Susan Jefferies

Yesterday (June 28th) Vince Cable and his wife Rachel visited us in Dorset.

In the morning he was in Mid Dorset and North Poole, he came to Lytchett Matravers to a meeting of CALM (Community Association of Lytchett Matravers) and listened to their problems around the ghastly threat of building 2750 new houses in the area.

• He said that the Green Belt was created to stop our towns from merging into each other and to protect our areas of countryside and that this is still valid, Green Belt land is not for building on
• The increase in the number of homes needed in the South West over the last 20 years has been exaggerated and the current downturn in the economy will reduce this demand even further
• Many of homes in the South West are used as second homes and this is increasing as their is an even greater tax advantage now with the reduction of the rate of CGT
• Relying on developer contributions to provide Affordable Housing is not sustainable, particularly at the moment when the big developers are drastically cutting back their building programmes and some may be in danger of going out of business
• Building of affordable homes, much needed in the SW must be a seperate and seperately funded programme.

They then went on to visit North Dorset, managed a quick walk on peacful Hambledon Hill and ended the day at the Annual Constituency Dinner in West Dorset, in Dorchester.

He spoke to us again after dinner. About how we should tackle the downturn in the economy, which he thinks is serious and may last some time. He says we must not compromise our ideals for the environment, lifting tax on petrol will achieve nothing but future misery, we must simply take this opportunity to consolidate and make better use of what we do have, and I agree with him.

He also urged to be optimisitic about the future, our poll ratings are good, twice as good as they were last time we doubled the number of MP’s we had in Parliament so the future is bright !