Leader of Lincolnshire County Council Councillor Martin Hill congratulates elected MPs
Congratulations to those victorious in the recent election, writes Councillor Martin Hill, leader of Lincolnshire County Council.
The national election is finally over and those of us who were on the election trail can take a rest from vigorous exercise and door knocking and give the public some respite.
Congratulations to Gareth Davies and Alicia Kearns on their successful elections locally and as leader of Lincolnshire County Council I look forward to working with them in future for the benefit of the Grantham area.
This also applies to all Lincolnshire MP’s; welcome back to Caroline Johnson, John Hayes, Edward Leigh and Victoria Atkins and our newcomers, Hamish Falconer, MP for Lincoln and Richard Tice, MP for Boston and Skegness.
It is a great honour and privilege to be elected to represent our residents at any level and I wish them all well for the future.
With a new Government elected, there are already issues emerging which will affect Lincolnshire and other rural areas.
Labour have quickly announced that they will impose major infrastructure on us overriding any local concerns and objections. This will include pylons, onshore wind turbines, huge solar farms, reservoirs and pipelines.
New infrastructure is inevitable, but it must be carefully planned and built in sympathy with our communities and countryside in mind. And it has to be remembered that these pylons and water pipes, which will blight our landscape, are not even for the benefit of Lincolnshire but to take power and water to the south of England.
There is a very real risk that our beautiful county will become a target for industrial development often supported by public subsidies.
If this new infrastructure is to be built at such a scale that it ruins our environment we will vigorously oppose it. The culminative effect of many of these individual projects which if taken at a national rather than local level, could be disastrous for our county.
Also when there is any new development there will added pressure on roads and services such as electricity, water, sewage and health and there are concerns that in the rush to build more, the necessary money to provide accompanying services will not be forthcoming.
Lincolnshire has had to accept the need for more local homes and you will have noticed many new developments, with many more in progress. For example, Corby
Glen which I represent, is now having new estates built which will increase the size of the village by 40%. And now there are new proposals to build another large estate which would be completely unacceptable in such a short space of time.
We have already committed to providing 100,000 new homes in Greater Lincolnshire by 2040. I believe we are more than doing our bit in Lincolnshire and will not stand by and let the Labour Government pile unacceptable demands on our county.
