By Sue Roberts of South Oxfordshire Sustainability

GRETA Thunberg, the 15-year old Swedish girl leading the school children’s strikes against climate inaction, referred to ‘cognitive dissonance’.

It means knowing one thing, parking it in your brain, and then doing stuff that completely ignores that thing that you know, eg being aware of climate change but carrying on flying.

None of that, from the excellent developers of those superb affordable and market-price eco-homes in Faringdon (Wallingford Herald April 10, 2019).

Bioregional oversaw the project, thinking the housing through to keep within the resources of our ‘one planet’. Strikingly, their previous hamlets have created create wonderful communities where people are more in touch with their neighbours.

Greencore Construction was responsible for the pre-fab buildings. I first came across them on cycle rides through Crowmarsh Gifford. I watched a house grow so fast, with stonking amounts of insulation and neatly taped edges to make the home air-tight.

Ed Vaizey praised the eco-homes: “The vast majority of newbuild homes in the UK are of bland design, poor build quality, and lack basic sustainability credentials.”

Bizarrely, in the same edition of the Herald, he exhorts us to vote the Conservatives back in, in the local elections on May 2, to 'allow the local area to continue to thrive and grow', with 'local plans to end speculative development'.

Could he be referring to the same councillors that are tearing themselves apart at South Oxfordshire District? The same ‘concreting councillors’ that have forced through a plan for over 1,500 houses, roughly half a Wallingford, ever year for the next 16 years?

This will indeed force 'the local area to grow' - we’d have to grow our population 4x faster than expected.

If we fail to meet that target, developers have the right to claim extra land to concrete. Not an end to speculative development, then.

It is completely impossible to build half a Wallingford a year in South Oxfordshire. And if we did, you can be absolutely certain that they would not be carefully considered eco-homes!

The only ones who could knock them up at that speed would be the 'national housebuilders refusing to embrace new technologies and construction methods' that Ed deplores.

Ed Vaizey seems to be suffering from a severe case of cognitive dissonance.