Your views and the South East Plan questionnaire.

Please read about the South East Plan which is being prepared by the South East England Regional Assembly (SEERA). The plan is to build thousands of houses throughout the South East and will come as a shock to many people who lives will be irreparably changed by it.

Attached to the plan is a questionnaire asking for your feedback. Please be very careful before answering the questionnaire and consider how, whatever your intention, your answers might be used to support the governments position that thousands of houses need to be built. Below are some ideas on how your answers could be interpreted.

Question 1: how would you rate your quality of life?
Answer options range from very good to very poor + don’t know

Its always nice when someone asks how you are but what has this got to do with building houses? If you answer ‘very poor’ then you open the door to the assertion that more houses are needed to improve your quality of life. If you answer ‘very good’ then the assertion could be more houses are needed to maintain your high quality of life. This question has no useful purpose in understanding what you want for development in the South East.

Question 2: consists of a list of topics and asks how important you think they are to your community.
Answer options range from very important to not at all important + don’t know.

To any sane person all these things are important. Everyone wants reduced traffic congestion, increased health service provision and more affordable housing, so why ask these questions? One reason might be that saying any of these are important allows SEERA the position that the proposed development is necessary to deliver the improvements that people have identified are important to them.

Question 3: what should we aim for over the next 20 years.
Answer options are -
1) Give more emphasis to economic growth.
2) Give less emphasis to economic growth.
3) Continue to give the same emphasis to economic growth.
4) Don’t know.

To the answer 1) invites the argument that new houses are needed to sustain growth. To answer 2) leads to the answer improved houses are required for the needs of a growing population that lives longer.

Question 4: which of the three options would you be most likely to support -
1) build 25,500 houses per year
2) build 28,000 houses per year
3) build 32,000 houses per year
4) don’t know

If you tick the box for the least number of houses you are still supporting 25,500 houses per year each year for 20 years. That’s 510,000 houses. Is that really what you want?
You have not been given the option here to express any views against development. If you oppose the plan you should avoid this question if necessary say ‘don’t know’.

Question 5: which of the following options do you prefer?
1) significantly increasing housing density and minimizing use of greenfield land
2) use more greenfield land and moderately increase density in existing cities, towns and villages
3) use a significant amount of greenfield land and slightly increase density
4) don’t know

In the Gatwick area the plan is for up to 38,000 houses. Don’t be fooled even option 1) means a lot of construction on green fields. Note the lack of any opportunity to state a case against development.

Question 6: in your opinion where should we build new homes?
Answer options are -
1) in existing built up areas
2) in new suburbs
3) in existing villages
4) in new towns and villages

This is the same as question 5) but it will facilitate SEERA to state the percentage of respondents who support development in each of the different areas. For example if 50% of respondents reply option 2) then you could soon see the publication of the statistic “50% of the population support the development of new suburbs in the South East”. Again there is no option to state a preference against development.

An alternative to answering this questionnaire is to ignore it and instead write to SEERA direct. The address is -

Secretariat,
South East England Regional Assembly,
Berkeley House,
Cross Lanes,
Guildford
GU1 1UN

Please do express your views.