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Identifying Growth Sectors in the South East Economy

In oral questions earlier, I raised the issue of the massive Pyestock warehouse development, which will generate lorries and fumes, clogging up the locality and damaging residents’ quality of life and the environment. I say that because that is what the Secretary of State’s own planning inspector said, but some Minister—we do not know who—knows better than the 12,000 local people who opposed the application, better than local councils and better than local Members of Parliament. In that respect, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) and I have been working closely together on the issue. The reason why this anonymous Minister chose to contradict all those people was that despite the damage that the Government admit will be caused to the environment, despite the harm that they recognise will be done to the gap between settlements and despite the serious effect that they accept the project will have on the area’s character and appearance, the development will generate 1,500 jobs, which should outweigh all that damage. That would almost be a persuasive argument, if it were true; unfortunately, it is not. As the Campaign to Protect Rural England has devastatingly pointed out, the development may produce 1,500 jobs, but they will not be new jobs; they will simply result from the closure of other, more local distribution centres. In fact, there will be probably be a reduction in jobs, because of the economies of scale. That is why we are damaging the environment and destroying local people’s faith in the planning system. Why should put people spend thousands of pounds and years of their lives submitting arguments that are then thrust aside almost at the whim of some Minister? To take a recent quote from a Cabinet Minister, Pyestock is a perfect example of ““government by fiasco””.