Julian Sturdy

I am absolutely appalled that the Government has encouraged developers to pursue a covert plan for 5,500 new homes on the edge of the historic city of York. To hear that York City Council has had no knowledge of this makes a mockery of the local Government process and all the work that has gone into the Local Development Framework by the Council

The Government seems prepared to ride roughshod over planning authorities and local communities to meet its own targets on building new homes. Further development in York has to be concentrated on our existing Brownfield sites to meet the future housing demand. 

A proposal of this type would have disastrous consequences for the local community and surrounding area. York?s green belt should be treasured for future generations, it is not something you can concrete over on a Government whim, and the impact on the already heavily congested Northern Ring Road would be just unimaginable.

Although this outrageous proposal is at a very early stage, and hopefully will never see the light of day, we must still fight to protect our green belt, to protect our existing village communities surrounding York.

Conservative Party Chairman Caroline Spelman visited York on Thursday. She had been earlier visiting Selby before coming to York where I took her to visit Fulford post office, one of the branches threatened with closure under the latest Government plans to close 2,500 Post Offices. We met with the local sub post master and a large number of local residents who are all backing my campaign to keep the post office open. You can also see The York Press?s video report on the visit here >>

I was delighted Caroline took the time out of her busy schedule to come and visit York and offer her support to our campaign to save Fulford post office from closure. It was also great to see so many local residents in the post office on Thursday afternoon all expressing their anger at the proposal, we have still got until the 17th of January to put our objections in writing to the post office.