Planning Minister provides no comfort for Hook or Hart

It has been 6 months since the Basingstoke Country Hotel public meeting at which James Arbuthnot MP promised that he would get the Planning Minister to come and listen to us, and following two previous scheduled and cancelled meetings we finally got the visit. It is a different Planning Minister now than was in post in March, but there was no change of message. The Minister accepted that Hook and Hart were in a weak position, but he blamed Hart District Council and said there were no plans to change anything to help us. Only Hart getting their Local Plan in place will protect against uncontrolled development and as we know that will not be until 2016.

BBC South Today covered the meeting and you can view their report here. We will publish a written report of the meeting soon.