Put jobs first, says councillor (From This is The West Country)
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Put jobs first, says councillor
4:00pm Wednesday 17th October 2012 in News
Cllr Mike Rigby
MORE job opportunities should be created instead of building houses, says independent councillor Mike Rigby, who is calling on Taunton Deane Council to protect land which could be used to create dozens of jobs.
Cllr Rigby, right, says Taunton is losing out on new jobs to Bridgwater and Wellington at a time when commuting is more expensive.
He said: “What we need right now are jobs. The county town can hardly be said to be open for business when we see our employment space continually eroded by residential re-development.
“If we need more housing we need to look at other sites.”
Recent years have seen a number of former employment premises demolished to make way for housing, including Taunton Trading Estate and Taunton Cider Factory.
A council spokesman said: “Between 2004 and April, 2012, only 3.5 hectares of employment land were lost which had not been accounted for in the development plan – we wouldn’t consider this to be a significant figure over an eight-year period.
“Taunton Trading Estate was under-used, many buildings being beyond viable repair, and due to the layout it had large areas of unusable landscaping.”
Comments(6)
DonSeer
says...
5:01pm Wed 17 Oct 12
Local houses means people don't have to commute, many people commute because houses here are too expensive, building more houses may solve that, and it gives tradesmen jobs.
btw I am a commuter, and Tauntons roadwork is bad, but Bridgwaters is horrific.
Unfortunately many council employee's are bike riding lefties who shun cars and think that making it hard for drivers will discourage them, this is why support for car drivers is low in both our local authority and their planning groups.
FreeSpeech?
says...
6:37pm Wed 17 Oct 12
DonSeer wrote:I didn't mean that people were commuting here, just the opposite as no new companies moving to Taunton as all they build here is houses for residents to commute elsewhere. SCC & especially TDBC needs to wake up quick & realise that all these houses they're planning may not sell.
Its about balance.
Local houses means people don't have to commute, many people commute because houses here are too expensive, building more houses may solve that, and it gives tradesmen jobs.
btw I am a commuter, and Tauntons roadwork is bad, but Bridgwaters is horrific.
Unfortunately many council employee's are bike riding lefties who shun cars and think that making it hard for drivers will discourage them, this is why support for car drivers is low in both our local authority and their planning groups.
Mike Rigby
says...
1:33pm Thu 18 Oct 12
ncillorRigby
FreeSpeech?
says...
1:47pm Thu 18 Oct 12
Mike Rigby wrote:Well done! Hope your right.
Well, we had a success last night at Taunton Deane's Planning Committee. Taylor Wimpey were trying to build 8 more houses on a development in Bishops Lydeard in place of employment uses that would have contributed over £1m in wages to the local economy. The Council officers recommended approval but we persudaed the Committee to throw out the plans by 9 votes to 2! Perhaps the tide is turning......More here www.facebook.com/Cou
ncillorRigby
Noticed today that a sales office for persimmon place in a field next to A38 and CSM turning has been shutdown, hopefully because of lack of interest & it will put them off building more houses.
braeside
says...
8:24am Fri 19 Oct 12
the company had been in Taunton for a number of years, and we saw that another company was going to bridgwater which made us believe there would be no machiest so we want to come to taunton building the business to 300 jobs
FreeSpeech? says...
4:11pm Wed 17 Oct 12
This town is fast becoming just a commuter town like WSM and our roads cannot cope now due to bad planning and an overzealous use of traffic signals. Afraid the only employment this council wants is pen pushers with nowhere to park.