By Brendan Bruder
AbbeyRoss
IT is confusing!
Whilst the UK wrestles with the implications of its decision to leave the EU we are told this will ultimately be to our advantage.
Economists argue that rising inflation or increasing interest rates are a good thing and manufacturers will tell you that a plummeting sterling is good for them. The truth is that most people would say they dread the day the referendum was called, people and businesses will be hurt by rising inflation or interest rates and if you have been on holiday in the EU lately, the meagre exchange rates will not have been good news for you. Is change good or bad? How about things just staying the same? There is no safety in that, with a world that is forever changing.
In Northampton we could think that a competing shopping and restaurant/leisure scheme 25 minutes up the A45 is not good for the town and yet Rushden Lakes directly competes with Centre MK and it is nice to see some of these shops back in the county.
You would think that all these new houses being planned cannot be a good thing with already stretched schools, hospitals, roads and other infrastructure. Housebuilders will only build if they think they can sell or lease those houses and these could be homes for someone with no home or someone who is new to the county. To be able to buy or rent, these new residents will need a job and some will set up their own businesses. They will put their children through schools, they may need to see their GP, they will drive on the congested roads. There is much that can be done to alleviate the pressure on our infrastructure and stretched public services but saying no to building is just going to push prices up for those houses already here or under way. Stand still and we are overtaken.
So, how do we ease the pressures and get Northampton back onto people’s priority lists? How do we move forward without giving up on the amenities we take for granted? We need more and better paid jobs. We need places for these jobs and people to be accommodated. Forcing every worker or shopper to have their own car because we have inadequate public transport is a failure of 20th Century proportions. The sharing economy of the 21st Century will help, but alternatives to stretched facilities are needed now.
The local authorities are reacting to pollution and congestion as if these are inevitable but giving up on an integrated transport solution is not the way to lead by example. Selling Park & Ride sites at Cliftonville and Sixfields but retaining a now cleared site at Greyfriars may seem at odds with an aspiration toward sustainability. Most of the county’s towns are medieval settlements so squeezing ever growing traffic volumes into narrow highways simply doesn’t work. Surgeries in terraced houses don’t really work in the same way as inter-party bickering is no good for attracting new talent into the political world.
We need more land for housing, more land devoted to the full size range of businesses that will survive post EU exit. A rapidly growing population can be a good thing. The 21st Century could be called the sharing century. Northampton already has a population of 218,000 and counting, 14,000 full time students will begin to call Northampton their alma mater in less than a year, 1,600 relocated County Council staff are here already, major new employers are on their way.
As Donald Rumsfeld may have said, these are the known knowns.
Contact Brendan Bruder at AbbeyRoss on 01604 629988 or visit www.abbeyross.co.uk
