My speech to Thetford Town Council on the TAAP; 18th July 2012

TAAP comments from TJ on Weds 18th July 2012 debate

• Can I start by saying how pleased I am that this Council has actually gone through this process and at least considered the options available to us, and I thank the Clerk for making the necessary arrangements and thank Councillors for engaging with the discussions. Whilst some have known where they stand on this issue for sometime, others have agonised over the way they intend to cast their vote this evening, and their consideration of the issues and open minded approach should be commended.

• An important point that I want to make is the fact that the 16 of us are here to represent existing residents of Thetford. We’re not here to represent ourselves, or personal interest, we’re not here to represent Breckland Council, Kilverstone Estate or Shadwell Estate. My driving force throughout this debate has been about how this plan impacts upon the people of the Saxon Ward as their representative and whether it would enhance their quality of life or be detrimental to it.

• I remain of the opinion that the TAAP would not assist the communities that I serve or the Town as a whole, and I continue to oppose it.

• The question remains for those of us that do oppose it; do we oppose it strongly enough to want to spend Thetford taxpayers money on challenging it legally.

• I’ve not heard any definitive answer on costings of such action, but the scare stories of it “bankrupting the town” and costing in the region of £100k now seem unrealistic. However, I think if the Town Council were to undertake this, we need to prepared to lose up to £50k.

• That’s a large sum of money, and I am sure that we could all think of other ways to spend this. However, this is the blueprint for growth for the next 20 years, if we get this wrong, the financial cost for years to come will be far greater. £50,000 is approximately a cost of £5 for every Band D household in Thetford, broken down like this is does not sound all that expensive. Furthermore, this is a document that will be relevant certainly for the next 10 years, so a cost of just 50p for each of its initial years of existence. We will be debating as a Council spending millions of pounds on the Guildhall / Carnegie room, but cannot find £50k for these important plans? As one resident of Thetford said to me, you found £20k for the Jubilee without much drama, why not for this? We have over £400k in revenue reserves alone as of this very moment.

Any decision to not proceed with this action quite clearly should not be because as a Council we can’t afford it, when clearly we can.

• On the point about Shadwell; I would support a joint challenge with Shadwell as their motivations would appear to be similar to mine in that they want to TAAP revisted, and improved. I do not want it thrown out completely, but the Town wants as I believe, a fairer distribution of houses across the town, the Town want a greater commitment to regeneration and any revisiting would ultimately delay this plan allowing the Town Centre master plan to catch up and a greater commitment to infrastructure development to materialise. This rush to growth seems totally unnecessary and I will be voting for this Council to do what we are here to do, which is to look out for the best interests of the people we serve, and I will vote for a legal challenge. History will judge whether our actions here tonight were right or wrong.