Broadhembury Village Matters

BVM has now received notification from Broadhembury PC that there will be an Extraordinary Meeting at the Village Hall at 7.00pm on Dec 11th. Apart from Minutes of the last meeting and ‘Any Other Matters’ the sole agenda item is ‘Affordable Housing’ – yet this is not the subject raised by BVM at the November 17 meeting. BVM and its supporters raised a wider concern about the impact on our unique heritage village of disproportionate, inappropriate and unnecessary development attached to the centre of Broadhembury Village. We also raised serious questions about: why the PC is so focused on putting this development at the heart of its Neighbourhood Plan; the justification for its spurious claim that Broadhembury is “unsustainable without development”; its relationship with the landowner and his plans for development; and why the PC is not consulting afresh with the community now that the EDDC has changed its stance on development in Broadhembury.

The Council has not made clear to BVM whether or not the the Dec 11 meeting is intended to pursue our unanswered questions (as it first offered on November 17) or whether its plan is now to pursue a much narrower agenda in order to avoid them.

At any event we intend to table our questions and keep on asking them until we, the community, receive satisfactory answers. We hope that a good number of parish residents will turn out to ask their own questions too.