South Gloucestershire | Archive | 2005 | July | 29
From the Gazette, first published Friday 29th Jul 2005.
PLANS are afoot to save South Gloucestershire's countryside from over development.
A campaign led by South Gloucestershire's Liberal Democrats has been put in motion in a bid to ensure the area is not cluttered with more housing development than it needs or can accommodate.
The party tabled a motion to the council on Tuesday last week after it emerged that a regional blueprint for housing contained plans to promote more homes being built in South Gloucestershire.
Cllr Pat Hockey, Liberal Democrat spokeswoman on the environment, said: "South Gloucestershire cannot continually take excessive levels of growth. We have seen massive development in recent years and if we lose our precious countryside we cannot get it back."
The motion, which was presented to a full council meeting, contained recommendations to write to the Regional Assembly to ensure that the amount of development within South Gloucestershire be limited to a manageable amount.
The motion also stated that the M4 forms a clear, logical barrier, between South Gloucestershire and the growth of the Greater Bristol Urban Sprawl.
It is feared that any more development in the area could cause gridlock on roads and would see large amounts of the area's much loved countryside vanish under a sea of bricks and mortar.
Cllr Hockey added: "I and my colleagues will fight to ensure that as little of our countryside is built upon as possible so that hopefully our children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy it as we have."
© Newsquest Media Group 2008