Category Archives: National Park

Not in our front yard

Posted on

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”.

Woodland Work Days

Posted on

Tottington Woodlanders at work
The Tottington Woodlanders need you:

Come along and have a go at coppicing.

You do not need any special tools as they are all provided, along with the training, however please wear suitable clothing and footwear for working outdoors. The most important thing is to bring a mug for the cuppa around the fire – the hot water, tea or coffee will be provided.

We always pair up newcomers or novices with volunteers who are experienced and training continues until everyone is comfortable that you can work safely unaccompanied. Some people previously have been worried that they may cut the wood to the wrong size or do something wrong. We are grateful for the assistance and it is unlikely that you could do any lasting damage.

The work starts at 9.30am on a Sunday morning and normally finishes around 1:00pm, but there is no requirement to be there at the start and still be there at the end.

Starting on 26th October, the dates include all Sundays until the end of March 2015 with the single exception of 28th December.

‘Green Infrastructure’

Posted on

Green Infrastructure
Once upon a time there were urban planners. They gave us Crawley New Town. Today, there are rural planners. They don’t call themselves that, though. Their current buzzphrase is ‘green infrastructure’. Much of their activity revolves around GIS (geographical information systems). GIS software produces attractive coloured maps that can be used for giving presentations to other rural planners. Correlations are magically transmuted into causal hypotheses. Those who live far from ‘accessible natural greenspace’ have poor health. Eureka! The SDNPA is, unsurprisingly, heavily invested in this stuff. They held a ‘Green Infrastructure Workshop’ a couple of days ago and you can find the overheads here [scroll down]. If you want to.

Nine Acre Corpse

Posted on

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.

Fungal Foray

Posted on

The Devil's Dyke fungi hunt - part 1
Join mycologist Martin Allinson for a day of recording as many species of fungi as possible across Newtimber Hill on Friday 3rd October from 9:45am to 3:00pm. Wear suitable clothing and bring lunch. Tea and cake will be served upon return to Saddlescombe. Supervised children are welcome. Booking essential. Slightly more information here.