How much can you say in 150 characters?

Central government is saying that we need to build thousands of new homes in the South East to meet future demand. No decisions have been taken about how many of these homes will be in West Berkshire, but something called the Berkshire Joint Strategic Planning Unit is working on just that point. Deciding how to split numbers between counties in the South East is the job of the 'South East England Regional Assembly' which is, according to its web site, the 'representative voice of the region'.

Whatever they decide, and however our share is distributed within West Berkshire, the outcome of all this will have major implications for the Thatcham Vision.

If you'd like to give the Unit the benefit of your views you have until the 24th of October to do so. Visit the 'Have Your Say' website by clicking here.

As you'll see, their response page includes a few tick-box options and a box into which you can type your ideas about how all this should be tackled. You can type up to 150 characters in the box. 150 characters looks like this:

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things:
Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax
Of cabbages and kings and why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings."

Well, that's 147 actually. To be fair, if you search around the main JSPU site you'll find email and postal addresses to which you can send your detailed proposals.

To find out how all this feeds into planning within West Berkshire visit this page which describes the 'Local Development Framework' which is currently being produced.