We Heart Hart petition is now twice as big as Hart District Council consultation

Posted on April 13, 2015August 19, 2015

The We Heart Hart petition is now really taking off, now exceeding 1,200, adding more than 280 since Friday night. This is more than twice the number of valid responses (550) to the Hart District Council consultation that took place in Autumn 2014 and more than 5 times the number of people (220) of said they favoured a new settlement.

It seems that the people of Hart are waking up to the reality that the Council’s plans will:

Force Hart to build an extra 3,100 houses for Rushmoor and Surrey Heath

Turn the northern part of Hart District will turn into a single urban sprawl when there is an alternative of building higher density in urban areas to help rejuvenate our high streets

Lead to more congestion and traffic all over the district, particularly in Fleet and Church Crookham

Ignore many brownfield sites untouched all over the district where we could build housing

Create intolerable pressure on our local services such as doctors, schools, roads, sewage, electricity and railways because their infrastructure plans are under-funded by at least £78m

Destroy our environment and the very nature of Hart’s unique appeal – the reason we all love living here.

If you would like to join our campaign, please sign and share our petition:

Go to Petition

Surely it is now time for Hart Council to think again and listen to the people.

Where does your Hart District Council candidate stand on a new town?

Posted on April 11, 2015November 2, 2015

The Hart Council elections will take place on May 7 2015 and all of the candidates can be found here. We Heart Hart urges you to find out where your candidate stands on the issue of a new settlement in the district and ask them to oppose it. If they come an canvas you, then please raise the issue of the local plan with them.

Key issues are:

We are being asked to build too many houses, our housing allocation relies on us created nearly double the number of jobs than was created during the boom times of 1998-2008 and

A new town will leave us open to 3,100 additional houses from Surrey Heath and Rushmoor

There are plenty of brownfield sites that Hart have not taken account of in their planning

Hart’s planning assumption of only 30 dwellings per hectare (dph) is too low, and even they have admitted they could go to 808-160dph. If they increased density on brownfield, we would not need a new town

Hart already have a funding gap of £78m for infrastructure. Building a new town is likely to mean this gap will get much worse because building on green fields requires much more infrastructure than brownfield development

Hart is not properly planning for the needs of the ageing population.

We have compiled a list of all of the candidates standing, and where we know it, their position on a new town. How many will endorse our new approach to the local plan?

Hart District Council Candidates May 2015

Ward	Name	Party	Position on New Settlement
Blackwater & Hawley	Steve Francis	?	?
	Mike Gascoigne	UKIP	?
	Vivienne Gascoigne	Conservative	?
	Bob Harward	Liberal Democrat	Voted in favour
	Les Lawrie	Labour & Co-operative	?
Crookham East	Chris Axam	Community Campaign Hart	Voted in favour
	Helen Butler	Conservative	?
	Dawn Moors	UKIP	?
	Ruth Ann Williams	Labour	?
Crookham West & Ewshot	Dominic Arthur	Labour	?
	Tony Clarke	Community Campaign Hart	Voted in favour
	David Franklin Owens	UKIP	?
	Christopher James Simmons	Conservative	?
Fleet Central	Matthew Cyril Bennett	Green	?
	John Bennison	Community Campaign Hart	Voted in favour
	Alex Gray	Conservative	Against new town, favours brownfield development over building on green fields
	Satdeep Kaur Grewal	Labour	?
	Howling Laud Hope	Monster Raving Loony	?
Fleet East	Peter William Devonshire	UKIP	?
	John Grant Gawthorpe	Labour	?
	Stephen George Parker	Conservative	Voted in favour
	Neil Christopher Walton	Liberal Democrat	? But all Lib Dems voted in favour
Fleet West	Stephen Robert Cantle	Community Campaign Hart	? But, all CCH voted in favour
	Paul Stephen Walter Einchcomb	Liberal Democrat	? But all Lib Dems voted in favour
	James Edwin Hurst	Labour	?
	Sara Kinnell	Conservative	Voted against, but changed ward
	Gordon Smith	UKIP	?
Hartley Wintney	Altay Ali	UKIP	?
	Anne Crampton	Conservative	Voted against
	Tony Over	Liberal Democrat	Stated against, but all Lib Dems voted in favour
	Andrew James Renshaw	Conservative	Against
	Alan Woolford	Liberal Democrat	Stated against, but all Lib Dems voted in favour
Hook	Brian Douglas Burchfield	Conservative	Voted in favour
	Ruth Stella Hamilton	UKIP	?
	Verd Nabbs	Labour	?
	Jeffrey Robert Smith	Liberal Democrat	? But all Lib Dems voted in favour
Odiham	Rosalyn Jane Gordon	Liberal Democrat	? But all Lib Dems voted in favour
	Stephen Alexander Gorys	Conservative	Voted in favour
	Kevin Oliver	UKIP	?
Yateley East	John Peter Simon Burton	Conservative	?
	Dave Neighbour	Liberal Democrat	Voted in favour
	Sue Perkins	UKIP	?
	Joyce Still	Labour	?
Yateley West	Andrew Shawn Dickens	Conservative	?
	Claire Elhaggagi	Liberal Democrat	? But all Lib Dems voted in favour
	John William Howe	UKIP	?
	Alistair William Sutherland	Labour	?

If you are a candidate and want to update your position, please get in touch, and we will update the table.

The declared positions of the North East Hampshire parliamentary candidates can be found here.

We Heart Hart and Winchfield Action Group are delivering leaflets all across the district and engaging with people in the street. The overwhelming number of people we have spoken to are against a new town in Hart when they understand the facts. This is in line with the findings of the Get Hampshire survey of Hampshire residents. It is time our councillors and candidates started listening to the people. Copies of the leaflet can be found here.

If you would like to join our campaign, please sign and share our petition:

Go to Petition

Hampshire residents say protecting our towns and villages is a key election issue

Posted on April 1, 2015October 6, 2015

Election demands from Hampshire residents according to Get Hampshire

A survey of Hampshire residents by Get Hampshire has shown the protection of our green and pleasant land and historic towns and villages is a key election issue. This issue ranked third behind controlling immigration and helping our small businesses.

Looking at the questions and answers in more detail, a staggering 77.7% of people thought either that our green and pleasant land was of paramount importance or there were other legitimate sites available for development that councils should look at rather than using green space.

Get Hampshire Housing Crisis Questions and Answers

This shows an overwhelming majority in favour of protecting our historic towns and villages and protecting our green fields from over-development.

How to tackle the housing crisis from Get Hampshire

Only 12.3% of people wanted us to build thousands of houses in new towns and garden cities, whilst 36.4% of people wanted tax breaks to encourage building on brownfield sites.

Surely it is time for Hart District Council to think again about a new town at Winchfield, reject Option 4 and focus instead on creative use of the many brownfield sites in the district. Time also for Ranil Jayawardena and Gerald Howarth to take a message back to Conservative Central Office (and Parliament if they are elected) about changing the National Planning Policy Framework to reduce the pressure on local councils.

Focusing on brownfield and regeneration of our town centres will make better use of that land and build more critical mass to support the local retailers so would help with meeting two of the top 3 election issues.

If you would like to join our campaign to ask Hart Council to think again, please sign and share our petition:

Go to Petition

As an addendum, protection of greenbelt by building on brownfield sites is a key issue for Surrey residents too.

Surrey Election Demands from Get Surrey

What is your manifesto for North East Hampshire?

Posted on March 14, 2015June 14, 2015

The website of the Fleet News and Mail is running an on-line questionnaire to find out what is important to the people of North East Hampshire (and Hart District) at the forthcoming general and local elections. The questionnaire is open until tomorrow, Sunday 15 March 2015.

There are a number of questions in there about planning (including the Local Plan) and housing.

Please make your voice heard and ask our politicians to think again an focus on building fewer houses and building them on brownfield sites by signing our petition:

Go to Petition

We Heart Hart will be increasing its coverage as we run up to the election.

Let’s make planning an election issue

Posted on February 5, 2015June 14, 2015

Government policy is at the root of the problem Hart District faces today. Yes, we can complain about Hart’s response to the policy, but at the same time we need to support Hart District Council by extending the We Heart Hart (aka We ♥ Hart and We Love Hart) campaign to aim at local MP’s, Prospective Parliamentary Candidates and Government ministers.

I have compiled a template letter to politicians to explain the impact of policy on our district and set out some ideas for how they might change policy to protect our green fields from over-development. To make it easy for you, it also contains the e-mail addresses of all of the relevant people mentioned above.

Can I ask that you download the letter below, amend it as you see fit and send it to all of these people so they start to take notice that planning will become an election issue.

Oh, and if you haven’t done so already, please sign the petition: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/we-hart

Dear Politician Letter

Download Now!247 Downloads

Please Help Spread the Word across Hart District

Posted on January 31, 2015June 14, 2015

Downloads of posters to support the We Heart Hart (aka We ♥ Hart and We Love Hart) campaign and a letter to councillors are now available on the website.

The campaign is moving on quickly. We now have nearly 400 people who have signed the petition, and 31 January was the busiest day on the web site ever, with over 500 visitors. But to get our voice heard we need to get the number of people signing the petition over 550 – the number of respondents to the original consultation, and preferably into the thousands. It would be good to use the power of the internet to demonstrate that there is a strong groundswell of opinion against the path that Hart District Council is taking.

Please help spread the word across the district by downloading the posters, printing them off and putting them up across the district. Good locations would be sites with lots of foot-fall like railway stations, bus-stops, churches, community noticeboards and local shops.

The downloads are available here:

Please Sign the Petition A4

Download Now!330 Downloads

Simple A4 Poster PDF

Download Now!335 Downloads

Dear Councillor Letter

Download Now!332 Downloads

And if you haven’t already, please sign the petition.