Nimby alert over a planning revolution

THE FRIDAY THING: THE subject of planning is — like algebra, other people’s illnesses, the joys of picking up warm dog poo in a plastic bag and anything the Lib-Dems enjoy — not exactly the stuff of comedy.

Well, that is unless you build a mosque a mere 8ft too tall (getting closer to heaven, perhaps), build a new home using inches where it should be millimetres that covers the whole of Derker or put a porch on your house without permission.

But we should all sit up and take notice of planning before we find ourselves planned out of house, home and especially garden.

The Government has drawn up new planning rules that seem to suggest developers can build virtually anything anywhere they like so long as they think it will sell.

It is, of course, total coincidence that Chubby Dave and his party have had hundreds of thousands of pounds from a group of, well, builders and developers, who have also helped to draw up the new rules on what can be built where.

The new rules talk about “sustainable development” whatever that means (unless it means developments that will help them sustain their luxury lifestyles) and say that it will be allowed in, of all places, green belt.

You can hear them sharpening their scythes, sickles and knives in Saddleworth to fight the good fight and save every blade of grass from being covered in concrete. They forget, of course, that if there had been no development in Saddleworth, which is what they now preach, most of them would have to live elsewhere because they are the folk for whom the green hills and fields of Saddleworth were developed.

One of the chaps who has helped to draw up the new development plans has close connections with Asda, so keep your garden gate locked or you might just find they’ve taken over your greenhouse and award-winning garden for a trolley park.

Despite strong denials that there is anything sinister afoot, I am deeply sceptical about the notion that an alliance of the Government and the major developers in the land will not turn huge chunks of the UK into a building site.

Oldham Council is currently cheering the Local Development Framework (could be a posh name for a virtual planning free-for-all) because, according to planning and housing guru, our good friend Dave Hibbert, the open grassy areas of Foxdenton, Chadderton, are safe.

Let us hope that he is right (there truly is a first time for everything) but folk living in all parts of the borough need to be ever-watchful — and indeed, ever-wary of anyone driving a tractor pulling a trailer packed with bricks and timber...


WE all lose things from time to time. Car keys, glasses, pens and our nearest and dearest, especially when she wanders off in Debenhams.
But the Home Office takes the gold medal for losing things, reporting this week that it has mislaid 98,000 asylum seekers.

They could be anywhere; nobody knows, and the asylum seekers are obviously not saying.

Almost as bad, 18,000 asylum seekers who were ordered to leave the country are still here.

Not surprisingly they will probably all be allowed to stay here because they have been here for so long, lost and in hiding, that they could claim their human rights were breached if they were finally packed on to a plane and sent back to wherever they came from.

Another example not of open-door or even revolving-door Britain, but no-door Britain and all of us, well, those of us who pay our taxes, are picking up the bill for them.

The wrecking ball they call Eric Pickles went to great lengths to get rid of hundreds of civil servants; he should focus his energies now on getting rid of the Home Office immigration department. It is not and never will be fit for purpose.



MP Michael Meacher is a wily old cove. Having been an Oldham MP for 40 years he has proved to be a survivor and an escape artist at least on a par with the Count of Monte Cristo.
A left-wing firebrand in his early days, our Michael went on to become a cabinet minister serving several prime ministers while seeing off all-comers in elections — some involving his own party members.

Now the Electoral Commission is trying to oust Michael under the plans to reduce the number of MPs by 50.

His Oldham West and Royton seat is being broken up and shared out in a fashion so bizarre that someone must have dreamed it up while using some exotic substance.

Although the odds might be stacked against him this time, I back Michael to remain an Oldham MP unless he decides that after 40 years he has had enough of us and we have had enough of him.


FINAL WORD. Is it me or, now that everyone is finding it a struggle to make ends meet, the supermarkets seem to be putting up their prices ridiculously? I quote diced lamb as only one example — I am sure you will all have many others — up from £3 to £5 and then to £6 in a matter of weeks.