MP Condemns Council over Crane Valley Planning

10.46.51am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 17th Jul 2003

Vincent Cable MP with constituents in Kneller Gardens

MP Vincent Cable joined the criticism of the council's choice of Option One for developing the Crane Valley area of Twickenham; "this is an appalling decision."

"They have chosen the least popular option with residents, it will involve the maximum number of houses in an area which is already over developed; and it ignores the preferences of the Tertiary and Adult Colleges."

"The council needs to come clean on how many houses it

envisages; so far it has just been talking concepts. When the details are known, there will I suspect be a major battle over the planning issues".

Vincent Cable highlighted the following areas of concerns:

• the council will not say how many houses are involved (on the Mereway allotments, the rifle club land and the Tertiary College site). "It could be 50 or 500. We need to know".

• the relocation of the council's depot to the site of the present

Tertiary College playing fields next to the A316 "will create serious environmental blight".

• building on the disused Mereway allotments goes contrary to

environmental advice and ignores concerns about building on the flood plain.

• the Tertiary (and Adult) college has shown no interest in moving into a multi-storey development on the Post Office site

• the future of Heatham House becomes uncertain under this option.

Vincent Cable has written to the council to express his own concerns but says: "the real problem here is that the council is totally out of touch with public opinion and it arrogantly ignoring the views of the people whose opinion it solicits."