Category Archives: Local Planning

A second runway for Gatwick

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Readers will recall that the Parish Council held a public meeting on Wednesday 30th April to hear the views of the local community and to respond to an earlier consultation document.

Yesterday, the Airports Commission published for consultation its assessment of proposals for additional runway capacity at Gatwick and Heathrow airports.

The consultation presents the commission’s analysis of the proposals shortlisted by the commission last year: two for expansion at Heathrow Airport and one proposal at Gatwick Airport. It invites public comment on the commission’s detailed consideration of each proposal. This includes analysis of the cost of each proposal, the effect on communities of noise, property loss and construction, and the economic benefits and environmental impacts.

The information included in this consultation will enable respondents to give their view on the strengths and weaknesses of each short-listed option. It also invites comment on the commission’s review of the underlying evidence and analysis. These comments will then be taken into account and used to validate and challenge the commission’s assessments, ahead of the final report in the summer of 2015. During the consultation the Airports Commission will hold open discussion sessions for local stakeholders in both the Heathrow and Gatwick areas. The consultation will close on 3 February 2015.

Bobservation No. 1

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The new Timbers

The new Timbers

How good it is to see the approved plans for the replacement house at ‘Timbers’ in Clappers Lane and the, as yet unapproved, plans for ‘The Dales’ on the Poynings Road. Both of these have a clean modern look about them and are a very welcome addition to the diverse architectural mix that we have in Fulking. I look forward to the day when we have a really modern village hall.

Bob Rowland

Not in our front yard

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Housing allocation sites MSDC HDC
The Midhurst and Petworth Observer has an interesting report from a Chichester local plan hearing:

Ian Ellis, director of Southern Planning Practice, [said]

The [South Downs] National Park will do the least it possibly can to meet its objectively-assessed housing need, whatever that is going to turn out to be. It will expect a proportion of its objectively-assessed housing need is met by other authorities. My experience is when they go forward with the local plan, they will be .. saying ‘can you accommodate X per cent because we don’t want to accommodate it here and we don’t have to’.

In response, the SDNPA’s strategic planning lead Lucy Howard said the plan was yet to finalise its decisions: “The authority does need to consider the purpose and duty of a national park,” she said, highlighting its ‘landscape sensitiviy’ .. the SDNPA was in the ‘early stages’ of working on its strategic housing market assessment. “We do realise that if necessary we will be approaching neighbouring local planning authorities, but we’re simply not at that stage yet”.

It’s good to touch the green, green grass of homes.

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Rydon to trash Pound Lane Upper Beeding

Rydon Homes has submitted plans for 65 houses on a greenfield site adjacent to Pound Lane, Upper Beeding. In anticipation of significant public interest in these proposals Upper Beeding Parish Council has called a public meeting in Beeding & Bramber Village Hall, High Street, Upper Beeding on Thursday 25th September. Plans will be on display from 4pm and the meeting will start at 7pm. Representatives of Rydon Homes, Sussex Wildlife Trust, Southern Water and local councillors have been invited.

New Albourne Road roundabouts

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New Albourne Road roundabouts
Mayfield Market Towns claim that

it is accepted by West Sussex County Council and the Highways Agency that .. proposals are shown and are agreed for how the development will relate to the A23 and to other major roads in the area. In essence, 4,000 dwellings can be serviced from a grade separated new junction at Albourne and closure of the Sayers Common junction, and Mayfield control the land to implement these two proposals.

[Mayfield Market Towns submission to HDC]

Nine Acre Corpse

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Nine Acre Corpse at Frackhurst
Tomorrow, the Director of Planning will recommend that the Celtique application be rejected at the SDNPA Planning Committee meeting to be held that day. Since Fulking is many miles away from any hydrocarbon deposits, this may seem of limited local interest. However, the basis of the recommendation is of general applicability. With thousands of consultees and write-in representations raising every imaginable objection from none (the Environment Agency) through to extinction and genocide, the Director of Planning largely restricts his case to just one — noise, both from vehicles and from on-site machinery. A particular concern of his is the effect of the noise on one’s ability to appreciate Fernhurst Furnace, a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Since rather little of this industrial ruin is actually visible, silence is presumably required in order to imagine what it would have looked like if the excavations had not been buried under sand over twenty years ago. More here [PDF], especially pages 36-37.