<p>After 16 months of waiting at the last full council, we had some questions from the public, which I was delighted to answer. </p> <p>I thought it would be helpful to summarise the two questions that I was asked and my responses. </p> <p><em>Why has the Council not been proactive in its approach to the planning of housing over the last year, and what will it do in the next 3 months to protect vulnerable green field sites across the Borough from speculative development.</em> </p> <ul> <li>We’ve been proactive in planning for housing growth over the last year and this Council is as well placed as any Council in England to manage future development.</li> <li>The Council’s Core Strategy extends to 2016 – the first plan to be adopted in the West Midlands, the Council also has the Wrekin Local Plan.&nbsp; Work is proceeding quickly on the new Shaping Places Local Plan up to 2031 and the Council is again at the forefront of plan preparation in the West Midlands.</li> <li>In the coming months, the Council will do all that the Government will allow to encourage development on the most sustainable sites for the benefit of the community as a whole.</li> <li>But It is now accepted throughout the country that the Government’s changes to planning policy through the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), and the Government’s requirements for Council’s to substantially&nbsp; increase the supply of new housing, has resulted in a loss of local control over planning decisions.</li> </ul> <p><em>Telford is a great place to live with fantastic quality of life; I'm proud of my community.&nbsp; Why is the Council making £22m of cuts in services for the most vulnerable, but at the same time spending £14m on the aesthetics of the town?</em> </p> <p>The Council must find £22m cuts across <strong>ALL</strong> of its services of which less than half will come from adult social services, and of the £22m - £1.8m or around 8% of this would directly affect vulnerable service users.&nbsp; We are very confident the remaining £8.7m cut from adult social care can be found without directly affecting services users. </p> <p>We will continue to do all we can to protect service users but the scale of the cuts but with this area accounting for over a third of the Council’s budget, some impact on service users is sadly inevitable. </p> <p>You’re right Telford is a great place to live and we want to keep it that way. That’s why we want to make a one-off £14 million investment in our Pride in Your Community initiative to make our borough a better environment for our residents. </p> <p>Pride in Your Community is not just about making the borough look better – it is about making it better – whether that’s by improving roads or the environment to support smaller scale local schemes – the sort of issues that really matter to people and get the community involved. </p> <p>Making our borough better will in turn help attract more businesses and people to come to and live in Telford and Wrekin. This will in turn generate more funding for this Council and in the long run help provide funding that can protect those key services for the vulnerable.&nbsp; This is not about aesthetics, it is about securing our long term future. </p> <p>If you’re interested in submitting a question to full Council, this page tells you how to do so. </p> <p>Finally, thanks to <a title="Visit the Lightmoor Life website" href="http://www.lightmoorlife.co.uk/">www.lightmoorlife.co.uk</a> for their help in broadcasting our full Council meetings over the last year. Their work has been instrumental in helping open up local decision making and accountability to many more people. </p>
