Why I am not a NIMBY

It’s rather embarrassing. I have been asked to coordinate the formation of an action group to follow up the Parish Plan and to fight off the threatened development of 2750 new houses somewhere on our doorstep, but I have two guilty secrets that I must confess.

I think it is right to mention my dark past for two reasons. The first is that I know I’m not alone in this: many of you also have the same guilty secrets and they may be gnawing at your resolve. The second is that these secrets lay us open to an easy accusation from our opponents that could easily overwhelm us if we don’t face up to them. As usual, the best thing to do with dark secrets is to bring them into the light, and so destroy the power they have over us. So let’s get it over with.

Firstly, I’m an incomer. I am a Leicester man born and bred who rather fancied living in a nicer part of the country. I’ve only lived here for 24 years (seven years in Upton before that). So who am I to start getting uppity about others wanting to do the same? And as for my very pleasant home, well, 40 years ago – about the time that Cllr. Peter Burbidge joined the Parish Council – it was a nasty new house being erected by a developer on what had been beautiful virgin farmland. Ouch! So the question that arises, for me and probably for the majority of today’s villagers, is this: am I just a NIMBY, another whinger saying “Not In My Back Yard!”?

The answer is in fact, ‘No’, for reasons I will show in a moment. What worries me is that the question will never be asked, because everyone from the Secretary of State down will assume that the answer is a resounding ‘Yes’. So we have to find ways to take our argument out beyond ‘It will spoil our view’ and ‘It will ruin our village’ to something more robust.

There are two particularly powerful arguments that put this issue beyond mere NIMBY-ism. The first is that a scheme of this kind was considered and rejected by the South West Regional Assembly: with a writ that runs from Gloucester to the Isles of Scilly, this is hardly a narrow, parochial view. Similarly, the backing of Dorset County Council and national bodies such as Natural England are evidence that this is more than a local view.

The second reason is the massive breach of Green Belt. The Western Extension of Poole is precisely the sort of urban sprawl that this green belt was designed – and legally defined – to prevent. This is a national policy, not for our benefit but for the good of the urban areas and the shape of the country as a whole. This argument is not about My Back Yard; it is about the nation’s front garden.

Adrian Russell