Opinion : Does anyone in Wycombe actually want the transport ‘Masterplan’?
My good self sighed in despair upon reading the latest instalment in the horror story blighting Wycombe more commonly known as the ‘Masterplan‘.
What was supposed to be a simple re-routing of traffic along Desborough Road has become a piece-by-piece construction project that seems to now be engulfing the whole town centre.
Unfortunately it’s not just the roads that are being affected. Did you read the article that appeared in the news section of this site a few days ago entitled ‘Plans announced to put footpath through former Library Gardens in High Wycombe as part of road widening scheme‘?
Even the magnificent Library Gardens are going to be desecrated with a footpath driven through the middle of them as part of the ‘Masterplan’. In my opinion this is absolutely outrageous and disgusting.
My good self thought the ‘Masterplan’ was about traffic flow not spoiling a nice area of grass and flowerbeds?
According to the aforementioned news article there will be a full public consultation on the latest instalment of the ‘Masterplan’ saga during this coming November [2017].
I am left wondering why this project is being revealed in stages rather than as a whole? Is it perhaps because what has been done already in Desborough Road, Oxford Road and West Wycombe Road is by any chance a total disaster and now other amendments are required elsewhere in the town in a desperate attempt to make the failed part of the project already completed work?
The powers that be should come clean about the true extent of the ‘Masterplan’ and tell us what the entire project involves. Why not do just one public consultation with a total costing for the whole project?
From what I can see there really needs to be a proper review of what has been completed already as to me it seems far from satisfactory. The people of Wycombe should be able to have the option to either forge ahead with the project or put things back to how they were.
Apart from the powers that be, for whom the ‘Masterplan’ will keep them in jobs and hand them and their contractors a hearty income, who else in Wycombe actually wants the ‘Masterplan’? I suspect very few of the towns residents from my rough canvassing of people that yours truly knows.
The money wasted messing up Desborough Road could have been spent rejuvenating Frogmoor, restoring A&E to Wycombe Hospital or doing something else that would have actually benefited the town. Perhaps it would have been more beneficial to Wycombe if the money wasted on the project so far had instead been put in a case and dropped into the River Wye?
Projects like the ‘Masterplan’ should not go ahead unless a substantial proportion of the people who live in the town actually want it. Sadly it appears the powers that be can just get money and spend it on whatever mad cap project they see fit.
Thankfully rather than Council Tax money being spent on the Masterplan the funds actually come from Central Government in the form of Local Growth Funding (£8.6m) and from the Community Infrastructure Levy (£5.6m).
I feel there should be no more ‘consultations’ on the ‘Masterplan’ instead let’s have a ‘local referendum’ about it and unless more than 50% of the local people give the project their backing it should be stopped completely.
What do you think?
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