Green Belt Information Loop ……….. protecting Cheshire’s rural heritage and charm
Local Plan
Local planning authorities must prepare a local plan which sets planning policies in a local authority area, this includes setting house building targets. This is the plan which will inform all future planning applications over the next few years – it is important therefore that it is as accurate as possible. The present position is that the Plan is in ‘draft form’ and is out for public consultation.
Including the supporting reports, the Plan is over 1000 pages , took 4 years to prepare, cost hundred of thousands and unfortunately is presented in such a way that the average person will find it difficult to understand.
To summarise though, CWaCC are proposing to build 22,000 houses across Cheshire West over the next 20 years (5,500 of these in Chester). However … population projections from the Government (DCLG) indicate this figure across the Borough should be only 10,000 . The Council, in proposing to set these much higher than needed housing targets, are suggesting we are going to have a great flurry of growth and the generation of 14,000 new jobs over and above finding work for the current 22,000 currently unemployed in the Borough. Dreams of a megalomaniac – wonder who that might be? Incidentally, the plan fails to take into account all the empty homes and the sites where there is already planning permission but the houses have not been built yet . over 6,000 (this incidentally is because nobody can afford to buy them!)
As I think everybody must know by now … the impact of setting housing targets above practical achievable levels will encourage the release of more and more countryside , unnecessarily for development – the developers will go for this type of land first because it is cheap to buy (although a lot of Chester’s Green Belt already has options already on it from the big builders) and it yields the biggest profits. Land like this should ONLY go as an absolute last resort when everything else has been used up.
It is vital that as many people as possible get involved with it – and there is a page of the Council’s website where you can have your say! [LOCAL PLAN REPRESENTATION]
THERE IS A DEADLINE to get in your representations – this is the 1st November. Unlike some Council surveys however, where people wonder whether their views are ever read, all representation received for this will have to be personally presented to the Government’s Planning Inspector who will look at it.
Our conclusion is that this plan is a confidence trick to release certain parcels of land across the Borough The way the plan is constructed serves to confuse and there is no trail on how these figures have been arrived at. Interestingly the ruling group have pushed this not fit for purpose draft forward
Somewhere in our Authority there seems an obsession with promoting the interests of developers rather than a balanced approach to include the views of the community for a reasonable number of new dwellings to be developed, based upon actual need. Through a trick of presentation of the figures they have attempted to say that there is a shortage of building land in Chester thus requiring the release of a tranche of valuable GREEN BELT to the south of the city by Wrexham Road. This is a nonsense. T he council have identified over 42,000 (units) without fully counting windfalls which on average account for a further 300 dwelling pa
| SHLAA | Overall housing capacity | ||||
|
Years |
5 |
10 |
15 |
20 |
Total |
|
Capacity |
8393 |
9569 |
8911 |
12400 |
39,273 |
|
Total incl others |
8745 |
10449 |
9791 |
13280 |
42,265 |
|
Brownfield |
5649 |
3706 |
3469 |
5743 |
18,592 |
In addition to the Wrexham Road Green Belt, another tactic to grab more Green Belt land is the inclusion of a 5th park and ride scheme at Mannings lane in the Transport Strategy .This is land in-between the Zoo P &R and Sainsbury’s P& R. The case for this has not been proved. We ask the question why would someone in the Authority be so keen as to want this Green Belt land releasing
Ask your self the questions:
Who has an interest in this Mannings Lane land ?… It is owned by Mannings Lane Development. I understand the Bells have a 12.5% holding each in this company
Likewise ask yourselves about the ownership of the Wrexham Rd Green Belt site ? Who owns the land ? Have the boundaries and one or two fields added or changed recently? Are there any options out on part of this land?
CWaC consultation on the plan has been inadequate, if not illusionary. We cannot see where any of the views previously expressed by the community have fully materialised in the plan.
Under Localism, the Plan should embody the wishes of the community People have expressed views for low development, the retention of the Green Belt and the countryside and to optimise developments on City and Town regeneration on brown field sites
ALL of this has been pushed aside with the figures skewed so that it appears we have to build an unsustainable number of houses on the Green Belt and countryside
This plan does not follow the Governments planning guidance procedure, it is subjective and has no objective basis for recommending building 22,000 houses in the Borough
Our guess is that very few of those consulted, if anybody, specifically understands the detailed workings of how they came up with their figures. The trail is difficult to follow, it is as if it has been constructed to deceive – in fact I challenge any councillor who voted for this to explain how the figures in the local plan have been constructed – I bet they can’t!
Increasingly it is becoming obvious to many that the whole ‘emerging’ plan has been written with a slant for property speculation, ignoring the views of the local community
If you want a say on the local plan what you need to do is is complete a representation form
Representation Form details found at …..
http://www.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk/PDF/Publication%20Draft%20Local%20Plan%20Representation%20Form.pdf Representations must be submitted directly to Cheshire West and Chester Council by 5pm on Friday 1 November 2013. Printed and PDF representations can be submitted by email to spatialplanning@cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk or by post to: Spatial Planning Cheshire West and Chester Council The Forum Offices Chester CH1 2HS
