Predictive piffle
From Lord Hanningfield Sir: It is a shame that your magazine did not make a link between Rod Liddle's excellent article on central government's 'predict and provide' house-building policy in the south-east of England ('More destructive than the Luftwaffe', 3 April) and Ross Clark's article on the threat to rural Essex from the government's expan sionist airports policy ('Listed runways', 3 April).
This latter policy is also driven by the outdated model of predict and provide — simply expanding our airport capacity to meet the near open-ended demands of the air-travel business, This is being done irrespective of the damage it will do the UK's ambitions to reduce CO2 emissions.
Imagine if we were simply to build roads to meet the projected rise in car use; the UK would have to build an extra 36,505 miles of new road over the next ten years.
The role of government must be to balance the pressures of development with the requirements for the preservation, and indeed enhancement, of the quality of life in the United Kingdom.
Hanningfield
Leader, Essex County Council, Chelmsford
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