to the alternative car parks and vice versa. Apparently, streets “are becoming clogged as the number of cars per household increases, with driveways only having room for one vehicle”. People make choices; why should tax payers be left


to pay for parking for people who chose a home that has insufficient parking spaces for the number of cars they choose to have? Looking around, many residents are, in fact, taking on responsibility for the extra cars they are buying and are widening their drives at a cost to themselves. Agreed, “the problem is particularly acute near the


station as better train services attract more commut- ers”. But why do people choose to drive to the station? I doubt any investigation has been done about this either. Why not charge for the car park, like most other


stations? This would encourage more Alvechurch residents to walk to the station and deter those from further away who drive to Alvechurch to avoid the charges at nearby stations, such as Barnt Green. If better train services attract more commuters why


are our councillors not looking at improving other public transport options? The bus service in Alvechurch is woeful; if we had a decent bus service it could make the decision to ditch that second, or third, car more feasible for some residents. We have many properties in Alvechurch that were built before the car became king and these were built with little, or no, parking. It is these residents we should be looking to help, given they take these properties on, maintain them in good order (not cheap) and provide the village with much of its character. One of our local councillors claims “any residential


parking permits, such as those investigated for Bear Hill, would have to be introduced across the whole village”. This is nonsense. If our councillors did their re- search they would find many parking schemes around the country have zoned areas applying to specific streets, or even parts of streets. As well as the suggestions above, in their quest for


parking solutions I would ask our councillors to con- sider where people might park their bikes. It would be nice to be able to have somewhere to leave our bikes when cycling out as a family and visiting local shops and cafes in the village.


Bonfires should be


consigned to the past Dear Editor – While there is much talk presently of new and old Cofton Hackett coming together and new exciting plans going ahead, what a pleasure it was


continues overleaf


TheVillageView . . . T


wenty years on from our first issue, and what is most noticeable from a brief look at our cover- age then and now is the resounding success of the housebuilding industry and their lobbyists. When it was proposed back then to take fields


around Alvechurch and Barnt Green out of the Green Belt and call them ADRs or, more accurately, “future building sites”, there was uproar – led by our repre- sentatives in Bromsgrove and even at Westminster. Our MP, Julie Kirkbride, a Conservative, told The


Village in 1998 she wanted to see new homes built on brownfield sites and described any use of the Green Belt as “the politics of capitulation”. That capitulation is almost complete. The Conser-


vatives taking decisions for us at Bromsgrove in 2018 seem hell-bent on giving up swathes of our Green Belt to housebuilders and when our current MP, also a Conservative, was asked about “Barntchurch”, his first response, apparently, was amusement. And all the while, the housebuilding companies


are raking in vast amonts of money, with one chief executive even taking a bonus of £110 million. There are a number of reasons why business is so


profitable for them, but top of the list must be that, compared with building homes on brownfield sites, whacking them up on pristine, green fields in areas of high property values is much easier and makes much more money. When coupled with the housing crisis created by


incompetent, or calculating, Governments and their destruction of public sector housing, the housebuild- ing industry can even make it sound like they are doing us all a big favour. If you want more houses, they say, we’re not go-


ing to build them on tricky brownfield sites in areas where our brick boxes won’t fetch a king’s ransom; what we’ll do is wait until you’re desperate, then find a report suggesting whole new towns in the rural Green Belt. In their dreams, one of those “garden villages”


Howard Allen, Alvechurch


might even get through if they have managed to sway public opinion far enough. If not, then with public resistance suitably softened, at least they can appear to compromise by just taking all the fields around our villages to build on (with the enormous strains that will place on existing infrastructure). Thank goodness a small group of “ordinary” vil-


lagers took it upon themselves to start work six years ago on the Alvechurch Parish Neighbourhood Plan. Without them, the capitulation would be complete. We wish all power to their elbow in standing firm against the inevitable onslaught, and hope other parishes preparing their own plans will be in time.


The Village October 2018 21


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