What ANTAS Can Do for Us
For a number of years now Fred Russell and I have represented your Society at the biannual meetings of the Association of North Thames Amenity Societies (ANTAS). This is when many Societies such as our own, from Oxfordshire, Berks, Bucks and Herts, come together to listen to a speaker on a subject of interest and to talk about the problems in our local areas and what measures have been effective in combating them.
It is quite clear that most areas are suffering under the pressures of having more new development thrust upon them than their communities feel happy about. Poor Stevenage is having to cope with 5,000 new 'units' on their doorstep. (You may have noticed that nowadays dwellings are referred to as 'units'.)
ANTAS is also concerned with reading and commenting on the various documents produced by the local, regional and national authorities that affect planning and the environment. These are many and varied and coming at an increasing rate. We sometimes feel that we are being overwhelmed by them on purpose in order to confuse and confound us, with the important bits buried in amongst the verbosity. Very few people realise the extent to which the planning process has been taken away from local people in the last few years and is now largely dictated from on high. Changes have been coming thick and fast. These affect us all, especially in the South-East Region with the ever-increasing demand for new housing.
We are fortunate that within the various Societies in ANTAS as well as amongst its own officers there is a wealth of expertise, which can be called on if necessary. Many of the other societies are experiencing the same sorts of problems and it is always interesting to hear how they deal with them.
Many people regard planning as a boring topic and indeed it can be, but unfortunately the consequences of planning decisions made increasingly in a more centralised way are having the most profound effects on our way of life. We therefore ignore the political interference in our planning system at our peril. For a number of years now we have seen the gradual transfer of planning power move from the local level to regional and governmental levels, thus making the planning system a political tool for implementing government decisions and policies. For real harm to come to our community it only requires good men to do nothing! ANTAS is a useful tool in countering this rather serious trend towards centralised planning by adding scale to local opinion.
Eva Lipman