Category Archives: Local Planning

Greetings from Crawley New Town

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Greetings from Crawley New Town
LAMBS inspects a vision of the future,

The provision of small socially mixed residential areas, each with its own individuality and its own centre, in order to promote neighbourliness and the social development of the town. Practically all homes are within one-third of a mile of their neighbourhood shops and within one and a quarter miles of the town centre. The character of the individual neighbourhood centres will vary and the design will spring from the natural features of the area, local place names have been retained for the neighbourhoods in all cases and the affix ‘Green’ .. has suggested the creation of a typical English Green at the centre of each neighbourhood.

from sixty five years ago. Well worth a read.

Mineral Sites Study

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Shoreham Cement Works chalk extraction site
The Mineral Sites Study [PDF] is a recently published document deriving from the joint SDNPA/WSCC exercise known as the Minerals Local Plan. Despite four pages devoted to a potential seventy acre gravel pit on a greenfield site in Woodmancote*, there is little in it to interest a resident of Fulking or Edburton. The one possible exception is a five page section [PDF] devoted to Shoreham Cement Works. There’s a lot of chalk left, apparently, and a planning permission for further extraction that runs until 2042, a fact that appears to have come as an unwelcome surprise to the current generation of planners (as it may to future generations of the ‘rare breeding birds’ who have made the site their home). If you feel inclined to respond to the study, then WSCC provide a form here.

*Not our northern neighbour but a different village, located to the west of Chichester.

Renewed traveller risk

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Albourne map
There’s an illegal occupation by travellers near the Village Hall in Albourne, and the people may be moved on. MSDC and Sussex Police are aware of it. If you have any issues relating to this occupation, phone Sussex Police on 101 (the non-emergency number). If you see a crime being committed (or just about to be), phone 999 instead. As ever, please continue to keep your garden sheds, outbuildings, etc., secured.

Richard Corner, 219

Update: direct action by Sompting residents earlier this week.

How to Engage in the Planning Process for the Benefit of Wildlife

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How to Engage in the Planning Process for the Benefit of Wildlife
[If you are planning to convert your fields into a new market town, or trying to stop someone else from doing so, then this brief tutorial may be just what you need.]

Laura Brook and Jess Price look at how to engage with planning processes and its impact on wildlife with reference to biodiversity legislation and how to respond to planning applications on biodiversity grounds: (i) an introduction to the planning system in England and key biodiversity legislation & guidance; (ii) the process involved in responding to a planning application on biodiversity grounds; and (iii) some examples of planning applications. A basic run through of the planning system in England and key biodiversity legislation and guidance. An outline of the process involved in responding to a planning application on biodiversity grounds. The course will be run from an ecological stand point and will not cover other planning issues.

Woods Mill, Saturday 4th October, 10:00am–12:30pm. Book here.

SDNPA issues first article 4 direction [update 2]

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Soberton view
The Hampshire Chronicle reports the views of the farmer in the case:

The national park misrepresented the situation. They have decided that because I repositioned a gateway that I was going to sub-divide the field. They have used their powers wrongly. They have stopped us putting stock there. They have misused the legislation. The trouble with the national park is that they have too much power. They should have come to me and consulted me. At no point was I going to sub-divide or put horses there. I have spent a lot of money restoring the field to meadowland from arable. The national park is wasting everybody’s money. Authority gone mad. They have taken away my right and I cannot even put cattle in. The park authority is jumping because a few people make a fuss.

Our earlier posts are here and here.

Mayfield lawfare resumes

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Mayfield claimed housing shortfall
The Mid Sussex Times reports:

Mayfield has stated that Horsham District Council (HDC) ‘does not have a full and proper understanding of the full objectively assessed need of the Housing Market Area’. Concern was raised by Mayfield about HDC’s ‘compliance with the legal test for the Duty to Co-operate’. The report states: ‘There is no publicly available evidence base which shows how meaningful engagement has taken place with neighbouring authorities in a continuous fashion prior to submission of the report.’ In addition, Mayfield raises issues with HDC, claiming it has ‘failed to calculate housing requirements’, ‘failed to allocate sufficient housing land’, ‘failed to allocate sufficient employment land’ and ‘absence of an effective Environmental Capacity Assessment’.

Update: the West Sussex County Times also has a report [PDF].

Update 27th July: LAMBS now has a post up on their website. Their main illustration is a Mayfield sewage map [PDF].

A sermon on Tottington Mount

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Tottington Mount versus the Rampion trench
Readers of the Yr Arolygiaeth Gynllunio report [PDF] cannot help but notice that the inspectors were much exercised by Tottington Mount. It is discussed or referenced on no fewer than 32 pages. By contrast, there isn’t a single reference to Truleigh Hill anywhere.

Tottington Mount lies between the Truleigh Hill Youth Hostel and Tottington Manor Farm. There is a public footpath opposite the farm that will take you up and across the mount. It is extremely steep for much of the route. Apart from the splendid view to the north, there’s not much to see. You will pass a long low earthwork as you near the summit. The mount itself just looks like canonical downland to an inexpert eye. As the map above indicates, the trench will bisect the mount.

Tottington Mount is a virgin patch of Downs that has never been ploughed. As a consequence, it hosts noteworthy plant species (page 57). The works area for the trench is to narrow from 30-40 metres to 20-30 metres as it cuts across the area (page 94). E.ON will be spending £330K on bog matting and other mitigation expenses on this small section of the trench (page 38). Some details of the mitigation plans, and the SDNPA’s scepticism about them, can be found on pages 57-58. The inspectors think that these mitigation efforts may well fail (page 41). The trench will skirt the Beeding Hill to Newtimber Hill SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) with a margin of about 50 yards at Tottington Mount. Disturbance to the chalk grassland species living within the SSSI will be ‘negligible’, apparently. Indeed, these species are set to benefit significantly from all the environmental monitoring that will be happening at Tottington Mount as part of the mitigation exercise (pages 52-53). However, Adonis Blue caterpillars may not share this upbeat view — they risk losing their lunch (pages 67-68).

The earthwork is a Bronze Age cross dyke and is listed as an ancient monument. The trench will go right through it (click the map above to see the detail of this), something that English Heritage refers to as a “substantial harmful effect” (page 178). The good news is that archaeologists will be funded to root around in the rubble — “appropriate archaeological supervision” (page 179, pages 398-399) — and English Heritage felt able to rule that “the harm is necessary in order to deliver substantial public benefits that outweigh the harm” (page 178). In turn, the inspectors concluded that there will be “be no loss of significance of any designated or undesignated heritage asset” (page 182) notwithstanding the “risk of adverse effects upon heritage assets, including the Tottington Mount Scheduled Ancient Monument” (page 227).

GJMG

SDNPA issues first article 4 direction [update]

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Soberton view
The Hampshire Chronicle reports:

Winchester city councillors agreed the retrospective application by Danny Bower, for a field at West Street in Soberton, for 130m of wooden posts and wire fencing. The application had been handed over by South Downs National Park after 21 letters of objections arguing the fencing was detrimental to the landscape and in direct violation of trust’s preservation policies. .. However councillors were told that if they refused permission the applicant would be entitled to claim compensation for an unknown amount in costs.

Our earlier post is here.

Fewer complaints

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Shortlisted for planning excellence in 2014
The Midhurst and Petworth Observer notes a report to the SDNPA from its director of planning, Tim Slaney:

[The] report showed that a total of 19 complaints were received in the year to March 31, 2014 compared with 32 the previous year when the new planning administration system was introduced and “numbers are considered to be relatively low”. .. A total of 2,366 planning applications were decided 
across the park last year by the authority’s own planning committee and all the planning authorities inside its boundaries. .. Almost 80 per cent of the total were decided in the allotted timescale of eight, 13 or 16 weeks and, said Mr Slaney: “This is considered to be a generally good overall level of performance.”