YOUR columns reflect growing concern regarding the area development Structure Plan 2016 and the Sub Regional Study 2026.
This concern is linked to an increasing tendency for governments to divest action through quangos. This has always been the case, but such mechanisms become more dubious.
The influence of vested interests, focus groups and the mind-set factor (remember the Iraq war explanation?) are of great concern. Traditional checks and cautions of public service are bypassed, as is the reasoned deliberation of parliament and the democratic censure of the ballot box.
As one of the council converts with the Sub Regional Study consultation exercise said to me: "Twenty thousand may protest but that means 160,000 are for the developments''. A quaint interpretation of democracy.
A schedule of local authority and quango enquiries is now underway to become policy by early 2007. A likely result, 24,000 houses for the South Marston area.
K BRAIN
Upham Road, Swindon
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