Monday June 22^nd is the date set for the announcement of the Secretary of State’s decisions over her amendments to the South West Regional Spatial Strategy. This will be a simple formal written announcement. It will be presented in the name of Baroness Andrews, who is a Minister in the Communities & Local Government Department. No-one will actually stand up in parliament and say anything, so there is no point in going down for a demonstration.

Don’t think for one moment that Hazel Blears’ departure, a cabinet re-shuffle or even a change of Prime Minister is actually going to help us a great deal. The machinery of governance goes on regardless of personalities and the Government Office for the South West will grind on with their RSS plans for building on the green belt.

I’m not hopeful of what exactly might actually be announced on the 22^nd, but this is just one hurdle in a very long race. Our local & regional MPs of all parties have been lobbying hard behind the scenes. So keep your fingers crossed and we might yet get a meeting with Baroness Andrews to present our objections.

Things have been quiet in the Shortwood campaign over the last several months because we have been beavering away to organise a regional campaign against the RSS proposals. This is not just around Bristol, but the alliance now stretches from Tewkesbury to Truro and across to Dorset, about 20 different groups! This campaign is working under the banner of Save Our Green Spaces and it has taken over and re-vitalised the Warmley & Siston internet website. Log on to www.saveourgreenspaces.org and check it out, there are lots of downloads.

There is even a core of professional, paid campaigners at the heart of this new organ-isation, at least for the next couple of months until everything is up and running – and they have an anonymous, local millionaire benefactor!

The new Save Our Green Spaces people have produced the accompanying leaflet and tear off postcard. We aim to get 100,000 cards sent in to the Secretary of State within the month. Please tear off the card, write something in the box to personalise your response, stick a stamp on and send it in. I have enclosed three copies of the leaflet, one for you to send in and two spares to pass on to others who might want to respond as well.

This is not a petition but a “write-in” campaign. If you include your name and address, ministerial rules require that you should get a letter of response! It helps if you tick the box asking for a copy to go to your MP, that way ministers know someone is looking over their shoulder so things won’t go astray.

If you prefer, or if you simply wish to save the cost of a stamp, please feel free to drop your postcards into the porch at 79, Main Road.

We have about 1,000 postcard leaflets to shift through our Shortwood contacts …….. but we can always get hold of more if you need them for distributing amongst colleagues at work, community groups, family and friends

More “Save Shortwood Green Belt” placards are also now available for the forthcoming campaign season. No fixed charge, but please make a donation! I plan come round on Friday evening with the placard on a stake and a hammer in hand. If you are going out and want a placard leave a note on your door or give me a ring on 0117 937 2202 and leave a message.

Did you see last Tuesday’s Bristol Evening Post? We often get letters published about saving the Green Belt and occasionally full page articles. But this one is different. You may remember last year South Glos. Council ‘s consultation on their Issues &  Options document blithely assumed that it was O.K. to swamp Shortwood with houses and build on the Green Belt. Not any more, now they are saying everything we could wish and are campaigning as much as we are.

Councillor Brian Allinson, cabinet member responsible for Planning Issues, is fulsome in his praise for our campaign. The council is fully behind us and they have already sought QC’s legal opinion on how the Regional Spatial Strategy has been handled. There has been a total U-turn in the council’s position.

However, the weakness in our position is that decisions are about to be made in other councils in the area that will dramatically affect what happens in Shortwood. Our key battleground is now on the opposite side of the city, hence the importance of our regional alliances. We can only stop the plans for Shortwood by preventing any development on the green belt anywhere around the city. If the Green Belt is built on anywhere, then a precedent will have been set Shortwood will then be at risk and harder to protect.

First up is the proposal to sell the current Ashton Gate football stadium to TESCO. If that is approved by Bristol City Council, then there is no possible alternative site for a new stadium for Bristol City FC than the Ashton Vale site, and that is green belt land. So we have to fight the Tesco proposal first!

Secondly, there are the plans for the new football stadium at Ashton Vale. The site for the stadium itself is actually on an old landfill site. Even though this site is in the green belt, technically it’s a “brown field” site, i.e. it’s been used before, so it might be possible to build on it. However, Steve Lansdowne can’t afford the stadium, so he plans to build 300 houses as an “Enabling Development” to pay for the stadium. These will go on virgin green belt land. So we have to fight that proposal. Not all of Bristol City fans want it either, especially as Lansdowne, not the club, will end up owning the stadium.

Finally, there is the 10,000 home Ashton Park development between Dundry and the City to go to North Somerset Council’s planners in the summer. The problem here is that the council seems to be the driving force behind the whole project!  It’s the “Domino Theory.” If the first one gets through then the whole green belt around Bristol falls.

So write in. Write to the papers, write to the councils, write to your MP, write to everyone!

Please, start writing now! Now it’s important!

Ron Morton,

Chair, Shortwood Green Belt Campaign

12th June 2009