So the results are in.
Over 1800 of us filled in the survey telling Eastleigh Brough Council where they could stick there 1,000's of new houses.
And the result is.................. Hedge End yes apparently Woodhouse Lane is the prefered option and will go into the Borough plan.
So the Botley by pass is back on, we will have thousands more new houses, no new schools no new shops no new pubs just houses, all built on an oil well that could have made us rich and famous just like Dallas.
Last one out turn the light off please

I don't think a recount will change anything. Cllr House said at last night's Town Council that the numbers are "not important".

I didn't bother returning the survey as I didn't want either site to be used, but it strikes me that it would have been a complete waste of time anyway as EBC will just go ahead and do exactly what they want. It has come as no surprise to me. It is such a shame. I went cycling with my family during the school summer holidays over the proposed site along woodhouse lane and felt very saddened by the fact that they are going to plonk 1000 new houses here, more cars, more people, more strain on our over stretched facilities.

The Borough Council consultation on the Local Plan that starts at the end of October will be open to all comments and ideas and will be a genuine consultation on the choice of sites.

The Council has a moral and legal duty to meet the real housing needs of our community. We have opted for the Boorley Green option (the golf course) rather than Allington as it saves more green spaces and in better linked to existing infrastructure. There will be a new primary school, more local faciilities and additional sports pitches for Grange Park and Boorley Green. The Botley By-pass will be secured, removing heavy traffic from our neighbouring ancient village.

All elements of the plan are open to local ideas and constructive suggestions from all residents - even those who have posted here who appear to have made their minds up without many of the facts.

@keithhouse At Town Council this week, you said that the Borough had long standing commitments to avoid additional traffic on Hamble Lane and to maintain the gap between Bursledon and Southampton (effectively ruling out the car boot site opposite Tesco's, despite the willingness of the landowners to develop that site).

Why are your commitments to Bursledon and Hamble more important than your election promise to stand up against more houses and traffic in Hedge End? Why is the gap between Bursledon and Southampton more important than the gap between Hedge End and Botley?

Wouldn't the Tesco's car boot site be more sustainable (better public transport links to jobs in Southampton and easier access to the M27) than the productive agricultural land at Woodhouse Lane?

The people who own the car boot site estimate that you could get 850 houses and an 850 space park and ride there. Even if you only built on the southernmost third to maintain the gap between Bursledon and Southampton, you could get 200+ according to the planners.

I presume you are the same Daniel Clarke who represents West End South on Eastleigh Borough Council and who also sits on the Hedge End, West End and Botley Local Area Committee, so are clearly continuing to promote the Council and Lib Dem line in your comments (Lol) ..!

A legal and moral obligation to provide housing doesn't, or shouldn't, mean taking the easy option and concreting over even more of our fields and other green spaces, particularly those in areas which are rural and agricultural at the moment, where the new developments would cause a change in the character of the area and its way of life. We need to value those areas a lot more than we currently do...

A much better option is required...

It is a pity that Eastleigh Borough Council are too short-sighted to see this and a pity that our local Councillors generally aren't sticking up for the best interests of the wards that they represent. Keith Day is of course, the honourable exception...

Cheers Daniel. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I would be more inclined to believe EBC's position on consulting ALL local residents if the consultation leaflet that dropped through every letterbox recently had included a "none of the above" option. I know from conversations that I've had locally, that many households didn't return it because they found neither option palatable and didn't want to support either Boorley Green or Allington Lane. The consultion leaflet specifically excluded that point of view and thus excluded those households. The response that the leaflet did generate was pathetic (frankly!) so cannot reasonably be hailed as representative.

As for Keith Day leading a Bloggers fan-club, well I know how it looks sometimes, but I think he'd be the first to admit that he and I don't always agree. There's an example of that above, where I disagree with Keith about the Windhover site...

But I reckon that's healthy, as it would potentially allow all sides of the debate to be aired in Council meetings (something Keith House seems worryingly keen to suppress). And as Keith Day and I are both independent, i.e. not ordered by any party heirarchy to vote in a particular way on pain of being de-selected or having our political careers curtailed, I personally think that Hedge End and Eastleigh would be much better served in future by having Keith Day and myself and as many other independents as possible on the Borough and the Town Council.

We'd then see a full and proper debate and the Independent Councillors would be completely free to vote as they feel appropriate in light of the feedback they've received from their constituents. When that happens, I would hope and expect that we would get the right democratic decision, a justifiable decision rather than the one that the local Council leader has decreed...

p.s. As ToryPaul2010 will no doubt confirm, there is no way I can be referred to as a Tory activist. I might be prepared to vote for the Tories, for tactical reasons, but I've rejected his approaches for me to join them. I'm a thorn in the side for the Tories too...!

p.p.s And I'm not a failed candidate either. I haven't stood anywhere yet...!

This link http://tinyurl.com/5tfctfu has just come to my attention.

Its Eastleigh Borough Council's hit-list, a list of possible development sites within the Borough. Its hidden away on the EBC website, not that easy to find unless you know (or are shown) where to look.

Its well worth a look though, HedgeEnders, as it is a terrifying list...

Too much business (Council & Commercial) is done over a pint or over a round of golf, or sometimes it seems because of a very special handshake...

The right place to debate these things is actually in Council meetings, but Keith House seemed to have other ideas last week...

However the pub invite was meant, I'll stick by my previous comment thanks Dan. Too much Council/Commercial business is done behind the scenes...

And as I've seen Keith Day publically reject Tory advances here, on Hedge End People, I think your perception that he is cheerleading for them is quite mistaken. Its laughable actually, as the Tory campaign is inert, relying on occasional leaflets through doors rather than engaging in the sort of discussion we've been having here, and on Eastleigh News, and on blogs.

Interesting that Labour (not the Lib Dems) are proposing £6k university fees, but I don't think Keith's resignation from the LIb Dems was exclusively over that issue, as he quite clearly said in his first ever blog posting http://tinyurl.com/6ysfdx8

Yes Dan, good answer actually...!

I'm still sympathetic to the Lib Dem's on tuition fees. They scored a bit of own goal there, but I've consistently cut them some slack by taking the view that nobody really won the election so Lib Dem manifesto policies (including the tuition fees promise) didn't really get the wholehearted support of the nation. Something different had to be done, a compromise was needed and by compromising on tuition fees the Lib Dems got other policies into the coalition agreement.

My difficulty with the Lib Dems, nationally, is more with their position on Europe. Lib Dems are far too enthusiastic about Europe.

At local level, the problems are

i) the way you have a stranglehold on local politics and use that to push bad ideas through the various levels of local democracy, stifling debate, as we saw happen last week. If you've got such a strong position you need to use it responsibly and take extra precautions to ensure full and proper debate, rather than abuse that position...

ii) the perception that all the local Lib Dems really want to do is install new recreational facilities, gradually chipping away at our open spaces like St Johns Rec. They don't seem to know when its time to stop, or even consider whether we've now got enough play equipment in Hedge End or not...

Don't worry SonofFred.
I don't think Keith Day is going to swallow that one...!

A problem with that Keith D is that your "plan" is not actually a plan at all. You do not mention a single specific site, so what you are actually advocating is a dreamworld position where every single greenfield site in the Borough would be at risk of development on appeal, which is the current local Conservative position. The Liberal Democrats have protected greenfields by ensuring that the SDA was scrapped and that the Borough's local plan is only going to be about providing for LOCAL need.

If we cut through the rhetoric and easy false promises made by yourself Keith D and your Conservative partners in your campaign, you will see that your collective position is to (intentionally or not) abdicate our moral responsibility for providing for our community's future housing needs, to breach our legal obligations and to put all greenfield sites in the Borough at risk.

As for your comment to SonofFred, Keith, a signal that the Liberal Democrats are achieving equidistance between the Tories and Labour was given by John Denham yesterday. The Labour veteran said that the Liberal Democrats and Labour could absolutely work together in future and that Lib Dems and Labour activists should be given space to develop progressive ideas. This is what the future of politics is going to be about - less tribalism, more co - operation, more consensus and less spitting out of dummies. You would be more than welcome to join these progressive discussions if you can tear yourself away from your new nimby gatherings.

Well to be honest Keith D you have to admit you have given a lame response there which is incoherent when read alongside the blog post which you earlier said set out your "plan". You object to certain locations but you have not offered a single one as an alternative, therefore showing why the Conservative/independent opposition is not fit to run the Borough Council. If the Conservative/Keith Day approach was adopted, not only would we have the most confused council in the country, there would be the developer "free for all" that you mention at the top of your blogpost.

Thankfully residents can say they have an effective Liberal Democrat Borough Council which as well as carrying out our moral and legal obligation to provide enough housing for local need, is protecting our greenfield sites from the sort of developer "free for all" that Tory/independent incompetence would lead to.

As has been said several times, residents will be consulted on all parts of the local plan.

I agree with you there @KeithDay.

Lib Dems have clearly been concerned to have as little public debate and public discussion as possible. The consultation leaflet that was issued was designed to appear to do something, rather than genuinely research residents views.

Lib Dems have clearly been reading the Sir Humphrey Appleby book of 1001 ways to fool the the Minister and cheat the electorate...

Incidentally. Where does Dan get this half-baked idea that you're working with the Conservatives. Doesn't seem to be the case from where I'm sitting. I'm independent...!

OK Dan. That's better. You say this time that Keith Day and the Conservatives are pushing for the same position.

Lets be fair to Keith and be clear that they are not working together on this.

If Keith and the Tories are pushing for the same position, they are coming at it from separate places, for different reasons...

Can you at least acknowledge that, even if you don't agree with Keith's position...?

Mr Worzel, I agree, Keith D and the Conservatives are at one on this and are pushing in the same direction. I also accept they probably haven't organised to fully coordinate their campaigns, because on the evidence of their shambolic contributions to the debate over the local plan, there is little evidence they could organise a "Nimby's Monthly" members' tea party, let alone a coordinated campaign.

Don't be taken in my Lib Dems' Misleading statements.

In response to the concerns expressed to us by local residents a delegation of your local Conservative members headed by Marie Hutchings and Graham Hunter held a meeting with Ken Thornber the Leader of the County Council.

They wanted to find out if there was any truth in a statement contained in a "consultation" document that claimed that "the County Council are in favour of development" of land at Woodhouse Lane.- one of the two options residents are being asked to vote for in the document to be used by the Borough to justify its intention to impose massive housing developments in the Borough.

The County Council leader told us that he was amazed at this statement The land in question was currently being farmed by the County's tenant farmers and was not up for sale. The County Council has not been consulted on this matter neither had there been any formal approaches to it, although he was aware of the so called consultation from reports in the press.

Responding to a statement made in a Lib Dem Focus article on gravel extraction that 'The Conservative Party has had cash from Persimmon Homes who own the (Hamble) airfield", the County Council Leader said that although cleverly worded, in this context the article was misleading, as the Persimmon Homes Company has never made any financial contribution to the Conservative party.

He understood that a donation to Conservative Funds at Central office had been made some years ago by a person who had been a chairman of a Persimmons Company and confirmed that no member of the Conservative administration on the County Council has any relationship with the Persimmon Company.

We can't have a meeting down the pub ToryPaul. Our local (the Fountain) was demolished a couple of years ago and there's now a couple of dozen homes crammed onto the site...!

I completely agree with you though, that we need the right number of the right sort of homes in the right places...

The difficulty though is what's "right" is a matter of opinion....!

Hi Keith Good to hear from you too! Yes I am aware who's in Power at County level, and we should all be thankful for that. Ken has told us in meeting with Graham and Maria that the land is not for sale; I cannot be anymore specific about that. I would also like to re-assure people that people power works, I myself became interested in local government when a large local builder wanted to build two large blocks of flats in Chandlers Ford, The local people rallied around in plentiful numbers, enough for the local area committee to reject the plans, eventually the builder appealed and it went to the state for determination, after about a year the local people where victorious. I see part of my job as a possible servant to the people of Hedge End, as to keep them informed of potential issues, Large building sites and many houses being very important, we all chose to live here as it was when we made that decision, we all accept that things change and evolve, but we all get NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) whenever housing is mentioned. What concerns me is what I call the Milton Keynes effect. Milton Keynes has the highest suicide rate in the country, I don't think it has anything to do with the number of roundabouts or concrete cows, but more that as a new place people were homed there, miles away from family and friends, this is the reason for the fact of the suicide rate, i.e. When something goes wrong the people there had nobody close to turn to, Dowd's farm reminds me a little of this, the wrong type of housing, and only one duck in the pond (The duck or drake can only eat so much bread) He or she must be permanently on rennie's. Planning in my opinion was flawed, and recently allowed travellers to settle and otherwise trash the place, making it unsafe and unusable for the residents, we let them down! (The Residents that is) I have a motto "A mistake is only serious if you make it twice) It is not acceptable to Build massive developments in and around Hedge End and fill it with Single Mothers from all points from around the County, just to reduce the numbers at the Civic office register, that's not what local people want or need. TGR - I believe supermarket priced Beers and Spirits and taxes has alot to do with Pubs all over the country closing down, how much a week did you spend behind the Bar at the Fountain? Just out of interest? I do actually believe that development is a good one and doesn't ruin the street scene too much. If you insist on having a meeting, I can confirm that the prices at the Conservative Club are quite reasonable!

The reason we need more houses in the first place is because of increasing life expectancy - the average age at death in 1900 was 47 years... that has now increased to 69 years, which means a huge increase in the population at any given time, more people needing jobs, healthcare, pensions and housing.
If we could simply persuade people to die at the appropriate time, we could cure all these problems at once.