Allotments for all

Allotments for all. There are over 200 people onthe Eastleigh waiting list forallotments. We are losing prime sites like South Streetand Woodside and beingoffered motorway embankments in their place.
Allotment gardening is booming. People are turning green by cutting down food miles and growing their own. As an allotment holder in Burns Close, I am in favour of creating more allotment sites in our town.

Preserving our green spaces

Rather than building on our greens we believe Eastleigh Borough should offer financial rewards for any local community who comes up with a design to enhance their green space. Children and young people should be involved and begin to take pride in and ownership of their local area. Local groups might work together to design a garden, create an allotment, build an adventure playground, install a sculpture or a stone table tennis table or a wall for hitting tennis balls and kicking footballs against. They may prefer to restore an old boat for children to clamber over and play games in. It could be a tank or a plane or an old truck or a gipsy caravan ( not scrap rubbish but something attractive). Teenagers may grow attached to the feature as a place to chill, and if there were a number of these features around our estates it might help to keep young people in their local areas rather than roaming around in gangs. Of course it may not work, but "nothing ventured, nothing gained" as my Father used to say..

I came across a great idea tonight. We should make more of our roundabouts! Many French ones are really nicely presented, often with pieces of sculpture or a boat and fishing nets or something characteristically local on it. Why don't Eastleigh do the same? We could rent out the space to firms prepared to put some interesting feature on the island with some discrete advertising. Currently we have just one really good island -the Spitfire roundabout with Eastleigh's own Spitfire aircraft on it. Why don't we have more of these sorts of pride generating symbols around the town?

P.S. Has anyone got a decent picture of the Spitfire roundabout for this blog?

Council Tax: the burden on pensioners

In a full Council meeting this year the Conservatives proposed a 4% reduction on Council tax for pensioners. This would have cost the Borough £20,000. Guess what! The other parties voted it out.

What Atlantic Housing don't want you to know

In January the Conservatives prepared the newsletter shown in the photo for you. We had applied for permission from Eastleigh Borough Council (EBC) to publish the two drawings on 24th December 2006. From December until early March we were passed back and forward between Atlantic Housing (AHA) and EBC until eventually AHA refused us permission to print because they said our prints did not do their designs justice. We wanted everyone to know what the plans look like. Atlantic Housing don’t.

What is wrong with the plan?
• It fails to take into account the needs and desires of local residents.
• It does not offer existing bungalow dwellers a chance to continue living on the estate in a bungalow.
• It seeks to move people (such as 94 year old Dorothy Bell) from their homes.
• Overdevelopment. In Kent Road 6 bungalows will be demolished and 32 two bedroom flats will be constructed.
• Lack of car parking facilities. In Westfield Crescent there are plans for 24 new dwellings but only 18 car parking places, including 8 for registered disabled. Where will the remainder of cars be parked and where will visitors park?
• More parking problems. The bungalows on Belmont road will be demolished and be replaced by houses. Car parking places will be behind the houses on the service roads. These will not be used much as homeowners and visitors park on the road. So there is likely to be double parking on Belmont road, which is already heavily used at rush hours.
• Worsening traffic flow around the borough.
• Overloading of Eastleigh’s Sewers.

What the Conservatives propose
• Preparation of an overall plan for the estate in phases over 7-10 years.
• No-one over 75 should be expected to move unless they wish.
• Start with an area where most properties are vacant building 2 bedroom bungalows. These would be offered exclusively to existing bungalow dwellers who are prepared to move.
• Slowly replace all the bungalows with new 2 bedroom bungalows.
• Build some bungalows with small private back gardens and some with communal gardens. Build bungalows around courtyards with central parking to maintain a sense of community.
• Build at least as many bungalows as are currently on the estate. Only then consider building houses or flats.
• If demand is proven, build sheltered housing similar to Surrey Court.
• Provide abundant off road parking in front of the houses, not behind.
• All social facilities to be provided by AHA as development takes place.
• Improve the sewage system and the road system before these or any more house are built in Chandlers Ford and Eastleigh.

Velmore bungalows – what happens next?
Liberal democrats know that passing the 7 Atlantic housing applications just before an election is a vote looser. So they have postponed the April meeting for a report from Age Concern until after the elections on Tuesday May 15th when a determination will be.
What is the Local Area Committee? It is the group of elected councillors from the town of Eastleigh. At present there are the 10 elected councillors for the town of Eastleigh; 7 Liberal democrats, 2 Labour and 1 Independent. But the constitution of that committee could be changed by your vote in the elections on May 3rd.
Is there any way to stop these crazy plans? Yes!
1. Get rid of Liberal Democrat Councillors and replace them with councillors like Robert Quane (Con, Eastleigh Central) and Andrew Ross who will say “NO.” Your vote is important. Please stop these dreadful things happening to our town. Vote Conservative.
2. Attend the meeting in the Committee room, Borough Offices, Leigh Road at 7 pm on Tuesday May 15th.

It's time for a change!

We have now had 12 years of incompetent government by the Liberal Democrats in Eastleigh.

They are building everywhere they can. This raises income from developers contributions to the council (e.g. £250.000 for the Pirelli’s site) and by bigger receipts in Council tax.

But little has been done to improve the state of the roads, to provide more parking and to improve the sewers. Look at the current plans for South Eastleigh!

What will be the consequences of all this development for the people of Eastleigh?