SIR: Councillor Porter is working back to front. She is proposing that we first develop any spare land and then let our lives “be influenced by the built environments”.
This must be the wrong way round. We first need a post-Covid vision of how and where we want to live, work, travel and play. This will then influence the Local Plan on the long-term development of houses, offices, shops and traffic.
This fundamental flaw eliminates the value of her consultation process. The best way to find out what we want is to let the public openly propose and discuss our recommendations for the future of Winchester and then the city council should include them in the Local Plan. This should be managed not by the council but by an independent body of citizens and stakeholders.
We can then see whether the council is genuinely interested in the public’s priorities and participation in the future of Winchester.
Nicholas Craig-Harvey,
Sparsholt,
Winchester
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