EDDC has formally been asked for critical calculations, and other details. See https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/relocation_from_the_knowle#incoming-507521
Author Archives: sidmouthsid
Dates for your diary this Easter weekend.
Saturday 19 April, The Strand, Exmouth, 10a.m -4 p.m . Click here for details: EDA Exmouth
Monday 21 April The Ham, Sidmouth 11a.m -5 p.m. Sidmouth’s first SeaFest…a community celebration of our coastal heritage. See http://futuresforumvgs.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/sidmouth-sea-fest-bank-holiday-monday.html
Two contrasting views of Sid Valley
Legal problems with DMC decision on Newton Poppleford..an explanation
Were planning applications approved by DMC unsound?
Clampdown on public speaking? Rule-change goes to a vote at Full Council tomorrow (Weds 09/04)
The Full Council at Knowle tomorrow evening, from 6.30pm, will generate much interest. A proposal has been made, to require public questions to be submitted in advance, and to have restricted numbers of speakers on either side of a debate. Some councillors have been asked to request a recorded vote on this particular agenda item. Full agenda here: http://www.eastdevon.gov.uk/09042014_council_agenda.pdf
Current problems with draft Local Plan accurately predicted in 2009
The potential problems with the 5 year land supply were all highlighted in July 2009 in the report of a Task and Finish Forum on 5 year land supply (here are extracts):
1. Our assessment of our District wide figures shows that we have only just over five years availability. An Inspector at a planning application appeal could take the view that this is close enough to the five year threshold to side with an applicant/dismiss our arguments.
2. The District wide five year figure is based on our assessment and assumptions we have made. A developer might challenge these and come to a different conclusion (i.e. that land supply falls under five years) and persuade an Inspector that his/her evaluation is the more accurate.
3. Circumstances change and assessment/s done at the present time (and initially in 2008) can and will be out of date in the future.
Unfortunately, the document has since been removed from the EDDC website.
“NPPF has given too much power to developers”, concludes CPRE
Key conclusions from the research done by the Campaign to Protect Rural England, are summarised by Community Voice on Planning (CoVoP) at this link: CPRE report summary
See also our earlier post: https://eastdevonwatch.org/2014/03/24/community-control-or-countryside-chaos-asks-new-cpre-report/
For latest news from the CoVoP national network, of which East Devon Alliance is an active member, go to http://covop.org/
Development Management – democracy or “special” treatment – tomorrow’s DMC meeting – your chance to have your say
If you believe that EDDC should not be hearing planning applications that are not in the old or new local plan before they receive the initial comments of the Planning Inspector who reviewed the Local Plan (and who has promised them by 31 March 2014) please attend the Development Management Committee meeting on 25 March 2014 at 2 pm (Knowle – agenda HERE) where two planning applications for hundreds of houses which may not be needed have been speed-tracked (see posts below) by the creation of this “special” meeting. A routine meeting of the committee is being held on 1 April 2014.
Pickles wants to stop S106 on private homes; Sarah Beeney says privatise planning
Identikit towns on the cards says planning expert
“Community Control or Countryside Chaos?” asks new CPRE report
A revealing document called “Community Control or Countryside Chaos?” , has been published today by the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
In it, the CPRE assesses the impact of the governments’ National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) two years on. Feniton is featured on p 10, as one of a number of communities in England ‘under siege’ (with an excellent map!). There’s a good Case Study on East Devon on p15, which again refers to Feniton, but also the Colyford decision.
The report made the front page of today’s Western Morning News http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Towns-villages-siege-developers/story-20843419-detail/story.html – again referencing Feniton, and featuring an interview with Councillor Susie Bond *.The Express and Echo also has the story, as has the national press https://eastdevonwatch.org/2014/03/24/cpre-says-devon-villages-under-siege-by-developers/
The Daily Telegraph has a report, too. Link will follow.
*Note: Independent Cllr Bond was elected in a landslide victory, replacing former Councillor Graham Brown, who is the subject of a lengthy, on-going police investigation .
Why has the Old Park Farm planning application been pushed forward? ‘Special’ DMC meeting tomorrow at Knowle.
Disturbing evidence about a major planning application for mass housing on farmland (at Pinn Court Farm and Old Park Farm, Broadclyst) , has been brought to EDA’s attention. A Development Management Committee ‘special meeting’ has been called to decide on the planning application, tomorrow (Tues. 25th March, 2pm at Knowle).
For a copy of the agenda, please see following link… EDDC Dev Man Ctee Agenda
For a list of objections, please see 13/0001/MOUT and 13/2447/MOUT at Planning Portal
More details on our earlier post: https://eastdevonwatch.org/2014/03/22/the-old-park-farm-2-planning-application-and-its-special-meeting-on-25-march-2014-what-you-can-do/
Seminar for tourism businesses hit by storms
No, of course it isn’t being organised by EDDC! For them tourism doesn’t seem to exist.
CPRE says Devon villages under siege by developers
and this is how it was reported in the Daily Mail:
“Rural towns and villages are being placed under siege by the threat of 700,000 new homes in the countryside, according to a hard- hitting report.
Almost 200,000 of these are earmarked for supposedly protected Green Belt land thanks to the Government’s changes to planning laws, the Campaign to Protect Rural England warns today.
Its report reveals that just 84 local authorities – a quarter of those outside London – propose to prioritise building on brownfield sites.
A study of planning decisions also shows that 39 major housing developments in the year to March 2013, totalling 8,700 new houses on greenfield land, were given the green light after an appeal by developers – double the number the year before.
Some 17 appeals were granted personally by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles. In another 14 cases councils simply abandoned their objections because they feared losing on appeal.
The CPRE claims that the overall proportion of major appeals granted has risen to 46 per cent, up from 31.7 per cent in 2008-09.
The report has been written to coincide with the second anniversary this week of the Coalition’s National Planning Policy Framework, which established a presumption in favour of ‘sustainable development’ to kickstart house building.
But a third of all councils still do not have a Local Plan for development in place. These are supposed to give more power to residents and town hall chiefs to resist unwanted development.
The CPRE says the changes have led to an ‘unnecessary loss of countryside’ and have left some towns and villages facing the prospect of changing out of all recognition. At Kentford in Suffolk, proposals for 340 new homes are expected to double the size of the village.
At Warton in Lancashire, 1,365 homes are to be built in a town of just 3,573 houses – expected to lead to a population increase of up to 92 per cent.
The report says: ‘The most recent Government figures state that there is enough suitable brownfield land available for 1,500,000 new houses. Emerging and adopted Local Plans are, however, proposing significant amounts of building on greenfield land.
The CPRE says the changes have led to an ‘unnecessary loss of countryside’
‘We estimate that land has been allocated for 729,000 new houses, of which 190,000 are in the Green Belt. These sites are often on the edge of country towns and villages.’ It adds: ‘Many of these “villages under siege” are faced with planning applications proposing development well in excess of the amount envisaged in emerging or adopted Local Plans.’
Shaun Spiers, chief executive of the CPRE, said the report provided ‘firm evidence’ that the Government’s planning reforms were not achieving their stated aims.
He added: ‘Far from community control of local development, we are seeing councils under pressure to disregard local democracy to meet top-down targets.
‘Local authorities are having to agree fanciful housing numbers and allocate huge areas of greenfield land to meet them. Where they lack an up-to-date plan, the countryside is up for grabs and many villages feel under siege from developers.’
Planning Minister Nick Boles said the report was ‘inaccurate, exaggerated and based on a spurious analysis of the facts’, adding: ‘We have given councils the power to shape where the new homes our country needs should and shouldn’t go.’
The “we must decide this within 13 weeks” excuse for determining “Old Park Farm 2”
Which reinforces the fact that there seems to be absolutely no reason for a special meeting just days in advance of the first communication from the Planning Inspector – due by 31 March 2014.
Taken from a comment on claire-wright.org by Rose Pengelly:
OUTLINE PLANNING APPLICATION 13/0001/MOUT – OLD PARK FARM
East Devon District Council have accommodated this Special Development Management Meeting to consider an Outline Planning Application not in the Local Plan and is making an attempt to fast-track a decision.
The Councils reason made in a statement to the press are not true, this is what the guidelines say Determining a planning application:
What are the time periods for determining a planning application?
Paragraph: 001 Reference ID: 21b-001-20140306
Once a planning application has been validated, the local planning authority should make a decision on the proposal as quickly as possible, and in any event within the statutory time limit unless a longer period is agreed in writing with the applicant.
The statutory time limits are usually 13 weeks for applications for major development and eight weeks for all other types of development (unless an application is subject to an Environmental Impact Assessment, in which case a 16 week limit applies).
Where a planning application takes longer than the statutory period to decide, and an extended period has not been agreed with the applicant, the Government’s policy is that the decision should be made within 26 weeks at most in order to comply with the ‘planning guarantee’.
Revision date: 06 03 2014
Paragraph: 002 Reference ID: 21b-002-20140306
What is the Government’s ‘planning guarantee’?
The planning guarantee is the Government’s policy that no application should spend more than a year with decision-makers, including any appeal.
In practice this means that planning applications should be decided in no more than 26 weeks, allowing a similar period for any appeal.
The planning guarantee does not replace the statutory time limits for determining planning applications.
Revision date: 06 03 2014
The “Old Park Farm 2” planning application and its “special Development Management Committee meeting” on 25 March 2014 – what you can do
This is the planning application that does not figure either in the old Local Plan nor the new one- part of this development is from a former East Devon Business Forum member. The inspector who heard evidence regarding the new Local Plan has promised to communicate his initial findings to EDDC by 31 March 2014.
EDDC says that it “must” decide this planning application within 13 weeks of receiving it. This is not true. A council CAN wait longer than 13 weeks to determine a planning application (and many do) but a developer could then appeal because it has taken too long. However, it is possible that before the developer could appeal on this particular planning application the Planning Inspector might indicate that there is no need for the two developments in this area. In In which case more than 400 extra houses will be built which are not needed.
There is a debate about exactly when that time runs out – it could be early April depending on when you think the last documents were put on the EDDC website. However, EDDC officers have rushed through a “special” meeting to hear this application before the Planning Inspector’s comments arrive. Also, there is another DMC meeting on 1 April 2014 and we are entitled to ask: why is it necessary to hear this application on 25 March (before the Inspector reports) when there is a meeting on 1 April (after the Inspector reports)?
If you want to object to this state of affairs, there are several things you can do:
1. Turn up at the Development Management Committee meeting on 25 March 2014 at 2 pm and make your views known – you will have up to 3 minutes to speak (provided you do not repeat statements already made by other speakers).
2. You can write to your local district councillors (if you are not sure who your councillor is find out HERE).
3. You are allowed to write to individual members of the Development Management Committee individually (using the link to councillors HERE)
4. Write to your local MP, Hugo Swire, HERE, telling him how unhappy you are about this.
5. Write letters to local newspapers about it (and national newspapers if you wish too)
News summary, March 2014
It has been a full 12 months since Graham Brown was forced to resign after boasting he could obtain planning permission ‘for a price’. To mark the occasion, EDA has publicly called for a progress report into the ongoing police investigation.
For full report, please see…
At the Local Plan Inspections, SOS legal representative Charlie Hopkins pointed out the EDDC had refused to allow the inspector to see the valuation report on the Knowle, on the grounds of ‘commercial confidentiality’!
For full report see…
It also emerged this month that the preferred site for the relocation, SkyPark, is not included in the current bus timetables and it will cost £100,000 a year to introduce a new service. EDDC assurances, that a route could be funded through S106 contributions to ensure the move would not make it more difficult for constituents and job-seekers to access their offices, have now been refuted by Devon County Council, who confirmed SkyPark cannot be included in the bus timetables owing to time constraints. For full report see…
At EDDC’s “Become a Councillor” event held at Knowle, tough questions were asked by Youth Parliament representative Alfie Weaver, about Cllr. Mouldings decision to vote against their right to speak at the Devon County Council Budget meeting. For a full report on the evenings event, please see…
Please also see link for Sidmouth Sea Fest being held on 21st April – Easter Monday
Budleigh and Ladram Bay on Environment Agency blacklist
.
Last weekend’s Sunday Times article (16 March 2014, p. 19) lists two East Devon bathing beaches amongst 45 in the UK at risk of permanent closure because of sewage contamination. They could be “stripped of their designation as bathing waters from 2015. Visitors would be warned by prominent signs that the water was unsafe to bathe in”, the Environment Agency’s head of bathing waters, Christine Tuckett, told the newspaper.
“About a third of the pollution comes from agriculture, a third from point sources like sewage works and the rest is down to random factors like misconnected drains,” said Tuckett.
So what could the pollution sources be at Budleigh Salterton and Ladram Bay? Here’s a look, first, at Ladram Bay, where the expanding caravan site would be hard hit if its customers couldn’t swim from the lovely beach it leads to.
We’ll ask local residents about the Budleigh pollution problem, for a follow-up post.
News from Honiton (Part 2) . Thelma Hulbert Gallery not fit for purpose.
The record of the EDDC Cabinet decision (5th March, 2014) concerning the Thelma Hulbert Gallery (THG), Honiton, notes that Cllrs David Cox and Ian Thomas insisted that their votes against the recommendation ‘to set the Gallery on a sustainable footing’ were recorded. This unwonted move may be a first indication that previously loyal councillors are no longer prepared to automatically follow their Leader.
The Gallery, a favourite project of Cllr Paul Diviani, is fast losing money. EDDC are unwilling to reveal the scale of the losses, which are purported to be in the region of £120,000 per annum. This apparently does not take into account the officer time required to run the project, nor the cost of the building, nor the rates. The true annual cost of THG could therefore be closer to £200,000 (the anticipated saving in running costs achieved by relocating the District Council HQ to Skypark!).
During the Cabinet debate, the original business plan was described as being ‘overambitious’, and the gallery itself as ‘a significant liability’ to EDDC. The figure for annual visitors is believed to be around 8,000, made up largely of school parties. EDA has been reliably informed that adult visitor numbers per day can often be counted on the fingers of one hand. Does this mean that every visit is subsidised to the tune of £20-25 by the council tax payers of East Devon? The shop and cafe are reputedly cramped and very poor. And the enormously over-priced pieces of art on sale remain seriously unsold. If ever a building was not ‘fit for purpose’, it seems to be this one.
The 5th March 2014 Cabinet minutes, including Thelma Hulbert Gallery Business Plan-key decision pp 116-117, can be read at this link http://www.eastdevon.gov.uk/cabinet_agenda_mins_remit
East Devon Watch 