otherwise, Vision 2031 is at best a damage limitation exercise, aiming to minimise the adverse effects of population growth, and at worst leaves the town sleepwalking into a steady decline in living standards.
"Vision 2031 must raise its sights and its ambitions. It must aim primarily to make Haverhill a sustainable community, and to do this the borough council must look beyond the local area, engaging with the more forward-looking counterparts in adjoining areas, particularly in Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire.
"The borough must also act to drive inward investment – public and private – by highlighting both the need and the potential of Haverhill.
"Part of this effort must be to give Haverhill a unique selling point, building on the success of its pioneering town expansion roots, its Spirit of Enterprise, its accessibility across three counties, its thirst for localism and its unusually strong community cohesion.
"This combination will act as a catalyst to draw attention to Haverhill’s unrivalled economic potential, although efforts should be made to add a new attraction to enhance the Haverhill ‘brand’."
Haverhill Town Council says it will partner St Edmundsbury in this venture to revitalise this part of. It recognises that, although necessary, the challenges are daunting, particularly for principal authorities in Suffolk for whom Haverhill appears to the local community to be somewhat remote and inconsequential.
That their counterparts in Cambridgeshire seem more interested in the town’s plight is perhaps an opportunity – not to adapt county boundaries but to look to them to take a lead in driving Haverhill’s future within the region.
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