Ashwell Prison to Close

It is a sad day for the people that work Ashwell Prison and their families which is to close for good in March this year. It is also a sad day for Rutland with another major employer disappearing from the county due to Government cuts forced onto this country by the greedy bankers who continue to smile and take their bonuses as all around them falls apart. According to reports the Government have closed the prison because of the cost of refurbishing the prison after the riots of 2009, are just to great in the current economic climate, however people working at the prison claim millions have already been spent of on the prison rebuilding it. It seems that the Government are happy to waste that investment and bulldoze it to the ground to be replaced with who knows what. 

The interesting thing is that it will make the plans by Hawksmead look even more ridiculous than they were to start with. The prison was one of the larger employers in the area and it will see more people leaving the county putting more empty houses on the market. It will also impact the services industries in the area that supported the prison making them less likely to take on more employees. If the Hawksmead development looked silly before, it now just looks plain stupid. Firstly there are now two brown field site in Rutland for potential development, the prison site at Ashwell and the RAF base at Cottesmore. So the question is why on earth develop a green field site at Oakham and spoil a lovely town when there are brown field sites waiting to be reused. Also this closure brings into question the whole scale of the original Hawksmead Development as well as the plans outlined in the Rutland Core Strategy. With growth set to slow over the next few years this isn't the time for unrealistic plans.

The question is will the Oakham town council planning authority take any notice of of the fact that the prison has closed. I believe the answer is no, they will continue to nod at the developers of the Hawksmead Development despite from what I can tell talking to the people I know is a growing concerns that they don't have the people of Rutland and Oakham's interests at heart and they are living cloud cuckoo land. They are railroading this development through despite growing local opposition. There are even rumours going around that Oakham town council are considering holding future planning meetings in private and away from the public eye. I hope this is untrue for it would make it easier for them to pass and support such developments with out the scrutiny of the press and the public. This would be a real kick in the teeth for open Government.

Finally details of the examination of the Rutland Core Strategy by the Secretary of State was been published. It is interesting that it is big on waste disposal while only only attempting to be green. It goes on about green housing but completely misses the point. What is the use of green housing with low carbon footprints when the people living in the houses have to use loads of carbon driving to work in the big cities and towns that are between 18 and 30 miles away. The whole notion that the planned development has a low carbon footprint when you consider this is ridiculous. If this is an example of how the Secretary of State sees green thinking then any notion that the Government is green has no basis in reality.