MADAM – We Stroud district citizens are badly let down by both Stroud District Council’s failure to plan strategically for the housing we need and by private sector market failure by building only for profit.

This includes the massive amount of ‘planning gain’ profit on land value uplift that the government inspector and/or SDC awards when giving planning permission for new housing.

SDC still lacks a local plan and five-year land supply with enough space allowed for new housing, which results in chaos and excessive developer profits.

So Gladman gets planning permission to build 150 houses at Mankley Field at Leonard Stanley, while the Mankley Action Group feel they have been sacrificed in return for Baxters Field on Summer Street being turned down, and no doubt Rodborough Fields may go the same way?

Parish and district councillors from all the parties get local votes from their current campaigns against development in their back yards.

So, parish councils in Eastington, Stonehouse and Standish campaign against the Hitchin’s proposal for 1,350 homes at Nastend, west of Stonehouse.

However, rather than being NIMBYs and blaming others, it is the job of councillors, with officers, to lead on agreeing a local plan for Stroud district, land for housing supply where jobs are, and to ensure there is good provision for social rental homes.

Otherwise, there will be endless NIMBY protests, with the best organised action groups ‘winning’, though in reality it is developers who profit from SDC failure.

One visionary new proposal to free up housing land supply, relieve development pressure from the five valleys, provide housing where there are new jobs, and improve the rail connections needed for business, would be a northern Stonehouse extension.

A new station at Black Bridge would have the best connections in the district, and improve the rail connections with Bristol and the South West much needed for business.

It would be a catalyst for nearby commercial and residential development.

The existing Stonehouse station could remain, supplemented in time by re-opening of closed stations in Ebley and Brimscombe, to facilitate a shuttle train service from Gloucester to Swindon and reduce congestion – once the line to Swindon has been doubled again.

Housing opposition groups and councillors, could campaign strategically for the option of a Stonehouse north 2,500 home neighbourhood that relieves housing development pressure from the Valleys.

As reported in the August 6 SNJ, the council leader wants to see action. He stated that there is an annual shortfall of 500 affordable homes across the district.

Yet pressures are rising – there have been 3,800 council homes sold by the council since 1979 and Stroud’s housing waiting list has more than doubled since 2000.

It’s now over 3,000.

The new-build council house programme, of 150 homes over five years, should be seen in this context. (Yet the Right to Buy continues, so social houses, and our public investment, is lost.) By 2021 Stroud is projected to have seven per cent more households (National Housing Federation).

So where are the people to go?

How do they maintain their links to their families and communities?

Can SDC also please show leadership by planning for more affordable homes to meet local needs and keep communities and families together?

Get the local plan and housing land supply in place quickly?

And can we consider how the Stonehouse north garden neighbourhood extension can both relieve infill pressure from the Five Valleys, create jobs and enhance Stonehouse?

Martin Large

Stroud