By Letters to the Editor Send us your views on the week s news
Aerial eye in the sky pictures around Hampshire, Monday 11th July 2011. Winchester City Centre and Cathedral.. SIR: It is easy to expand an economy simply by increasing its population. A supply of people on low wages who are dependent on ‘social’ housing is sufficient. Unfortunately that does not improve personal wealth but it does further ration our environmental pleasures, a fair description of the UK over the last 20 years. To improve personal wellbeing, it is productivity and not population that must expand, and the incentive for business to do it is a shortage of low wage labour.
Here is the second part of our Review of the Year:
JULY A WINCHESTER woman has been crowned the winner of this year’s Great British Sewing Bee. Clare Bradley beat stiff competition and impressed judges Esme Young and Patrick Grant to be awarded the title in the BBC One show. Upon being announced as the winner, she said: “I feel really surprised. Crikey. I do hold myself to high standards and because other things I have gone in for are things I have trained for like exams and more exams - this was something I did for fun.” The streets are bustling, the shops are filled – and for the first time in 13 weeks, Winchester’s pubs, cafes and restaurants are open, but not as we have known it.
A DEVELOPER’S hopes for a huge new town south of Winchester have been dealt a blow. The Chronicle reported last week that a planning document stated the 5,000-home scheme had the support of the county council, claimed in a public document called a SHELAA, the Strategic Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment. SHELAA is a ‘wish list’ of sites available to be developed, and a statutory requirement for local authorities to produce. Cllr Keith Mans, leader of Hampshire County Council, said the developer is wrong to say the county has given consent for the use of its farmland near Compton for an access road into Royaldown: “I wish to stress that there were no discussions between the county council, as the landowner, and the developer relating to permissions. While peripheral queries about highways access, for example, may have been answered, I must state categorically that there was absolutely no permission given for any development on the land in question.