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ROMSEY ADVERTISER – LETTERS PAGE FRIDAY 20TH JANUARY 2012

Dear Sir,

Romsey has about 7,000 dwellings at present. 800 are building at Abbotswood. Test Valley Borough Council wants to put 1,500 more houses just south of Romsey’s allotments. That’s an increase of 33% in houses, in people and in traffic.

Already other developers such as Tesco are gathering on the sidelines to exploit this phenomenal growth.

This huge change in the scale and character of our town is contained in the “The Test Valley Borough Core Strategy and Development Management Document January 2012”- in short, the “Core Strategy DPD”. It can be purchased for £10 including packing and postage, or viewed at the Council Offices at Duttons Road or viewed online at www.testvalley.gov.uk/LDF <http://www.testvalley.gov.uk/LDF>

There will be a series of exhibitions where TVBC officers will be present. If you can, please attend the exhibition in the Town Hall on the 25th, 26th and 27th January. It is most important that you respond to the Core Strategy DPD with your views either by email on LDF@testvalley.gov.uk or by individual letter to ‘Planning Policy, TVBC, Duttons Road, Romsey SO51 8XG. The consultation period runs from 6th January to 4.30pm on 17th February 2012 only.

Please remember that petitions or pro-forma letters have little impact. Individual comments from residents carry much more weight.

Please email me on cooper22tt@aol.com if you would like more detail on how to respond the Test Valley’s Core Strategy. Please act now. Once the Core Strategy is adopted it will be too late to protect the scale and character of our town.

PRESS RELEASE = MONDAY 16TH JANUARY 2012
Wake up call to Romsonians

"Its time to fight for the town you wish to live in," says Romsey's County Councillor, Mark Cooper.

"Tesco's plans for Romsey are just the beginning of a massive change in the scale and character of Romsey to be brought about by Test Valley Borough Council's Core Strategy document."

"At present Romsey has about 7,000 dwellings. It is universally regarded as a Market Town with a population of about 17,000, if the areas around the town are counted in. 800 houses are currently planned and building at Abbotswood, north of the town. Now Test Valley Borough Council wants to put 1,500 more dwellings just south of the town next to Romsey's allotments."

"That's a growth of 33% in housing numbers, population and traffic," says Cllr Cooper. "The character and scale of the town will change for ever. The people of Romsey have to decide:- Do you wish to live in a Hampshire Market Town or in a Southampton Overspill suburb?"

The consultation period runs from 6th January to 4.30pm on 17th February 2012 only.

"Test Valley Borough Council has re-issued the strategy after nearly three years extra work and at great cost to the Council Tax payer. TVBC is still proposing much the same housing allocation and locations as last time. I have studied the research to establish whether or not the new housing is actually needed. I am satisfied that over the whole Borough the proposed build rate of 502 dwellings per year is justified. Of these, 172 per year will be in southern Test Valley, a total of 4,300 between the years 2006 and 2031. 2,447 of these dwellings are already planned, permissioned or being built, such as the 800 at Abbotswood, the 200 at the Brewery site and the 350 at Redbridge Lane."

"This leaves 1,853 housing sites to find. The issue is:- Where should all these houses go? The Core Strategy proposes that 1,500 are located at Romsey between Tadburn Road and the Ashfield Roundabout and 300 at Hoe Lane, to the west of North Baddesley."

"Some of the key issues that concern me are:-

1. Much of the site at Tadburn/Whitenap is high quality agricultural land. 7.3 hectares (18 acres) to the east of the railway is ‘grade 2’ land. 10 hectares (25 acres) south of Tadburn Road is ‘grade 3a’ land. Government policy seeks to exclude the development of high quality agricultural if there is poorer quality land available elsewhere, which there is in the south of the Borough.

2. New accesses and significant traffic generation In the new Core Strategy, Policy COM3 (d) states that there will be:- Access to the development of 1,500 dwellings…” for vehicles including public transport, pedestrians and cyclists” with links to the “ A27/A3057 junction (Ashfield Roundabout)” and “to BotleyRoad/Whitenap Lane and Tadburn Road.” This will irrevocably change the character of Southampton Road, south of the allotments, Tadburn Road and Whitenap Lane. I can confirm that property developers are already talking to owners in order to ‘buy’ accesses. The traffic generation from 1,500 dwellings will create a 21% increase in Romsey’s traffic.

3. Reliance on just two sites in the south of the Borough:- The problem is that 1,800 of the 1,853 residual housing requirement in southern Test Valley is located on just two sites. Both of these sites are large which of itself makes the sites hard to deliver. Abbotswood has taken 15 years to deliver.

4. Both sites are in the hands of one landowner. The planning system requires that new housing is delivered reliably to satisfy the needs of the housing market. With only one land owner involved the Borough Council will be entirely in his hands. If he decides to choke off supply to increase prices, say, other landowners will make planning applications on their land, which could be anywhere around Romsey. The Council will find it difficult to refuse permission on these unallocated sites as the Government has made it clear that only the actual rate of delivery of new housing, not the allocation of sites, will count towards the housing supply target per year. So, we are depending on just two sites and on the whim of just one landowner. As was said at the recent Halterworth Planning Enquiry, a range of small sites would be more deliverable and would give market choice exactly in line with Government policy. I believe this should include a range of sites south of the M27 motorway where they can connect into the highway networks and the existing infrastructure that is Southampton.

5. Is this the right site for 1,500 additional dwellings? The last Core Strategy was castigated by the Planning Inspector. She said then that site selection raised concerns. She said TVBC had selected the sites and, later, undertaken the sustainability analyses of the sites. That left the Borough open to the accusation that it had chosen its favoured landowner and, later, undertaken the environmental work to justify the site selection. No wonder there was concern about the site selection process. So, TVBC has done the sustainability criteria exercise again. Whitenap comes out quite well but only because, with a bridge over the railway, it lies quite close to the town centre. Its suitability relies on that railway bridge: it is the one thing that makes the site sustainable. But it means crossing a stretch of Broadlands’ and Network Rail's land both of which will require expensive way-leaves or access permissions. These will be difficult to negotiate. So what has Test Valley done? In policy Com 3 it has removed the need for the bridge over the railway! Following pressure from me at a recent Council meeting, mention of the bridge was added to the document in paragraph 4.32. It states that there should be an additional vehicular access bridge to the A27 via a bridge over the railway line. Note it says ‘should’ – not ‘will’. Without the bridge, the new residents will have to drive south to Ashfield and then drive north along the Mile Wall to reach Romsey town centre, a journey of nearly two miles. That puts Whitenap further away than Abbotswood. Allocating a site because it is sustainable is one thing but then excluding the bridge from Policy COM3, the one factor that makes the site sustainable, is poor planning at best and, at worst, deceitful.

6. The ‘Market Town’ issue. The population of Romsey Town is 14,600. The average number of people per dwelling is 2.45 in about 6,000 dwellings. The population of Romsey Extra is 3,200 of whom about 2,400 live on the urban fringe of Romsey in 1,000 dwellings. So our built up area has a population of 17,150. The population at Abbotswood which is now building will be 1,960 (800 dwellings x 2.45 people per dwelling). Even without Whitenap the town will grow to 19,150 people quite soon. The definition, for government purposes, of a Market Town is a population under 20,000. Adding in Whitenap generates another 3,675 people (1,500 dwellings x 2.45 people per dwelling) taking the town up to 22,825. Our Market Town status disappears.

7. Precedent. If Test valley find they can ‘get away’ with the allocation at Whitenap they will, we can guarantee, allocate Halterworth and Ganger Farm in future years which have a capacity for at least a further 2,400 dwellings

8. Forest Park sterilises land ‘forever’. Policy LHW2 of the Core Strategy proposes a Forest Park for much of the land to the north and south of the M27. This land lies in Test Valley Borough’s area but relates to Southampton. This means that no future allocations can be made near Southampton. So where do we put Test Valley's housing needs after the year 2031? Why, at Romsey! The Forest Park, we are told, is for the recreation of Test Valley residents and to take pressure off the New Forest National Park. But the location of the Forest Park is such that 90% of its users will be from Southampton, not from Test Valley. By sterilising this huge tract of land on either side of the M27 for the benefit of Southampton people Test Valley Borough Council condemns the rest of southern Test Valley and Romsey to a thoroughly urban future... and that is not a legacy we Romsonians want to leave to our children."

"It is important, if we wish to protect Romsey’s future and the quality of our lives, to object to the Core Strategy in individual letters and emails and specifically to policies COM3 and LHW2."

LETTER TO ROMSEY ADVERTISER – 1ST NOVEMBER 2011
New Core Strategy sacrifices Romsey to protect the New Forest

Test Valley Borough Council's revised Core Strategy focuses all future housing development in the southern part of the Borough either next to or close to Romsey. Numbers are reduced slightly but the retention of 'Whitenap' is still equivalent to two Abbotswoods tacked on to the southern part of the town. A large tract of high quality agricultural land is to be buried, says Test Valley, under high density urban development.

The reason is partly down to a quiet deal to please 'Planning for Urban South Hampshire', the club of local authorities which include Southampton and Portsmouth. PUSH has one key focus: economic growth at 3% a year led by a local housing boom.

But in the Core Strategy, Test Valley has deleted any possibility of local housing demand going south of the M27 along the northern edge of Southampton, such as in Lordswood, by declaring that the area should be a future Forest Park. In the deal with PUSH the Forest Park is intended to give recreation space for Southampton residents and take the pressure off the New Forest. So by default, indeed by definition, the Borough has made it inevitable that virtually all the housing allocations will have to be around Romsey: if one takes out 'north of Southampton' there is nowhere else for the houses to go.

In effect, Romsey is to be sacrificed to reduce recreational pressure on the New Forest.

PRESS RELEASE 18TH OCTOBER 2011 - Developers jump the gun?

Over the last two weeks Romsey’s County Councillor, Mark Cooper has received a number of reports from constituents about the surveying going on around, and on, the 'Whitenap' land including animal trapping for environmental surveys and highway surveying at possible access points.

The Whitenap area was allocated for 1,600 dwellings in the now withdrawn Test Valley Borough Council’s Core Strategy and consists of the land running from the Whitenap Playspace on Botley Road down to Southampton Road, south of the Tadburn Road area and then southwards to the Ashfield roundabout and then eastwards up to the boundary of The Mountbatten School; in all about 150 acres.

“This site was in the withdrawn Core Strategy and Councillors have not, as yet, decided which sites they will incorporate in the revised strategy. It simply hasn't been discussed either in private or in public.” Cllr Cooper said.

“I have written to the Head of Forward Planning at TVBC and asked him whether planners have privately given the go-ahead to the Prince’s Foundation, which is the potential site developer. Why would developers commission very expensive surveying work before any allocation decisions have been made unless they have had a strong steer such that they feel confident about committing financial resources and pressing on with the pre-planning application processes?” he asks.

“It seems to me that developers know more than the local Councillors.”

“In response I have been told by the Head of Forward Planning Mr Steve Lees, that his department has not given a strong steer on this site. The advice I have received is that developers looking to promote their sites through the Core Strategy or via the planning application process would want to have in place sufficient technical information to address issues either the Council or the public are likely to raise.”

“I have also been told that Test Valley is in contact with a number of developers and their consultants across the borough through the normal working practices of forward planning, advising them of issues relating to their sites such as transport, access, ecology, archaeology, drainage on a without prejudice basis to the merits of the sites or what the Council's views might be. Officers believe it is a very helpful mechanism for the Council to be provided with technical information which it would otherwise have to pay significant sums of money via the commissioning of its own investigations.”

PRESS RELEASE – 10TH OCTOBER 2011
Romsey to be sacrificed to protect the New Forest

“Romsey is faced by a plethora of planning applications as developers seek to exploit the Government’s ‘open door’ stance on housing development. Test Valley has exacerbated the trend to speculative planning applications,” says Romsey’s County Councillor, Mark Cooper. "All the land around our town is now vulnerable."

"The reason is partly down to a quiet deal with 'Planning for Urban South Hampshire'. Test Valley has promised to delete any possibility of local housing demand going south of the M27 along the northern edge of Southampton, such as in Lordswood, by declaring that the area should be a future Forest Park. The Forest Park is intended to give recreation space for Southampton residents and take the pressure off the New Forest. So by default, indeed by definition, the Borough has made it inevitable that virtually all the housing allocations will have to be around Romsey: if you take out 'north of Southampton' there's nowhere else for the houses to go."

"In effect, Romsey is to be sacrificed to reduce recreational pressure on the New Forest. Developers don’t need an ‘O’ level to realize what is going on at the strategic level. Each developer wants their slice of the sacrificial lamb that is Romsey.”

“What makes the situation worse is that the government is insisting that a five year supply of housing land has to be deliverable. So all developers have to do is say they can’t deliver on sites where they already have permission. They then make applications for more housing on other sites citing that Test Valley hasn’t got its five year land supply.”

"For example, the developers who had promised to deliver 350 dwellings at Redbridge Lane over five years have back-tracked and claimed they can only deliver 114. The developer at the Brewery site in Romsey had been expected to deliver 211 dwellings over the five years but the only signs of actual delivery are the 13 being worked on currently. So the Borough no longer is able to say it had a five year land supply.”

“Its not just Government policy that’s the problem,” says Councillor Cooper. “Test Valley planners have stumbled into a situation where Romsey and the southern part of the Borough, except the land north of Southampton, is very vulnerable to developer pressure.”

"Firstly, after repeated warnings from me, both publicly and privately, the Borough produced a thoroughly inadequate Core Strategy which was excoriated by the Planning Inspectorate. Its consequent withdrawal has created the planning vacuum into which every developer worth his salt, including the Halterworth applicant, Glowfern Ltd, has plunged".

"Secondly, any developer, looking at a map of southern Test Valley will notice that the current development site is Abbotswood at the north eastern extremity of the built up area. Being the furthest from the town centre of all the potential sites around Romsey, Abbotswood is the least sustainable. So developers rightly assume that this Council deliberately selected Abbotswood in the full knowledge that once the least sustainable site had gone then all the other sites to the east, south east and south of the town, on more sustainable locations, would go as well. If the Borough telegraphs its intentions so obviously it is no wonder all the developers around the town want their piece of the action.”

"Thirdly, to compound the issue this Council has abolished the Valley of the River Test Heritage Area, opening up the tracts of land to the south of Romsey to development.”

The current situation where developers aren't delivering is deliberately aimed to create more planning permissions on all the land around Romsey. When they've got their permissions they will later develop at their own pace".

PRESS RELEASE 29TH SEPTEMBER 2011
Plaza Parade Takeaway application refused

An application to open an Indian Hot Food Takeaway at 3 Plaza Parade Romsey has been refused by TVBC's Southern Planning Committee unanimously in accord with the planning officer's recommendation.

"The Parade already possesses two takeaways and there is a recent record of successfully resisting additional hot food takeaways at planning appeals, primarily as the area is predominately residential in character," says County Councillor Mark Cooper.

PRESS RELEASE 27TH SEPTEMBER 2011
Re. Highwood and Halterworth Lane Planning application for 59 dwellings. 'Planning appeal vacuum is Test Valley's own fault,' says Councillor

In September 2010 Test Valley Borough Council's Southern Planning Committee refused a speculative application for 59 houses on land next to the Halterworth Lane and Highwood Lane junction. In so doing the Committee gave eight reasons for refusal.

On Tuesday 27th September 2011 the Southern Planning Committee agreed to a Planning Officer request to defend the subsequent planning appeal on only two grounds. The appeal by Glowfern Ltd is due to be heard at a public enquiry opening on 25th October at the Crosfield Hall.

"If you start with eight reasons for refusal, and then a month before the Planning Appeal you knock them down to just two, then it begins to look, frankly, as if we are well and truly on our back foot", said Tadburn Councillor, Mark Cooper. "And then, when you look at the two remaining reasons and see them in the context of Test Valley Borough Council’s recent planning history, all I can say is that I am very pessimistic that we can win this appeal". He asked if there was any way the Borough's reasons to refuse the 59 dwellings at Halterworth could be reinforced by officers in the run up to the appeal.

However, Planning Officers confirmed that as the Appeal had been lodged, new reasons for refusal could not be added retrospectively. Over the last year the applicant had sought to overcome last year's reasons for refusal, except for the two. These were, in summary, that there was no over-riding need for this development in a countryside location and that the application had an adverse impact on the local landscape and the physical and visual integrity of the Romsey-North Baddesley local gap.

Additionally, since determining the application the position in terms of housing land supply and emerging government guidance had materially changed. The government was insisting a five year supply of housing land had to be deliverable.

The developers who had promised to deliver 350 dwellings at Redbridge Lane over five years had back-tracked and claimed they could only deliver 114. The developer at the Brewery site in Romsey had been expected to deliver 211 dwellings over the five years but the only signs of actual delivery were the 13 being worked on currently. So the Borough no longer was able to say it had a five year land supply. It only had a four year supply and it was this fact that was contributing to the speculative planning applications.

"Test Valley has brought this speculative planning application on to its own head", said Cllr Cooper. "Every inch of land around Romsey is susceptible to development. That’s no surprise. Romsey is a good place to live. But it is the actions of Test Valley Borough Council that has made speculative planning applications and consequent planning appeals, such as the Halterworth Appeal, entirely inevitable".

"Firstly, after repeated warnings from me, both publicly and privately, the Borough produced a thoroughly inadequate Core Strategy which was excoriated by the Planning Inspectorate. Its consequent withdrawal has created the planning vacuum into which every developer worth his salt, including the Halterworth applicant, Glowfern Ltd, has plunged".

"Secondly, any developer, looking at a map of southern Test Valley will notice that the current development site is Abbotswood at the north eastern extremity of the built up area. Being the furthest from the town centre of all the potential sites around Romsey, Abbotswood is the least sustainable. So developers rightly assume that this Council deliberately selected Abbotswood in the full knowledge that once the least sustainable site had gone then all the other sites to the east, south east and south of the town, on more sustainable locations, would go as well. If the Borough 'telegraphs' its intentions so obviously it is no wonder all the developers around the town want their piece of the action".

"Thirdly, to compound the issue this Council has abolished the Valley of the River Test Heritage Area, opening up the tracts of land to the south of Romsey to development".

"Fourthly, in a quiet deal with 'Planning for Urban South Hampshire', Test Valley has promised to delete any possibility of local housing demand going south of the M27 along the northern edge of Southampton by declaring, in the old Core Strategy, that the area should be a future Forest Park. The Forest Park is intended to give recreation space for Southampton residents and take the pressure off the New Forest. So by default, indeed by definition, the Borough has made it inevitable that virtually all the housing allocations will have to be around Romsey. In effect, Romsey is to be sacrificed to reduce recreational pressure on the New Forest. Developers don’t need an ‘A’ level to realize what is going on at the strategic level. They want their slice of the sacrificial lamb that is Romsey".

"Then, on to this ‘open door’ local situation the Government has grafted a stress on the ‘deliverability’ of housing supply. Instead of deliverability being based on a reasonable analysis of what land is allocate - and there is ample land allocated for housing in southern Test Valley, - and what the market demand is, and there is ample evidence that the local housing market is still active unlike some other parts of the country - deliverability is instead based on the whim of a developer. If that developer has other sites it wants to bring forward then of course it will choke off supply on its permissioned sites. Hence the Redbridge Lane developer says it can only deliver 114 units instead of the 350 it promised at the recent appeal. Every local planning authority can now be blackmailed by developers into granting more planning permissions in order to meet a five year land supply that the developers themselves are controlling".

The Southern Planning Committee voted unanimously to support the planning officer position at the forthcoming appeal.

"This is going to be a very tough battle to win", said Cllr Cooper after the meeting. "Test Valley has created a situation in which developers, aided and abetted by a prevailing government policy in favour of development, are able to target every open space to the east and south of the town".

"Having achieved a planning permission, developers are with-holding development, which knocks out the five year land supply. They then get another permission for massive development on other land on the back of that lack of housing supply and which they will again say they can't deliver. It’s a developers' paradise designed to create planning permissions on all the land around Romsey which they will later develop at their own pace".

LETTER TO ROMSEY ADVERTISER – 19TH SEPTEMBER 2011
Dear Sir,

Amongst those I have spoken to and who are interested in the matter there seems to be plenty of support for the proposed new Parliamentary Constituency of New Forest East and Romsey.

It is certainly preferred to the current concoction of Romsey and Southampton North which stretches from Bullington and Barton Stacey in the north to Bassett, Swaythling and Chandlers Ford in the south.

That the new proposal reflects Romsey's historic position as a gateway to the New Forest and nearly replicates the Romsey and Waterside Constituency prior to 1997 is an added bonus.

For or against, it is important that residents let the Boundary Commission know what they think either by writing to The Boundary Commission for England, 35 Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BQ or emailing to southeast@bcommengland.x.gsi.gov.uk

PRESS RELEASE 27TH SEPTEMBER 2011
The Parliamentary Constituency Boundary Commission Review.
Romsey and Southampton North Constituency entirely disappears….

So says the report of the Boundary Commission published 14th September 2011, as it attempts to reduce the number of Parliamentary Constituencies in the United Kingdom from 650 to 600.

"The Boundary Commission is recommending a complete dismantling of the present Romsey and Southampton North Constituency," says Romsey's County Councillor, Mark Cooper.

Liberal Democrat Councillor Cooper fought the Romsey seat in 1997 and Sandra Gidley won a famous by-election victory in the year 2000, holding the seat for 10 years until it was taken back by the Conservative, Caroline Nokes, in the 2010 General Election. "If the proposals proceed Caroline Nokes MP will find herself seat-less which, bearing in mind her press profile to date, is probably no bad thing".

"The real problem," he says, "Is that Romsey's four Wards of Abbey, Cupernham, Tadburn and Romsey Extra form a peninsula tacked on to the new designated Constituency of New Forest East."

"Rownhams, Nursling and Chilworth Ward goes into Southampton; Blackwater Ward, covering Wellow, goes into North West Hampshire; whilst North Baddesley, Valley Park and Braishfield and Ampfield go into Eastleigh."

"I will asking the Boundary Commission to review their recommendation. Leaving Romsey on the periphery of the Constituency when we’ve been the centre of the current Constituency for 14 years is a big change. The question has to be 'Can a peripheral Romsey expect the same quality of representation as it has received in past years?'" he says.

"However, if Romsonians favour this solution and their 'location' in the New Forest, they should let the Boundary Commission know how they feel."

PRESS RELEASE 27TH JULY 2011
"A 12 wheeler laden HGV every 3 minutes from just this one recycling site, permanently; for ever and ever"

Hampshire County Council's Regulatory Committee today refused, by 8 votes to 5, a bid by RFSF (application no. 10/02712/CMAS) to retain and extend their waste recycling facility at Bunny Lane, Timsbury, near Romsey. The application was to turn the current temporary planning permission, which lasts until 2015 into a permanent permission, plus an extension southwards towards Bunny Lane on previously undeveloped land, that would enlarge the site from 3.5 hectares to 6 hectares.

"The greatest impact of this application, had it been allowed is on the residents of Romsey, who live along the A3057 corridor," says local County Councillor, Mark Cooper. "The cumulative impact of all the industrial and recycling sites north of the town has a massive impact on the quality of life of my residents."

The officer presenting the report referred to a number of issues with the application that made it a marginal decision to recommend permission, especially as the application did not fully comply with the County Council's own policy DC13 which prevented the development of previously undeveloped land.

The application additionally sought permanent permission for 208 heavy goods vehicle movements per day and the processing of 150,000 tonnes of construction and other waste per year.

The local Parish Councils of Michelmersh and Timsbury and Braishfield had earlier submitted strong objections to the application stating that the land was designated countryside, there were adverse landscape impacts, there were adverse impacts on local residents especially in the 30 new dwellings at Casbrook Fields and there were traffic impacts on local roads and through Romsey. The Chairmen of the aforementioned Parishes both gave presentations to the meeting. Test Valley Borough Council formally objected citing that there would be detrimental landscape impact from the proposed noise bunds.

Romsey Town Council also objected to the application, stating that ..."local Romsey residents, especially those in Winchester Road, Alma Road, Duttons Road and Cupernham Lane accepted the inconvenience and disruption to their environment (by the HGV traffic through their town) in the knowledge that this was of a temporary nature and they have the reasonable expectation that such temporary activity and its consequences will eventually cease."

Councillor Mark Cooper, who is a member of the County's Regulatory Committee asked his colleagues to refer to the Ordnance Survey map presented with the agenda papers. "The M27 motorway around the north of Southampton is not so much a motorway as a collector road for all the waste trucks heading out of town to the recycling plants located north of Romsey," he said. "The A3090, the A3057 and the A27 all spear into the southern side of our town, feeding hundreds of four-axle, 12 wheeler wagons onto Southampton Road; most then travel along Winchester Road to the traffic lights then northwards along Alma Road, Malmesbury Road, Duttons Road north and then Greatbridge Road."

"Along these road are 185 dwellings directly facing on to the road. There are 312 people on the electoral roll who live in theses houses. Many of theses dwellings are Edwardian and some no more than three metres from the carriageway. And all day long, heavily laden 12 wheeler wagons trundle up and down with their huge loads, just feet from my residents' front doors."

"There are already two other recycling sites operating in or near Bunny Lane, and if we were to give permanent permission to the RFSF site that means 208 12 wheelers every 10 hour working day for ever. The impact on my residents' quality of life is phenomenal. But at least at present they know that operations at the RFSF site are temporary; they cease in 2015. Allow this application and it is one 12 wheeler past their front doors every three minutes, for ever".

After the meeting Councillor Cooper said that the applicants seem to have put a lot pressure on to officers.

"At today's meeting, as well as the applicant herself, there was a team of professionals including a political consultant, a planning consultant, a barrister and a note taker. In my experience, there is an inverse relationship between the number of consultants and advisors used and the quality and validity of the application."

"I suspect RFSF will appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. I'll see them there."

PRESS RELEASE 27TH MAY 2011
Party political cash donation shadows planning application

Summary: The Romsey Conservative Association, of which the local Tory Councillors are members, received a £2000 cash donation from a local developer during the period he was making a series of planning applications at the White House site in the town. The local MP is Mrs Caroline Nokes.

This follows a £5,000 donation to the RCA made by another developer (The Perbury Group Ltd) in 2005- 2006 after a nearby Romsey site had had its housing allocation raised from 500 dwellings to 800 dwellings. At the time Mrs Nokes, who declared the donation in early 2006, was one of two local Councillors for the area of the housing allocation.

All parties claim there is no wrong doing. But from the public's perspective, cash donations by developers brings the planning system into disrepute.

The planning system in Test Valley has been tainted once again by the spectre of political donations to the Romsey Conservative Association. On the “They Work for You” website which monitors Members of Parliament, a £2000 donation is registered on the 3rd June 2010 in the name of Mrs A C L De Souza. However I have established that A C L De Souza is Mr Alwyn De Souza, living at Fishlake Cottage, Romsey, the local developer of the White House site in Cupernham Lane, Romsey.

This follows a “developer’s cash bonus” of £5,000 that was declared by Mrs Caroline Nokes at a Test Valley Council meeting on the 5th January 2006, following a decision by the Council to proceed with an allocation of 800 houses, rather than the earlier figure of 500, at Abbotswood, just to the north of Romsey.

Both Mr and Mrs De Souza attended Southern Area Planning Committee this week (24th May 2011) to witness the planning application for an additional flat in the roof-space of the development that is already nearing completion. The vote was 10 – 7 for permission. All of those voting in favour were either members of, or associated with, the Romsey Conservative Association.

“Not one of them declared an interest”, says Romsey Councillor, Mark Cooper. .

The site has a complex recent planning history. In summary an application for the demolition of White House and the construction of a block of 9 flats was refused by Test Valley Borough Council’s Southern Planning Committee at the behest of the two local Liberal Democrat Councillors, Karen Dunleavey and Dorothy Baverstock, on 27th July 2009. The applicant went to appeal but the Planning Inspector dismissed the appeal on the 10th March 2010. The £2,000 donation from the developer’s wife was made on the 12th March 2010 and registered by Mrs Nokes on 3rd June 2010. A new application for a pair of semi-detached 3 bedroom dwellings and a block of four flats was made and refused by Southern Planning Committee on 24th June. The Committee clearly supported the two local members. But then the same application was re-submitted and received permission on 13th October 2010.”

“One has to ask what Mr De Souza’s motivation was to make a £2,000 donation immediately after the planning appeal had failed.”

“In all fairness, there is no direct evidence that the permission and the donation are related”, says Councillor Cooper. “But the Romsey Conservative Association, by accepting developer donations, especially when there is an active planning application in the pipeline, is bringing the planning process into disrepute”.

“That none of the Romsey Conservative Association declared that their political party had received this donation when debating the De Souza application on Tuesday last is worrying. The public will have their confidence in the planning process eroded further,” he says.

“That the Romsey Conservative Association should continue to receive developer donations after the huge scandal of the Abbotswood “Developer’s Cash Bonus” in 2006 is arrogance of the first order”

Mark looks to Ice Age to save farmland from development

Background information:- Test Valley's plans for future housing allocations were wiped out last year by Government Planning Inspector, Mrs Jill Kingaby, when she found the Borough's Core Strategy to be unsound. TVBC officers are currently having to rewrite the whole document and are revisiting the Sustainability Analyses that 'informed' the housing site selections including the site at Whitenap for 1,600 dwellings.

Romsey's County Councillor, Mark Cooper has campaigned for more than two years to have the 1,600 houses at Whitenap deleted from Test Valley Borough Council's Core Strategy. In April 2009 he wrote to the Planning Inspector before she had come to her decision that TVBC's Plan was 'unsound', pointing out that 43 acres of the designated Whitenap site was defined by the Government's soil classification as "high quality agricultural land" and, therefore, should not be used for housing development if there was poorer land available elsewhere.

One of the factors the Inspector cited in her rejection of TVBC's Core Strategy was that TVBC had to do the Sustainability Analyses again. "I'm not sure whether this was as a result of my input", says Cllr Cooper, "but I like to think that on the land quality issue, I helped her come to her conclusion that the strategy was unsound".

"The factors that lead to a designation of "high quality agricultural land" are a combination of slope angle, aspect, drainage and soil depth", says Cllr Cooper, "but one of the most important characteristics is the nature of the surface geology which helps determine the mineral content and texture of the soil. Much of the lower lying land at Whitenap is underlain by a surface deposit of brickearth".

"Brickearth is a river terrace deposit derived from material deposited further north at the edges of the ice sheets in the last ice-age and carried southwards by katabatic winds blowing off the same ice sheets. This windblown fine material has been reworked and redeposited by local rivers. According to Test Valley's own 1996 Landscape Assessment, the brickearth river terrace deposits around Romsey produce soils which 'where drained produce productive land suitable for cereals and vegetable crops'".

"A recent paper in 2005 by Bob Edwards of English Heritage, 'Historic Farmsteads and Landscape Character in Hampshire', states that:- ' Brickearths provide the most fertile arable land in the county. However, urban expansion has removed large parts of this land from agriculture'".

"Older Romsonians will recall Wills Nursery and the large expanse of greenhouses at Tadburn. All of that land is brickearth, and the same material extends all the way southwards towards Ashfield. That's why it is designated grade 2 and 3a high quality farmland. Test Valley Borough Council, the landowner, Timothy Knatchbull and the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment all seem oblivious to the quality of this farmland, derived as it is from ancient ice-age processes."

"My New Year resolution is to keep hammering this message home. Whatever the commercial benefits to the landowner and the Prince's Foundation, they should not, under any circumstance, build on high quality farmland", says Cllr Cooper. "We all know the Prince of Wales claims to be working from a 'green' agenda. Let's hope he sees the light on Whitenap in 2010."

PRESS RELEASE 3rd NOVEMBER 2009
20mph for Romsey?

"Traffic speeds are still too high in Romsey"...Cllr Mark Cooper

"There has been a strong positive response to my campaign to bring 'Home Zone' speed limits to Romsey", says Romsey's County Councillor, Mark Cooper. "I have had many letters and emails backing the concept of 20mph zones on our housing estates and in residential streets".

"The environmental improvements that happened some years ago in Romsey's The Hundred have brought about a remarkable reduction in traffic speeds and have made visiting our town centre a more pleasurable experience", he says. "I've consistently campaigned for 'Home Zones' and lower speed limits since 1990 and people can see the benefits of engineering streets, such as The Hundred, to bring down traffic speeds. We need to win back our streets for pedestrians".

"I believe that any initiative to reduce traffic speeds on our estates and residential roads is welcomed by many Romsey people. For a scheme of speed reduction to be successful there has to be implicit support from a majority of the town's residents; subject to that caveat, I believe Romsey would be an ideal environment 20 mph Home Zones. Both safety and life quality improvements would follow".

"The problem is to get Hampshire County Council to commit to the idea. It will take resources and political determination to achieve, as well local support," says Mark.

Allotments under Threat

“The inclusion of Romsey's allotments as potential housing land within a Test Valley Planning document called the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (the SHLAA) is causing concern among allotment holders and quite rightly so”, says Romsey’s County Councillor, Mark Cooper.

"Allotment holders will also be aware that if the land at Whitenap, which lies to the south and south east of Romsey's allotments becomes housing land the present allotments will become an "island" site, and therefore subject to even greater development pressure in the future", he says.

"Whitenap includes 43 acres of high quality farmland. If the Prince’s Foundation can envisage using this kind of land for mass housing development, there's no way the allotments can be defended," says Cllr Cooper. “It is clear from the discussions I have had that if Whitenap was developed a large superstore on the bypass site becomes commercially justifiable. That really would pile on development pressure at the allotments”.

New Pavement welcomed

The reconstructed pavement under the Abbey Arch has been welcomed by Romsey residents.

Romsey's County Councillor, Mark Cooper, said, "I have received a number of comments saying that people feel a lot safer when walking along the new pavement. Previously the camber tended to make many pedestrians feel insecure".

"It took a lot of emails to get the repairs done and the road had to be closed for four days. This caused a lot of local disruption, but the finished work was worth the wait".

Highway Drainage still a big issue

"We have a maintenance regime that means all roadside gullies are cleaned at least once a year". That was the message from a Hampshire Highways West spokesman at the County's Flooding Scrutiny Review meeting held this week (Monday 2nd November).

Romsey's County Councillor, Mark Cooper, attended the review and described many of the flooding issues reported to him by Romsey residents. "Many of our roads drain very slowly and standing water is a real issue for both drivers and pedestrians", he says. "I am told that in addition to once a year maintenance, roads which have a high frequency of flooding have their gullies cleansed up to three or four times a year. The problem is that our highway drains have a very limited capacity and will therefore 'surcharge' during severe rain events. Hampshire is already spending £2 million a year on gully clearance but there simply is no resource to upgrade the systems' capacity".

"If residents let me know where there is a recurrent problem of blocked drains in Romsey I will ask the County to jet them clear. All the gully emptying vehicles carry satellite positioning equipment that identifies whether or not a gully has been attended to or not".

20mph for Romsey?

"Traffic speeds are still too high in Romsey"...Cllr Mark Cooper

"The environmental improvements that happened some years ago in Romsey's The Hundred have brought about a remarkable reduction in traffic speeds and have made visiting our town centre a more pleasurable experience", says Romsey's County Councillor, Mark Cooper.

"But is my experience that too many cars are still travelling too fast in many of our residential roads. I was doing some casework in Greatbridge Road this week and despite the road's narrowness and the presence of a pedestrian crossing, some of the vehicle speeds I witnessed were stupidly high. I've consistently campaigned for 'Home Zones' and lower speed limits since 1990".

"So I would hope that any initiative to reduce traffic speeds on our estates and residential roads would be welcomed by many Romsey people. Portsmouth has had 20 mph speed limits for some time now and they appear to be a success. I am keen to see Hampshire County Council apply Portsmouth's experience to other towns".

"For a scheme of speed reduction to be successful there has to be implicit support from a majority of the town's residents; subject to that caveat I believe Romsey would be an ideal environment for this initiative. Both safety and life quality improvements would follow".

BBC Radio Solent - 8th October 2009 - Press Release - Bring us your rubbish

Veolia, the company that incinerates Hampshire’s domestic rubbish is seeking to import rubbish into Hampshire from other local authorities.

Hampshire County Council’s planning committee was asked to make the change at its meeting in Winchester this week. County planning officers were recommending that Veolia be allowed to change their planning permission granted in 2001.

The 2001 planning permission for the Marchwood Incinerator restricts the waste stream "to that collected by or on behalf of the Waste Collection Authorities in Hampshire and waste from other sources in Hampshir e. Veolia’s proposal is to vary this condition to give greater flexibility in the operation of the plant by extending the sources of waste to include commercial waste and from other waste collection authorities when there is spare capacity".

As recycling in Hampshire has increased, there is less domestic rubbish available to keep Marchwood burning at full capacity. The incinerator recovers heat and generates electricity which runs the plant with a surplus sold to the National Grid.

Mark Cooper, Liberal Democrat spokesman on the County’s Regulatory Committee pointed out that whilst incinerating Hampshire sourced commercial waste, when there was spare capacity, was not a problem, incinerating domestic refuse hauled across Hampshire's borders from neighbouring local authorities was a problem.

“I suspect that Hampshire residents will be very unhappy when large numbers of refuse trucks from Dorset or Wiltshire trundle across New Forest roads such as the A31 and the A36 to access Marchwood every day”, said Cllr Cooper. “It cannot be sustainable nor des irable to import waste from outside Hampshire.This is very much at odds, too, with the original policies Hampshire County Council laid down for the incinerators”.

The Councillor has written to Environment cabinet member Mel Kendal to ask whether the importation of rubbish from other County Councils is now official County policy.

“Veolia is using the planning system to circumvent Hampshire’s original waste disposal policies”, says Councillor Cooper. “Residents need to know whether the administration supports the importation of waste or whether the change has crept in under the radar”. The Regulatory Committee deferred the application to obtain clarification on the lorry numbers and the policy issues.

“It has been said that Veolia and the County Council were trying to sneak this change through un-noticed. It only came to Committee because the local Councillor, David Harrison, objected, says Cllr Cooper.

“Apparently, the Chineham Incinerator, near Alton, had the same planning permission granted under delegated powers and not a soul seems to have picked it up....so HCC are already allowing the principle of cross boundary refuse transfers to keep our incinerators at full belt”.


ABOUT MARK	IN ROMSEY	IN TEST VALLEY	IN THE COUNTY	BEING MAYOR	LATEST NEWS	CONTACT
The Latest News from Mark Cooper ROMSEY ADVERTISER – LETTERS PAGE FRIDAY 20TH JANUARY 2012 Dear Sir, Romsey has about 7,000 dwellings at present. 800 are building at Abbotswood. Test Valley Borough Council wants to put 1,500 more houses just south of Romsey’s allotments. That’s an increase of 33% in houses, in people and in traffic. Already other developers such as Tesco are gathering on the sidelines to exploit this phenomenal growth. This huge change in the scale and character of our town is contained in the “The Test Valley Borough Core Strategy and Development Management Document January 2012”- in short, the “Core Strategy DPD”. It can be purchased for £10 including packing and postage, or viewed at the Council Offices at Duttons Road or viewed online at www.testvalley.gov.uk/LDF <http://www.testvalley.gov.uk/LDF> There will be a series of exhibitions where TVBC officers will be present. If you can, please attend the exhibition in the Town Hall on the 25th, 26th and 27th January. It is most important that you respond to the Core Strategy DPD with your views either by email on LDF@testvalley.gov.uk or by individual letter to ‘Planning Policy, TVBC, Duttons Road, Romsey SO51 8XG. The consultation period runs from 6th January to 4.30pm on 17th February 2012 only. Please remember that petitions or pro-forma letters have little impact. Individual comments from residents carry much more weight. Please email me on cooper22tt@aol.com if you would like more detail on how to respond the Test Valley’s Core Strategy. Please act now. Once the Core Strategy is adopted it will be too late to protect the scale and character of our town. PRESS RELEASE = MONDAY 16TH JANUARY 2012 Wake up call to Romsonians "Its time to fight for the town you wish to live in," says Romsey's County Councillor, Mark Cooper. "Tesco's plans for Romsey are just the beginning of a massive change in the scale and character of Romsey to be brought about by Test Valley Borough Council's Core Strategy document." "At present Romsey has about 7,000 dwellings. It is universally regarded as a Market Town with a population of about 17,000, if the areas around the town are counted in. 800 houses are currently planned and building at Abbotswood, north of the town. Now Test Valley Borough Council wants to put 1,500 more dwellings just south of the town next to Romsey's allotments." "That's a growth of 33% in housing numbers, population and traffic," says Cllr Cooper. "The character and scale of the town will change for ever. The people of Romsey have to decide:- Do you wish to live in a Hampshire Market Town or in a Southampton Overspill suburb?" The consultation period runs from 6th January to 4.30pm on 17th February 2012 only. "Test Valley Borough Council has re-issued the strategy after nearly three years extra work and at great cost to the Council Tax payer. TVBC is still proposing much the same housing allocation and locations as last time. I have studied the research to establish whether or not the new housing is actually needed. I am satisfied that over the whole Borough the proposed build rate of 502 dwellings per year is justified. Of these, 172 per year will be in southern Test Valley, a total of 4,300 between the years 2006 and 2031. 2,447 of these dwellings are already planned, permissioned or being built, such as the 800 at Abbotswood, the 200 at the Brewery site and the 350 at Redbridge Lane." "This leaves 1,853 housing sites to find. The issue is:- Where should all these houses go? The Core Strategy proposes that 1,500 are located at Romsey between Tadburn Road and the Ashfield Roundabout and 300 at Hoe Lane, to the west of North Baddesley." "Some of the key issues that concern me are:- 1. Much of the site at Tadburn/Whitenap is high quality agricultural land. 7.3 hectares (18 acres) to the east of the railway is ‘grade 2’ land. 10 hectares (25 acres) south of Tadburn Road is ‘grade 3a’ land. Government policy seeks to exclude the development of high quality agricultural if there is poorer quality land available elsewhere, which there is in the south of the Borough. 2. New accesses and significant traffic generation In the new Core Strategy, Policy COM3 (d) states that there will be:- Access to the development of 1,500 dwellings…” for vehicles including public transport, pedestrians and cyclists” with links to the “ A27/A3057 junction (Ashfield Roundabout)” and “to BotleyRoad/Whitenap Lane and Tadburn Road.” This will irrevocably change the character of Southampton Road, south of the allotments, Tadburn Road and Whitenap Lane. I can confirm that property developers are already talking to owners in order to ‘buy’ accesses. The traffic generation from 1,500 dwellings will create a 21% increase in Romsey’s traffic. 3. Reliance on just two sites in the south of the Borough:- The problem is that 1,800 of the 1,853 residual housing requirement in southern Test Valley is located on just two sites. Both of these sites are large which of itself makes the sites hard to deliver. Abbotswood has taken 15 years to deliver. 4. Both sites are in the hands of one landowner. The planning system requires that new housing is delivered reliably to satisfy the needs of the housing market. With only one land owner involved the Borough Council will be entirely in his hands. If he decides to choke off supply to increase prices, say, other landowners will make planning applications on their land, which could be anywhere around Romsey. The Council will find it difficult to refuse permission on these unallocated sites as the Government has made it clear that only the actual rate of delivery of new housing, not the allocation of sites, will count towards the housing supply target per year. So, we are depending on just two sites and on the whim of just one landowner. As was said at the recent Halterworth Planning Enquiry, a range of small sites would be more deliverable and would give market choice exactly in line with Government policy. I believe this should include a range of sites south of the M27 motorway where they can connect into the highway networks and the existing infrastructure that is Southampton. 5. Is this the right site for 1,500 additional dwellings? The last Core Strategy was castigated by the Planning Inspector. She said then that site selection raised concerns. She said TVBC had selected the sites and, later, undertaken the sustainability analyses of the sites. That left the Borough open to the accusation that it had chosen its favoured landowner and, later, undertaken the environmental work to justify the site selection. No wonder there was concern about the site selection process. So, TVBC has done the sustainability criteria exercise again. Whitenap comes out quite well but only because, with a bridge over the railway, it lies quite close to the town centre. Its suitability relies on that railway bridge: it is the one thing that makes the site sustainable. But it means crossing a stretch of Broadlands’ and Network Rail's land both of which will require expensive way-leaves or access permissions. These will be difficult to negotiate. So what has Test Valley done? In policy Com 3 it has removed the need for the bridge over the railway! Following pressure from me at a recent Council meeting, mention of the bridge was added to the document in paragraph 4.32. It states that there should be an additional vehicular access bridge to the A27 via a bridge over the railway line. Note it says ‘should’ – not ‘will’. Without the bridge, the new residents will have to drive south to Ashfield and then drive north along the Mile Wall to reach Romsey town centre, a journey of nearly two miles. That puts Whitenap further away than Abbotswood. Allocating a site because it is sustainable is one thing but then excluding the bridge from Policy COM3, the one factor that makes the site sustainable, is poor planning at best and, at worst, deceitful. 6. The ‘Market Town’ issue. The population of Romsey Town is 14,600. The average number of people per dwelling is 2.45 in about 6,000 dwellings. The population of Romsey Extra is 3,200 of whom about 2,400 live on the urban fringe of Romsey in 1,000 dwellings. So our built up area has a population of 17,150. The population at Abbotswood which is now building will be 1,960 (800 dwellings x 2.45 people per dwelling). Even without Whitenap the town will grow to 19,150 people quite soon. The definition, for government purposes, of a Market Town is a population under 20,000. Adding in Whitenap generates another 3,675 people (1,500 dwellings x 2.45 people per dwelling) taking the town up to 22,825. Our Market Town status disappears. 7. Precedent. If Test valley find they can ‘get away’ with the allocation at Whitenap they will, we can guarantee, allocate Halterworth and Ganger Farm in future years which have a capacity for at least a further 2,400 dwellings 8. Forest Park sterilises land ‘forever’. Policy LHW2 of the Core Strategy proposes a Forest Park for much of the land to the north and south of the M27. This land lies in Test Valley Borough’s area but relates to Southampton. This means that no future allocations can be made near Southampton. So where do we put Test Valley's housing needs after the year 2031? Why, at Romsey! The Forest Park, we are told, is for the recreation of Test Valley residents and to take pressure off the New Forest National Park. But the location of the Forest Park is such that 90% of its users will be from Southampton, not from Test Valley. By sterilising this huge tract of land on either side of the M27 for the benefit of Southampton people Test Valley Borough Council condemns the rest of southern Test Valley and Romsey to a thoroughly urban future... and that is not a legacy we Romsonians want to leave to our children." "It is important, if we wish to protect Romsey’s future and the quality of our lives, to object to the Core Strategy in individual letters and emails and specifically to policies COM3 and LHW2." LETTER TO ROMSEY ADVERTISER – 1ST NOVEMBER 2011 New Core Strategy sacrifices Romsey to protect the New Forest Test Valley Borough Council's revised Core Strategy focuses all future housing development in the southern part of the Borough either next to or close to Romsey. Numbers are reduced slightly but the retention of 'Whitenap' is still equivalent to two Abbotswoods tacked on to the southern part of the town. A large tract of high quality agricultural land is to be buried, says Test Valley, under high density urban development. The reason is partly down to a quiet deal to please 'Planning for Urban South Hampshire', the club of local authorities which include Southampton and Portsmouth. PUSH has one key focus: economic growth at 3% a year led by a local housing boom. But in the Core Strategy, Test Valley has deleted any possibility of local housing demand going south of the M27 along the northern edge of Southampton, such as in Lordswood, by declaring that the area should be a future Forest Park. In the deal with PUSH the Forest Park is intended to give recreation space for Southampton residents and take the pressure off the New Forest. So by default, indeed by definition, the Borough has made it inevitable that virtually all the housing allocations will have to be around Romsey: if one takes out 'north of Southampton' there is nowhere else for the houses to go. In effect, Romsey is to be sacrificed to reduce recreational pressure on the New Forest. PRESS RELEASE 18TH OCTOBER 2011 - Developers jump the gun? Over the last two weeks Romsey’s County Councillor, Mark Cooper has received a number of reports from constituents about the surveying going on around, and on, the 'Whitenap' land including animal trapping for environmental surveys and highway surveying at possible access points. The Whitenap area was allocated for 1,600 dwellings in the now withdrawn Test Valley Borough Council’s Core Strategy and consists of the land running from the Whitenap Playspace on Botley Road down to Southampton Road, south of the Tadburn Road area and then southwards to the Ashfield roundabout and then eastwards up to the boundary of The Mountbatten School; in all about 150 acres. “This site was in the withdrawn Core Strategy and Councillors have not, as yet, decided which sites they will incorporate in the revised strategy. It simply hasn't been discussed either in private or in public.” Cllr Cooper said. “I have written to the Head of Forward Planning at TVBC and asked him whether planners have privately given the go-ahead to the Prince’s Foundation, which is the potential site developer. Why would developers commission very expensive surveying work before any allocation decisions have been made unless they have had a strong steer such that they feel confident about committing financial resources and pressing on with the pre-planning application processes?” he asks. “It seems to me that developers know more than the local Councillors.” “In response I have been told by the Head of Forward Planning Mr Steve Lees, that his department has not given a strong steer on this site. The advice I have received is that developers looking to promote their sites through the Core Strategy or via the planning application process would want to have in place sufficient technical information to address issues either the Council or the public are likely to raise.” “I have also been told that Test Valley is in contact with a number of developers and their consultants across the borough through the normal working practices of forward planning, advising them of issues relating to their sites such as transport, access, ecology, archaeology, drainage on a without prejudice basis to the merits of the sites or what the Council's views might be. Officers believe it is a very helpful mechanism for the Council to be provided with technical information which it would otherwise have to pay significant sums of money via the commissioning of its own investigations.” PRESS RELEASE – 10TH OCTOBER 2011 Romsey to be sacrificed to protect the New Forest “Romsey is faced by a plethora of planning applications as developers seek to exploit the Government’s ‘open door’ stance on housing development. Test Valley has exacerbated the trend to speculative planning applications,” says Romsey’s County Councillor, Mark Cooper. "All the land around our town is now vulnerable." "The reason is partly down to a quiet deal with 'Planning for Urban South Hampshire'. Test Valley has promised to delete any possibility of local housing demand going south of the M27 along the northern edge of Southampton, such as in Lordswood, by declaring that the area should be a future Forest Park. The Forest Park is intended to give recreation space for Southampton residents and take the pressure off the New Forest. So by default, indeed by definition, the Borough has made it inevitable that virtually all the housing allocations will have to be around Romsey: if you take out 'north of Southampton' there's nowhere else for the houses to go." "In effect, Romsey is to be sacrificed to reduce recreational pressure on the New Forest. Developers don’t need an ‘O’ level to realize what is going on at the strategic level. Each developer wants their slice of the sacrificial lamb that is Romsey.” “What makes the situation worse is that the government is insisting that a five year supply of housing land has to be deliverable. So all developers have to do is say they can’t deliver on sites where they already have permission. They then make applications for more housing on other sites citing that Test Valley hasn’t got its five year land supply.” "For example, the developers who had promised to deliver 350 dwellings at Redbridge Lane over five years have back-tracked and claimed they can only deliver 114. The developer at the Brewery site in Romsey had been expected to deliver 211 dwellings over the five years but the only signs of actual delivery are the 13 being worked on currently. So the Borough no longer is able to say it had a five year land supply.” “Its not just Government policy that’s the problem,” says Councillor Cooper. “Test Valley planners have stumbled into a situation where Romsey and the southern part of the Borough, except the land north of Southampton, is very vulnerable to developer pressure.” "Firstly, after repeated warnings from me, both publicly and privately, the Borough produced a thoroughly inadequate Core Strategy which was excoriated by the Planning Inspectorate. Its consequent withdrawal has created the planning vacuum into which every developer worth his salt, including the Halterworth applicant, Glowfern Ltd, has plunged". "Secondly, any developer, looking at a map of southern Test Valley will notice that the current development site is Abbotswood at the north eastern extremity of the built up area. Being the furthest from the town centre of all the potential sites around Romsey, Abbotswood is the least sustainable. So developers rightly assume that this Council deliberately selected Abbotswood in the full knowledge that once the least sustainable site had gone then all the other sites to the east, south east and south of the town, on more sustainable locations, would go as well. If the Borough telegraphs its intentions so obviously it is no wonder all the developers around the town want their piece of the action.” "Thirdly, to compound the issue this Council has abolished the Valley of the River Test Heritage Area, opening up the tracts of land to the south of Romsey to development.” The current situation where developers aren't delivering is deliberately aimed to create more planning permissions on all the land around Romsey. When they've got their permissions they will later develop at their own pace". PRESS RELEASE 29TH SEPTEMBER 2011 Plaza Parade Takeaway application refused An application to open an Indian Hot Food Takeaway at 3 Plaza Parade Romsey has been refused by TVBC's Southern Planning Committee unanimously in accord with the planning officer's recommendation. "The Parade already possesses two takeaways and there is a recent record of successfully resisting additional hot food takeaways at planning appeals, primarily as the area is predominately residential in character," says County Councillor Mark Cooper. PRESS RELEASE 27TH SEPTEMBER 2011 Re. Highwood and Halterworth Lane Planning application for 59 dwellings. 'Planning appeal vacuum is Test Valley's own fault,' says Councillor In September 2010 Test Valley Borough Council's Southern Planning Committee refused a speculative application for 59 houses on land next to the Halterworth Lane and Highwood Lane junction. In so doing the Committee gave eight reasons for refusal. On Tuesday 27th September 2011 the Southern Planning Committee agreed to a Planning Officer request to defend the subsequent planning appeal on only two grounds. The appeal by Glowfern Ltd is due to be heard at a public enquiry opening on 25th October at the Crosfield Hall. "If you start with eight reasons for refusal, and then a month before the Planning Appeal you knock them down to just two, then it begins to look, frankly, as if we are well and truly on our back foot", said Tadburn Councillor, Mark Cooper. "And then, when you look at the two remaining reasons and see them in the context of Test Valley Borough Council’s recent planning history, all I can say is that I am very pessimistic that we can win this appeal". He asked if there was any way the Borough's reasons to refuse the 59 dwellings at Halterworth could be reinforced by officers in the run up to the appeal. However, Planning Officers confirmed that as the Appeal had been lodged, new reasons for refusal could not be added retrospectively. Over the last year the applicant had sought to overcome last year's reasons for refusal, except for the two. These were, in summary, that there was no over-riding need for this development in a countryside location and that the application had an adverse impact on the local landscape and the physical and visual integrity of the Romsey-North Baddesley local gap. Additionally, since determining the application the position in terms of housing land supply and emerging government guidance had materially changed. The government was insisting a five year supply of housing land had to be deliverable. The developers who had promised to deliver 350 dwellings at Redbridge Lane over five years had back-tracked and claimed they could only deliver 114. The developer at the Brewery site in Romsey had been expected to deliver 211 dwellings over the five years but the only signs of actual delivery were the 13 being worked on currently. So the Borough no longer was able to say it had a five year land supply. It only had a four year supply and it was this fact that was contributing to the speculative planning applications. "Test Valley has brought this speculative planning application on to its own head", said Cllr Cooper. "Every inch of land around Romsey is susceptible to development. That’s no surprise. Romsey is a good place to live. But it is the actions of Test Valley Borough Council that has made speculative planning applications and consequent planning appeals, such as the Halterworth Appeal, entirely inevitable". "Firstly, after repeated warnings from me, both publicly and privately, the Borough produced a thoroughly inadequate Core Strategy which was excoriated by the Planning Inspectorate. Its consequent withdrawal has created the planning vacuum into which every developer worth his salt, including the Halterworth applicant, Glowfern Ltd, has plunged". "Secondly, any developer, looking at a map of southern Test Valley will notice that the current development site is Abbotswood at the north eastern extremity of the built up area. Being the furthest from the town centre of all the potential sites around Romsey, Abbotswood is the least sustainable. So developers rightly assume that this Council deliberately selected Abbotswood in the full knowledge that once the least sustainable site had gone then all the other sites to the east, south east and south of the town, on more sustainable locations, would go as well. If the Borough 'telegraphs' its intentions so obviously it is no wonder all the developers around the town want their piece of the action". "Thirdly, to compound the issue this Council has abolished the Valley of the River Test Heritage Area, opening up the tracts of land to the south of Romsey to development". "Fourthly, in a quiet deal with 'Planning for Urban South Hampshire', Test Valley has promised to delete any possibility of local housing demand going south of the M27 along the northern edge of Southampton by declaring, in the old Core Strategy, that the area should be a future Forest Park. The Forest Park is intended to give recreation space for Southampton residents and take the pressure off the New Forest. So by default, indeed by definition, the Borough has made it inevitable that virtually all the housing allocations will have to be around Romsey. In effect, Romsey is to be sacrificed to reduce recreational pressure on the New Forest. Developers don’t need an ‘A’ level to realize what is going on at the strategic level. They want their slice of the sacrificial lamb that is Romsey". "Then, on to this ‘open door’ local situation the Government has grafted a stress on the ‘deliverability’ of housing supply. Instead of deliverability being based on a reasonable analysis of what land is allocate - and there is ample land allocated for housing in southern Test Valley, - and what the market demand is, and there is ample evidence that the local housing market is still active unlike some other parts of the country - deliverability is instead based on the whim of a developer. If that developer has other sites it wants to bring forward then of course it will choke off supply on its permissioned sites. Hence the Redbridge Lane developer says it can only deliver 114 units instead of the 350 it promised at the recent appeal. Every local planning authority can now be blackmailed by developers into granting more planning permissions in order to meet a five year land supply that the developers themselves are controlling". The Southern Planning Committee voted unanimously to support the planning officer position at the forthcoming appeal. "This is going to be a very tough battle to win", said Cllr Cooper after the meeting. "Test Valley has created a situation in which developers, aided and abetted by a prevailing government policy in favour of development, are able to target every open space to the east and south of the town". "Having achieved a planning permission, developers are with-holding development, which knocks out the five year land supply. They then get another permission for massive development on other land on the back of that lack of housing supply and which they will again say they can't deliver. It’s a developers' paradise designed to create planning permissions on all the land around Romsey which they will later develop at their own pace". LETTER TO ROMSEY ADVERTISER – 19TH SEPTEMBER 2011 Dear Sir, Amongst those I have spoken to and who are interested in the matter there seems to be plenty of support for the proposed new Parliamentary Constituency of New Forest East and Romsey. It is certainly preferred to the current concoction of Romsey and Southampton North which stretches from Bullington and Barton Stacey in the north to Bassett, Swaythling and Chandlers Ford in the south. That the new proposal reflects Romsey's historic position as a gateway to the New Forest and nearly replicates the Romsey and Waterside Constituency prior to 1997 is an added bonus. For or against, it is important that residents let the Boundary Commission know what they think either by writing to The Boundary Commission for England, 35 Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BQ or emailing to southeast@bcommengland.x.gsi.gov.uk PRESS RELEASE 27TH SEPTEMBER 2011 The Parliamentary Constituency Boundary Commission Review. Romsey and Southampton North Constituency entirely disappears…. So says the report of the Boundary Commission published 14th September 2011, as it attempts to reduce the number of Parliamentary Constituencies in the United Kingdom from 650 to 600. "The Boundary Commission is recommending a complete dismantling of the present Romsey and Southampton North Constituency," says Romsey's County Councillor, Mark Cooper. Liberal Democrat Councillor Cooper fought the Romsey seat in 1997 and Sandra Gidley won a famous by-election victory in the year 2000, holding the seat for 10 years until it was taken back by the Conservative, Caroline Nokes, in the 2010 General Election. "If the proposals proceed Caroline Nokes MP will find herself seat-less which, bearing in mind her press profile to date, is probably no bad thing". "The real problem," he says, "Is that Romsey's four Wards of Abbey, Cupernham, Tadburn and Romsey Extra form a peninsula tacked on to the new designated Constituency of New Forest East." "Rownhams, Nursling and Chilworth Ward goes into Southampton; Blackwater Ward, covering Wellow, goes into North West Hampshire; whilst North Baddesley, Valley Park and Braishfield and Ampfield go into Eastleigh." "I will asking the Boundary Commission to review their recommendation. Leaving Romsey on the periphery of the Constituency when we’ve been the centre of the current Constituency for 14 years is a big change. The question has to be 'Can a peripheral Romsey expect the same quality of representation as it has received in past years?'" he says. "However, if Romsonians favour this solution and their 'location' in the New Forest, they should let the Boundary Commission know how they feel." PRESS RELEASE 27TH JULY 2011 "A 12 wheeler laden HGV every 3 minutes from just this one recycling site, permanently; for ever and ever" Hampshire County Council's Regulatory Committee today refused, by 8 votes to 5, a bid by RFSF (application no. 10/02712/CMAS) to retain and extend their waste recycling facility at Bunny Lane, Timsbury, near Romsey. The application was to turn the current temporary planning permission, which lasts until 2015 into a permanent permission, plus an extension southwards towards Bunny Lane on previously undeveloped land, that would enlarge the site from 3.5 hectares to 6 hectares. "The greatest impact of this application, had it been allowed is on the residents of Romsey, who live along the A3057 corridor," says local County Councillor, Mark Cooper. "The cumulative impact of all the industrial and recycling sites north of the town has a massive impact on the quality of life of my residents." The officer presenting the report referred to a number of issues with the application that made it a marginal decision to recommend permission, especially as the application did not fully comply with the County Council's own policy DC13 which prevented the development of previously undeveloped land. The application additionally sought permanent permission for 208 heavy goods vehicle movements per day and the processing of 150,000 tonnes of construction and other waste per year. The local Parish Councils of Michelmersh and Timsbury and Braishfield had earlier submitted strong objections to the application stating that the land was designated countryside, there were adverse landscape impacts, there were adverse impacts on local residents especially in the 30 new dwellings at Casbrook Fields and there were traffic impacts on local roads and through Romsey. The Chairmen of the aforementioned Parishes both gave presentations to the meeting. Test Valley Borough Council formally objected citing that there would be detrimental landscape impact from the proposed noise bunds. Romsey Town Council also objected to the application, stating that ..."local Romsey residents, especially those in Winchester Road, Alma Road, Duttons Road and Cupernham Lane accepted the inconvenience and disruption to their environment (by the HGV traffic through their town) in the knowledge that this was of a temporary nature and they have the reasonable expectation that such temporary activity and its consequences will eventually cease." Councillor Mark Cooper, who is a member of the County's Regulatory Committee asked his colleagues to refer to the Ordnance Survey map presented with the agenda papers. "The M27 motorway around the north of Southampton is not so much a motorway as a collector road for all the waste trucks heading out of town to the recycling plants located north of Romsey," he said. "The A3090, the A3057 and the A27 all spear into the southern side of our town, feeding hundreds of four-axle, 12 wheeler wagons onto Southampton Road; most then travel along Winchester Road to the traffic lights then northwards along Alma Road, Malmesbury Road, Duttons Road north and then Greatbridge Road." "Along these road are 185 dwellings directly facing on to the road. There are 312 people on the electoral roll who live in theses houses. Many of theses dwellings are Edwardian and some no more than three metres from the carriageway. And all day long, heavily laden 12 wheeler wagons trundle up and down with their huge loads, just feet from my residents' front doors." "There are already two other recycling sites operating in or near Bunny Lane, and if we were to give permanent permission to the RFSF site that means 208 12 wheelers every 10 hour working day for ever. The impact on my residents' quality of life is phenomenal. But at least at present they know that operations at the RFSF site are temporary; they cease in 2015. Allow this application and it is one 12 wheeler past their front doors every three minutes, for ever". After the meeting Councillor Cooper said that the applicants seem to have put a lot pressure on to officers. "At today's meeting, as well as the applicant herself, there was a team of professionals including a political consultant, a planning consultant, a barrister and a note taker. In my experience, there is an inverse relationship between the number of consultants and advisors used and the quality and validity of the application." "I suspect RFSF will appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. I'll see them there." PRESS RELEASE 27TH MAY 2011 Party political cash donation shadows planning application Summary: The Romsey Conservative Association, of which the local Tory Councillors are members, received a £2000 cash donation from a local developer during the period he was making a series of planning applications at the White House site in the town. The local MP is Mrs Caroline Nokes. This follows a £5,000 donation to the RCA made by another developer (The Perbury Group Ltd) in 2005- 2006 after a nearby Romsey site had had its housing allocation raised from 500 dwellings to 800 dwellings. At the time Mrs Nokes, who declared the donation in early 2006, was one of two local Councillors for the area of the housing allocation. All parties claim there is no wrong doing. But from the public's perspective, cash donations by developers brings the planning system into disrepute. The planning system in Test Valley has been tainted once again by the spectre of political donations to the Romsey Conservative Association. On the “They Work for You” website which monitors Members of Parliament, a £2000 donation is registered on the 3rd June 2010 in the name of Mrs A C L De Souza. However I have established that A C L De Souza is Mr Alwyn De Souza, living at Fishlake Cottage, Romsey, the local developer of the White House site in Cupernham Lane, Romsey. This follows a “developer’s cash bonus” of £5,000 that was declared by Mrs Caroline Nokes at a Test Valley Council meeting on the 5th January 2006, following a decision by the Council to proceed with an allocation of 800 houses, rather than the earlier figure of 500, at Abbotswood, just to the north of Romsey. Both Mr and Mrs De Souza attended Southern Area Planning Committee this week (24th May 2011) to witness the planning application for an additional flat in the roof-space of the development that is already nearing completion. The vote was 10 – 7 for permission. All of those voting in favour were either members of, or associated with, the Romsey Conservative Association. “Not one of them declared an interest”, says Romsey Councillor, Mark Cooper. . The site has a complex recent planning history. In summary an application for the demolition of White House and the construction of a block of 9 flats was refused by Test Valley Borough Council’s Southern Planning Committee at the behest of the two local Liberal Democrat Councillors, Karen Dunleavey and Dorothy Baverstock, on 27th July 2009. The applicant went to appeal but the Planning Inspector dismissed the appeal on the 10th March 2010. The £2,000 donation from the developer’s wife was made on the 12th March 2010 and registered by Mrs Nokes on 3rd June 2010. A new application for a pair of semi-detached 3 bedroom dwellings and a block of four flats was made and refused by Southern Planning Committee on 24th June. The Committee clearly supported the two local members. But then the same application was re-submitted and received permission on 13th October 2010.” “One has to ask what Mr De Souza’s motivation was to make a £2,000 donation immediately after the planning appeal had failed.” “In all fairness, there is no direct evidence that the permission and the donation are related”, says Councillor Cooper. “But the Romsey Conservative Association, by accepting developer donations, especially when there is an active planning application in the pipeline, is bringing the planning process into disrepute”. “That none of the Romsey Conservative Association declared that their political party had received this donation when debating the De Souza application on Tuesday last is worrying. The public will have their confidence in the planning process eroded further,” he says. “That the Romsey Conservative Association should continue to receive developer donations after the huge scandal of the Abbotswood “Developer’s Cash Bonus” in 2006 is arrogance of the first order” Mark looks to Ice Age to save farmland from development Background information:- Test Valley's plans for future housing allocations were wiped out last year by Government Planning Inspector, Mrs Jill Kingaby, when she found the Borough's Core Strategy to be unsound. TVBC officers are currently having to rewrite the whole document and are revisiting the Sustainability Analyses that 'informed' the housing site selections including the site at Whitenap for 1,600 dwellings. Romsey's County Councillor, Mark Cooper has campaigned for more than two years to have the 1,600 houses at Whitenap deleted from Test Valley Borough Council's Core Strategy. In April 2009 he wrote to the Planning Inspector before she had come to her decision that TVBC's Plan was 'unsound', pointing out that 43 acres of the designated Whitenap site was defined by the Government's soil classification as "high quality agricultural land" and, therefore, should not be used for housing development if there was poorer land available elsewhere. One of the factors the Inspector cited in her rejection of TVBC's Core Strategy was that TVBC had to do the Sustainability Analyses again. "I'm not sure whether this was as a result of my input", says Cllr Cooper, "but I like to think that on the land quality issue, I helped her come to her conclusion that the strategy was unsound". "The factors that lead to a designation of "high quality agricultural land" are a combination of slope angle, aspect, drainage and soil depth", says Cllr Cooper, "but one of the most important characteristics is the nature of the surface geology which helps determine the mineral content and texture of the soil. Much of the lower lying land at Whitenap is underlain by a surface deposit of brickearth". "Brickearth is a river terrace deposit derived from material deposited further north at the edges of the ice sheets in the last ice-age and carried southwards by katabatic winds blowing off the same ice sheets. This windblown fine material has been reworked and redeposited by local rivers. According to Test Valley's own 1996 Landscape Assessment, the brickearth river terrace deposits around Romsey produce soils which 'where drained produce productive land suitable for cereals and vegetable crops'". "A recent paper in 2005 by Bob Edwards of English Heritage, 'Historic Farmsteads and Landscape Character in Hampshire', states that:- ' Brickearths provide the most fertile arable land in the county. However, urban expansion has removed large parts of this land from agriculture'". "Older Romsonians will recall Wills Nursery and the large expanse of greenhouses at Tadburn. All of that land is brickearth, and the same material extends all the way southwards towards Ashfield. That's why it is designated grade 2 and 3a high quality farmland. Test Valley Borough Council, the landowner, Timothy Knatchbull and the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment all seem oblivious to the quality of this farmland, derived as it is from ancient ice-age processes." "My New Year resolution is to keep hammering this message home. Whatever the commercial benefits to the landowner and the Prince's Foundation, they should not, under any circumstance, build on high quality farmland", says Cllr Cooper. "We all know the Prince of Wales claims to be working from a 'green' agenda. Let's hope he sees the light on Whitenap in 2010." PRESS RELEASE 3rd NOVEMBER 2009 20mph for Romsey? "Traffic speeds are still too high in Romsey"...Cllr Mark Cooper "There has been a strong positive response to my campaign to bring 'Home Zone' speed limits to Romsey", says Romsey's County Councillor, Mark Cooper. "I have had many letters and emails backing the concept of 20mph zones on our housing estates and in residential streets". "The environmental improvements that happened some years ago in Romsey's The Hundred have brought about a remarkable reduction in traffic speeds and have made visiting our town centre a more pleasurable experience", he says. "I've consistently campaigned for 'Home Zones' and lower speed limits since 1990 and people can see the benefits of engineering streets, such as The Hundred, to bring down traffic speeds. We need to win back our streets for pedestrians". "I believe that any initiative to reduce traffic speeds on our estates and residential roads is welcomed by many Romsey people. For a scheme of speed reduction to be successful there has to be implicit support from a majority of the town's residents; subject to that caveat, I believe Romsey would be an ideal environment 20 mph Home Zones. Both safety and life quality improvements would follow". "The problem is to get Hampshire County Council to commit to the idea. It will take resources and political determination to achieve, as well local support," says Mark. Allotments under Threat “The inclusion of Romsey's allotments as potential housing land within a Test Valley Planning document called the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (the SHLAA) is causing concern among allotment holders and quite rightly so”, says Romsey’s County Councillor, Mark Cooper. "Allotment holders will also be aware that if the land at Whitenap, which lies to the south and south east of Romsey's allotments becomes housing land the present allotments will become an "island" site, and therefore subject to even greater development pressure in the future", he says. "Whitenap includes 43 acres of high quality farmland. If the Prince’s Foundation can envisage using this kind of land for mass housing development, there's no way the allotments can be defended," says Cllr Cooper. “It is clear from the discussions I have had that if Whitenap was developed a large superstore on the bypass site becomes commercially justifiable. That really would pile on development pressure at the allotments”. New Pavement welcomed The reconstructed pavement under the Abbey Arch has been welcomed by Romsey residents. Romsey's County Councillor, Mark Cooper, said, "I have received a number of comments saying that people feel a lot safer when walking along the new pavement. Previously the camber tended to make many pedestrians feel insecure". "It took a lot of emails to get the repairs done and the road had to be closed for four days. This caused a lot of local disruption, but the finished work was worth the wait". Highway Drainage still a big issue "We have a maintenance regime that means all roadside gullies are cleaned at least once a year". That was the message from a Hampshire Highways West spokesman at the County's Flooding Scrutiny Review meeting held this week (Monday 2nd November). Romsey's County Councillor, Mark Cooper, attended the review and described many of the flooding issues reported to him by Romsey residents. "Many of our roads drain very slowly and standing water is a real issue for both drivers and pedestrians", he says. "I am told that in addition to once a year maintenance, roads which have a high frequency of flooding have their gullies cleansed up to three or four times a year. The problem is that our highway drains have a very limited capacity and will therefore 'surcharge' during severe rain events. Hampshire is already spending £2 million a year on gully clearance but there simply is no resource to upgrade the systems' capacity". "If residents let me know where there is a recurrent problem of blocked drains in Romsey I will ask the County to jet them clear. All the gully emptying vehicles carry satellite positioning equipment that identifies whether or not a gully has been attended to or not". 20mph for Romsey? "Traffic speeds are still too high in Romsey"...Cllr Mark Cooper "The environmental improvements that happened some years ago in Romsey's The Hundred have brought about a remarkable reduction in traffic speeds and have made visiting our town centre a more pleasurable experience", says Romsey's County Councillor, Mark Cooper. "But is my experience that too many cars are still travelling too fast in many of our residential roads. I was doing some casework in Greatbridge Road this week and despite the road's narrowness and the presence of a pedestrian crossing, some of the vehicle speeds I witnessed were stupidly high. I've consistently campaigned for 'Home Zones' and lower speed limits since 1990". "So I would hope that any initiative to reduce traffic speeds on our estates and residential roads would be welcomed by many Romsey people. Portsmouth has had 20 mph speed limits for some time now and they appear to be a success. I am keen to see Hampshire County Council apply Portsmouth's experience to other towns". "For a scheme of speed reduction to be successful there has to be implicit support from a majority of the town's residents; subject to that caveat I believe Romsey would be an ideal environment for this initiative. Both safety and life quality improvements would follow". BBC Radio Solent - 8th October 2009 - Press Release - Bring us your rubbish Veolia, the company that incinerates Hampshire’s domestic rubbish is seeking to import rubbish into Hampshire from other local authorities. Hampshire County Council’s planning committee was asked to make the change at its meeting in Winchester this week. County planning officers were recommending that Veolia be allowed to change their planning permission granted in 2001. The 2001 planning permission for the Marchwood Incinerator restricts the waste stream "to that collected by or on behalf of the Waste Collection Authorities in Hampshire and waste from other sources in Hampshir e. Veolia’s proposal is to vary this condition to give greater flexibility in the operation of the plant by extending the sources of waste to include commercial waste and from other waste collection authorities when there is spare capacity". As recycling in Hampshire has increased, there is less domestic rubbish available to keep Marchwood burning at full capacity. The incinerator recovers heat and generates electricity which runs the plant with a surplus sold to the National Grid. Mark Cooper, Liberal Democrat spokesman on the County’s Regulatory Committee pointed out that whilst incinerating Hampshire sourced commercial waste, when there was spare capacity, was not a problem, incinerating domestic refuse hauled across Hampshire's borders from neighbouring local authorities was a problem. “I suspect that Hampshire residents will be very unhappy when large numbers of refuse trucks from Dorset or Wiltshire trundle across New Forest roads such as the A31 and the A36 to access Marchwood every day”, said Cllr Cooper. “It cannot be sustainable nor des irable to import waste from outside Hampshire.This is very much at odds, too, with the original policies Hampshire County Council laid down for the incinerators”. The Councillor has written to Environment cabinet member Mel Kendal to ask whether the importation of rubbish from other County Councils is now official County policy. “Veolia is using the planning system to circumvent Hampshire’s original waste disposal policies”, says Councillor Cooper. “Residents need to know whether the administration supports the importation of waste or whether the change has crept in under the radar”. The Regulatory Committee deferred the application to obtain clarification on the lorry numbers and the policy issues. “It has been said that Veolia and the County Council were trying to sneak this change through un-noticed. It only came to Committee because the local Councillor, David Harrison, objected, says Cllr Cooper. “Apparently, the Chineham Incinerator, near Alton, had the same planning permission granted under delegated powers and not a soul seems to have picked it up....so HCC are already allowing the principle of cross boundary refuse transfers to keep our incinerators at full belt”.						MARK'S COMMITMENTS TO VOTERS Annual Statements Mark's Pledges Mark's Casebook LOCAL ISSUES Whitenap & The Core Strategy Roads & Speed Limits CONNECT WITH MARK COOPER Email Mark USEFUL LINKS Romsey Town Council Test Valley Borough Council Hampshire County Council Lib Dem Website
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