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SEEDA Welcomes Regional Assembly's Draft Plan but
Urges More Flexibility on Housing and Airports
28 November 2006
The South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) has welcomed the ambitions for the region set out in the draft Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) – known as the 'South East Plan' – but expressed concern that on several major issues the Plan is ill-equipped to meet the South East's specific social and economic needs.
With the first session of the Plan's Examination in Public starting in Woking on November 28, SEEDA is urging revisions to the Plan to bring it more into line with the recently launched Regional Economic Strategy (RES), including higher figures for future housing provision and more consideration of the option of airport expansion.
In SEEDA's view, the Plan put forward by the Regional Assembly appears unable to achieve its own assumption of a Gross Value Added (GVA) growth level for the South East of 3 per cent per annum. SEEDA believes that meeting this 3 per cent target, which is in alignment with the RES, is critical to ensure the regional's global competitiveness and to sustain its quality of life. The Plan's proposed cap on housing development and its rejection of the case for airport expansion, however, could inhibit economic growth and prevent achievement of the region's GVA target.
SEEDA also contends that the Plan as it stands fails to set the region's needs in the context of its relationship with neighbouring regions London and the East of England (the Greater South East) and the implications for the UK as a whole of potentially slowing this growth. There is an inconsistency, SEEDA points out, between the Plan's advocacy of greater infrastructure investment and its reluctance to consider the potential benefits to the economy of increasing airport capacity. Likewise SEEDA believes that the Plan's targets for new housing development are below those required to secure sustainable prosperity across the region.
SEEDA's Executive Director of Strategy & Sustainability, Paul Lovejoy, commented: "The draft South East Plan has much to commend it, and we are pleased to have been able to play a part in shaping the Plan's ambitions for our region. In particular we are pleased to see the strong emphasis on sustainability and smart growth, which are major underlying principles of both the SE Plan and the RES.
"We also recognise and endorse the legitimate concerns of the Regional Assembly about the infrastructure funding deficit in the South East, and SEEDA will continue to work alongside the Assembly to secure a fair deal for the region from Central Government. There is currently a significant imbalance – the South East's population is over 13.5 per cent of the UK total but spending in the region on transport and housing were both below 12 per cent of Government capital expenditure. This translates into a deficit of £100 million per annum for transport alone.
"But to secure the investment that we need, the South East Plan must support continued economic prosperity. We are concerned that on some potentially significant issues this is not the case at present. The South East must present a strong case to Government to win the investment that we need."
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