John Penrose attended the Churchill and Langford Residents’ Action Group (CALRAG) meeting to give a presentation on his ideas to protect greenfields and village infrastructure – building up, not out.
There were far from enough seats at the meeting, because no one expected quite so many people to turn up to hear the ideas of CALRAG, local Councillors and John Penrose to protect greenfields and village infrastructure.
Residents at the meeting were delighted to hear John commit to:
- Supporting plans to ‘build up’ in Weston Super Mare, not outwards around the villages.
- To support the building of a much shorter service road (tightly around Banwell only) as the ‘Banwell bypass’ rather than a longer, wider route past Sandford and Churchill which will inevitably attract developer infill proposals.
- Consider a link road to Bristol Airport from J20 on the M5 rather than J21or the suggested J21A.
- Following the election and if re-elected, he committed to taking this issue to the very top, and working with Liam Fox, to achieve a better and more sensible solution to the housing crisis in North Somerset.
- He also discussed the issue of designating new ‘green belt’ land between the current southern edge of green belt and the northern edge of AONB. CALRAG’s view is that the ‘green belt’ area between Bristol Airport and the new Bristol ring road is in reality creeping urbanisation which includes industrial sites, golf courses, car parks and land fills. It is now time to consider green belt ‘swaps’ and this would preserve the land mass of green belt throughout the UK and at the same time also protect areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty such as the Mendip Vale, which is a beautiful valley and provides the important middle ground in many extensive views from within the Mendip Hills.
Thank you again for your support.