Victor York (Sept 30) seems to confuse the Regional Assembly and the Regional Development Agency, which controlled many million pounds of funding around the region.
The Regional Assembly and its panels, on which I served for 11 years, was abolished in April.
It was a “voluntary”
chamber, 70 per cent were regionally unpaid councillors, all elected, and 30 per cent came from industry, education, the church, and so on.
I was mainly involved with regional planning, and instead of the previous random improvements to road and rail, we created order out of the previous mess.
We prioritised the major roads for improvement in the whole East of England, with its population of five and a half million people, stretching from Peterborough and North Norfolk Coast south to Watford and Southend.
Much time was spent on the European-fund aided Felixstowe to Nuneaton rail upgrade to enable rail freight to travel from Felixstowe to the Midlands and beyond, so many thousands of lorries will be taken off the roads.
We made very strong representations against the expansion of Heathrow and Stansted, and supported rail transport expansion and the reopening of the old Oxford to Cambridge lateral rail route.
The regional spatial strategy, now abolished, created a regional planning framework that interlocked with other regional plans to give for the first time an integrated plan for sustainable growth.
It linked growth of housing with road and rail needs, hospital and social service needs, education sports and leisure needs, to stop the destruction of important areas of countryside, to protect the green belt in a comprehensive way and to identify areas such as Luton, Southend and the North Norfolk coast where regeneration was needed to reform and revitalise old industry and holiday areas.
Most of the regional plan was supported by all parties and votes were few and far between. It’s loss was regretted by members of all parties.
It was a splendid, well run and efficient organisation that will need to be recreated in the future.
Alan Crystall
Former planning spokesman
East of England Liberal Democrats
Cliff Parade
Leigh
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