Latest from CPRE Northamptonshire

25 January 2011
Extracts from a report to CPRE's East Midlands Regional Group (EMRG)

• High Speed Train (HST2) has been keeping us busy. Our view is that we should not oppose it totally - because that only leads to total rejection of one's comments! - but look at the details of the route, the level of speed of the proposal, and ways to minimise the effect. We are working together with adjacent CPRE branches which are also affected. The route discussion is difficult because changes made elsewhere affect where it will end up going through Northamptonshire. In fact, it's much more difficult than HST1 through Kent, where the end points were fixed before the detailed discussions even started.
  
• Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) : now that Regions have been abolished by the new government, districts are scrambling to make strategic alliances with neighbouring groups ... and previously-familiar boundary lines are no longer relevant. One LEP has been approved by the government, based on the former MKSM (Milton Keyne-South Midlands) area and all districts except East Northants and Wellingborough have expressed an interest. The County Council has put forward its own proposals for a county LEP but this has not yet been approved. It has also put forward a strategy document (Northamptonshire Arc) for possible development in Northamptonshire ... but what status this might have within the new planning structure is not clear. Oh, and just to make things even more complicated, rumour has it that any one district might be able to affiliate itself with more than one LEP!
  
• MKSM LEP : if this turns out to be the LEP proposal that is finally accepted, we will have to investigate how best to work with Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire branches of CPRE. This crosses regional CPRE boundaries - South East, East of England, and East Midlands. CPRE itself is reorganising its regional structure and we hope this will result in an even more unified approach to commercial proposals coming from any such an LEP.