I wish to register my objection to this
Planning Application on the following grounds:
Since the site is a green-field, need
has to be established. The Shalfleet Parish Council's 'Sustainable
Housing Survey' dated May 2013 was used by the Applicant to justify
need. I have taken some professional advice but require further
information from SPC, who have been uncooperative. I submitted a
Freedom Of Information request to the SPC on 23rd May and
on 27th May received a response that shows a lack of
understanding of FOI requests and I am having to re-iterate the
request. There has, therefore, been insufficient time for me to
provide a detailed critique of the Sustainable Housing Survey however
I can state with confidence that the survey is so deeply flawed that
it cannot be acceptable for establishing need to build a large
housing estate on this green-field site with all of the consequential
issues that affect the residents and locality.
From the Clerk's
reply it appears that the final survey has never been reviewed by a
person qualified and competent in that field.
I object to this proposal because:
a) There is no proven need for the
development. The Applicant refers to the Sustainable Housing Survey
produced by the Shalfleet Parish Council to justify need. I have
taken professional advice and from the information already in the
public domain the document appears deeply flawed. Furthermore, there
have been two public meetings called by the Shalfleet Parish Council
and at both meetings every member of the public present* stated that
they did not believe that the survey report reflected either their
views or the views of the Parish. I have placed a Freedom Of
Information request with the Parish Council to obtain the necessary
raw data to determine exactly what the situation is. The information
is not available at the time of writing this comment, placed at the
limit of the period allowed for comments.
If permitted, and when I have the
information from my FOI request, I will submit another comment to the
Planning Department.
* At both of the public meetings one
person came forward to express an interest in an Affordable House
(i.e. two people in total). Neither of those people had any
understanding of what 'affordable' means and it seems likely that
neither would be able to obtain one of these homes. We have yet to
find one person or family who either wants one of these homes or, if
they did, could conceivably afford one. That must surely indicate
'need' more accurately than any survey since if the homes built are
not affordable to those who would live there, there is no need to
build them.
b) This is yet another attempt by
property developers to build a large housing estate on green field
land, urbanising the pretty rural nature of the Parish of Shalfleet.
Building along this road will by itself make Shalfleet look like the
tail of a dog; inevitably the green fields down to the Shalfleet
Primary School will be urbanised. If there was real justifiable
need, that would be different but I challenge anyone to show any
need.
c) Other objectors have raised many
technical issues which would clearly be hard to overcome without huge
extra cost - increasing the cost of the homes, of course.
d) I concur completely with the
Shalfleet Parish Council's objections.
e) I concur completely with the
objections submitted by Cllr Helena Hewston, who has a detailed local
knowledge as Chair of the Ningwood Residents' Association.
f) I believe that it would be wrong
to grant even outline planning consent on the grounds that the need
has not yet been established and the detailed technical details
(hence costing) has not been carried out. I believe that this is a
case where the Planning Authority should reject this application and
not consider it until there is available a fully-engineered proposal
and need proven.
No comments:
Post a Comment