IN Wednesday’s Examiner Dr Paul Salveson’s carefully worded letter suggests that Kirklees Community Action Network is ‘strangely silent’ about the Government’s new planning rules and has a party political agenda (different to his own, of course).

Nothing could be further from the truth. What I can’t understand is why party politicians always want to see things in such an adversarial way.

If Dr Salveson would care to provide an email address I will be delighted to send him a copy of KCAN’s formal response to the public consultation last October on the Government’s new Planning Framework.

He will find that we have actually been every bit as critical of the draft planning framework as we have been of Kirklees Council’s LDF proposals.

The final version of the NPPF was published only on Wednesday and we are still studying the details. However, one thing that immediately stands out is that local councils are required to take the NPPF into account in the preparation of local and neighbourhood plans.

I don’t therefore understand how KMC could approve the LDF three weeks before the NPPF was even published.

I suspect, when we analyse it properly, there are going to be many more inconsistencies and the LDF will have to go back to square one. We warned the council about this on March 6 but they wouldn’t listen.

I agree wholeheartedly with Dr Salveson about the need for cross party action but say it should apply equally to the LDF and the National Planning Framework.

Our view is that we want all political parties to apply some common sense to planning, to listen to local people and to work with communities instead of simply trying to score points off each other.

I am sorry but I have to say it as well. ‘Making common cause with Kirklees Council and Barry Sheerman’ doesn’t sound much like cross party action to me.

KCAN has always said we would work with any political party that shares our views. We’re also very happy to talk with those who don’t.

Come on, Paul, if you are truly serious in what you are saying commit to voting against the LDF if you are given the chance to do so after the elections and we will support you.

Robert Bamforth

Kirklees Community Action Network

Kirklees needs an LDF

DR Paul Salveson (Mailbag 28 March) seems to be rather ill-informed about the opposition to the Kirklees LDF. No doubt he moves in very different circles to those frequented by me, but I think I am probably closer to the ‘anti-LDF’ lobby than he is.

I have also, over a number of years, had input to the formulation of Kirklees Conservative policy in this area.

Let me say this clearly so that there is no room for misunderstanding. I have never met anyone, Conservative or not, who believes that Kirklees should not have an LDF.

I have met very many people who believe that the current Labour/LibDem LDF is deeply flawed. Opposition to a bad LDF is not the same as opposition to any LDF.

Dr Salveson speaks of silence on the newly published NPPF. I don’t know his academic background, but mine dictates that I take time to study a topic before commenting on it.

Having had the opportunity to skim the ‘green belt’ section of the document I see that it includes robust defences for green belt and that it insists on a ‘brownfield first’ approach.

These are very much in line with the calls from local groups opposing the Kirklees LDF which seeks to remove over 400 acres from green belt protection to make it available for immediate development and contains provision to ‘review’ 64 green belt sites in Kirklees (including almost all of Ashbrow’s meagre green belt).

Might it be that the imminent publication of the NPPF was the real reason behind Labour and LibDem determination to rush through the present LDF in order to avoid the new restrictions on green belt use?

I can only presume that Dr Salveson, as a Labour candidate, is comfortable with Labour/LibDem policies. I certainly am not.

Dr Bill Armer

Conservative candidate, Ashbrow

What about our fields?

I DON’T know what Dr Paul Salveson is alluding too in making the assertions he did on March 27, but he has clearly jumped the gun.

How does he expect any responsible person or group to respond to something that was released in detail by the Government only hours earlier?

The Examiner’s article on Monday was only a ‘taster’.

It is clear now that there is an explicit return to ‘brownfield first’, something that the Kirklees LDF does not cast in stone, if you read it.

But the big question is, will the Labour/Lib-Dem LDF explicitly state that brownfield sites (former industrial sites) will come first? I very much doubt it, based on their disregard to the people’s soundly-based objections. These have been completely ignored.

Kirklees people should be in no doubt that the 64 greenfield sites identified in the Examiner two weeks ago will eventually fall to building and be concreted over. These sites are identified in a document that supports Kirklees LDF.

If the site will definitely not be built on, why make it an official support document if they do not intend to use it?

I am still awaiting a reply from Clr McBride to say that he will give an unequivocal undertaking that these 64 sites will not be built on.

David Hill

Conservative candidate, Colne Valley Ward

Stop dogs barking

NOW that the powers-that-be are attempting to deal with the antisocial behaviour of dogs and their owners, perhaps it is time to address another nuisance and make it an offence to leave a dog in the open when its owner is away from the house.

Dogs who are left while their owners go shopping or to work always bark. Because the dogs are marginally less intelligent than such owners they have not got the wit to reason that their barking is getting them nowhere so they continue to bark. And bark.

In the 40-odd years I have lived at my present address I have rarely known a truly quiet, summery afternoon in the garden without the accompaniment of some baying mutt.

I am far from a dog hater, but such nuisance leaves me reaching for an imaginary shotgun. Perhaps, I might say, not so much for the dog, but for its moronic owner who cannot be bothered to give it the attention it needs.

Alan Starr

Golcar

More for less

THE retail pub trade should take a leaf out of Kirklees Council’s book if it needs a battle strategy to stem the rate of pub closures.

The causes may be many and varied, but mainly it’s down to the lack of customers. Strangely, that’s like Kirklees shops – a lack of customers.

So the answer? Build more pubs or, as in our case, build more shops, this being our strategists’ ‘save the High Street’ battle plan – not only to build more shops, but to build bigger shops.

Am I the only one to see this as lunacy?

Allen Jenkinson

Milnsbridge

Unequal pay

SO the public sector workers are on 8.2% more than the private sector?

I have worked via two contractors for Kirklees Highways for the last 38 years driving a JCB, the last 29 years with the same contractor.

When I first started, the highway workers were probably on about 5% to 8% more.

Now, all these years later, and one rise in the last 10 years for me, I am nearer to 80% behind them.

On top of that there are their good pensions and 12 months’ sick pay. I’d just love to be 8.2% behind them.

Barry Tinker

Longwood

A nasty disease

TUBERCULOSIS, the source of much misery yesteryear, is now rearing its ugly head again with the number of diagnosed cases rising.

This was a killer disease, but now thanks to drugs the ailment can be cured with a full six months course.

Spitting or sneezing or coughing can spread this disease. Handkerchiefs were once a common thing to carry and germs were trapped in them.

The number of people you see sneezing or spitting and coughing with none of the former etiquette is likely to soon spread these airborne germs for others to breathe in.

Prevention is always better than a cure.

M Marsh

Scissett

‘Sleeping’ partners?

FURTHER to the recent reports regarding the proposed extension to Kingsgate, I wonder what the thoughts are of the Huddersfield Town Centre Partnership.

They seem to be very quiet on the matter.

Paul Wood

Keys Restaurant, Byram Street