Issues Facing the South
Services and Infrastructure
For every new large group of people that move into an area, there are certain basic requirements. Everyone requires access to essential services and supplies – the basic infrastructure must adapt to accommodate each extra person that moves to an area.
Doctors and Dentists
Everyone needs to have access to basic healthcare facilities. If existing facilities remain the same, then an increased population will decrease availability of these services. For example, if no new doctor’s surgeries are built, waiting times in the existing ones will increase dramatically; likewise for dentists. The trouble is, for new practices to open, we need to find and employ more doctors and dentists. There just simply are not enough GPs at the moment to cover the existing population, let alone one that is 18% larger!
Schools and Hospitals
We live in a time when hospital services are being cut from regional centres and centralised. We are certainly not seeing new hospitals being built. An extra 128,000 properties could easily bring a further 300,000 people into Hampshire. This is much greater than the current population of Southampton (217,000). At least one new major general hospital would be required to support this number of people. However, because the new population will be scattered throughout Hampshire, we can probably rest assured that no such new hospital will be built: the existing ones will be expected to cope and we will all suffer as a result, with longer waiting times and less access to health services.
Within some of the plans that we have been able to access, there is some talk of building new primary schools. However, building new secondary schools is a subject that does not get the attention it deserves. Several dozen new secondary schools will be needed to support the proposed increases in population.
Water
While 2007 may have been the wettest year on record, those with longer memories may wish to cast their minds back to 2006 – one of the driest years on record. The drought was severe and water was becoming a scarce resource in the South of England. So what kind of restrictions will be put in place next time, when there are 128,000 new households in the region…?
There is talk of building a new reservoir in the Havant area. However, while it will help to supply the proposed new properties, it will not keep us out of trouble next time it stops raining (although it would undoubtedly make a huge difference to our supplies if it were built without building all the new houses)…
Gas and Electricity
The extra gas and electricity needed to supply and heat 128,000 new homes has to come from somewhere. New power stations, gas works (with those attractive “gasometers”), high-voltage transmission lines (with associated rows of pylons) and sub-stations will all be needed to supply the new properties. The pylons in particular could go right over your existing back garden (who knows where they will go!). Would you be ok with that?
In an era where we are supposed to be reducing our national “carbon footprint”, we appear to be shooting ourselves in the foot with all this new development. Hampshire’s energy usage will rise in line with the number of households – very significantly.