NIMBYISM should be balanced with pressing need for more homes

I thoroughly disagree with last week’s editorial “Isn’t a NIMBY someone who protects the things that matter?”
By A.reader1
Published 2nd Feb 2019, 12:24 BST
Updated 7th Feb 2019, 22:06 BST
Letters to the editor - Council clashes with campaginers over Aylesbury Vale local planLetters to the editor - Council clashes with campaginers over Aylesbury Vale local plan
Letters to the editor - Council clashes with campaginers over Aylesbury Vale local plan

Of course there is a need to preserve areas of countryside and beauty, but that must be balanced against the pressing need for far more new houses than are presently being built in this area.

The NIMBYs trot out all the usual objections to development, always dressed up in such a way as to appear reasonable at first sight.

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A good example of this appeared in last week’s edition concerning proposed development in Newick, where the complaint was raised that it would increase traffic on the A272.

Well, of course it would, but it is not new or increased traffic.

It is just traffic that has moved from where the occupiers of these proposed new homes previously lived.

Development does not itself create more people or more cars.

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The reality is that NIMBYs are by nature smug, self-centred and obstructionist, bent on protecting their own favoured position to the detriment of those as yet less favoured. Lewes has more than its fair share of these NIMBYs.

Nick Hall

Valence Road
Lewes