Whitenap and The Core Strategy

TEST VALLEY CORE STRATEGY

Exhibition in the Town Hall on the 25th, 26th and 27th January

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

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."

ROMSEY STREET LETTER – CORE STRATEGY NOVEMBER 2011
From County Councillor Mark Cooper

When the last Core Strategy was being considered by Test Valley Borough Council, I did my best to keep you in touch with what was going on about the housing allocations around Romsey, especially at ‘Whitenap’, to the south of Tadburn Road. The latest update is as follows.

At its full Council meeting on 10th November 2011 Councillors agreed to publish the Borough's Core Strategy Planning document for public consultation. The consultation will take place between 6th January and 17th February 2012. If you have any comments to make they must be received by TVBC between these dates. Any communication outside these dates will be disregarded.

The key message in the document is that Test Valley will require additional 12,550 dwellings at the building rate of 502 a year across the Test Valley area up to the year 2031. The main concentrations, says Test Valley Borough Council, will be around Andover and Romsey. The building rate in the seven parishes of southern Test Valley (Romsey Town, Romsey Extra, Ampfield, Valley Park, North Baddesley, Chilworth and Nursling and Rownhams), is 172 dwellings a year.

After taking into account the sites already allocated such as Abbotswood, the Brewery site and Redbridge Lane, the residual requirement for southern Test Valley is 1,853 dwellings to be located, according to TVBC planners at two main sites, Whitenap (1500) and Hoe Lane, North Baddesley (300).

• New Version of TVBC Core Strategy has fatal flaws
I told the Council the following:- I can support 98% of what is in the Core Strategy. But it's a bit like a brand new car; bright and gleaming. But imagine if the new car has a hidden, broken, mechanical component. It looks fantastic but the car won't go; it's not fit for purpose. Indeed, it is useless.

That is exactly the problem with this Core Strategy. The flaws are fundamental. The 2% that is wrong renders the whole document unfit for purpose and, like the last time TVBC produced a Core Strategy, it will be found unsound by the Planning Inspectorate next year.

• Reliance on just two sites in south of the Borough
So why is it unsound? 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. But most damningly, both sites are in the hands of one landowner.

• What hold does the landowner have on the Council?
The question has to be asked - What hold does this one landowner have over Test Valley Borough Council? He will benefit hugely; a gross profit of at least £1 million for every one of his 150 development acres. Other landowners, smaller more modest outfits for example, don't get a look in. Why?

The Government, during the drafting process of this Core Strategy, made it quite clear that deliverability, not allocation of sites, is the key to meeting our five year housing land supply targets. So, we are depending on just two sites and on the whim of just one landowner. The Planning Inspectorate, I believe, will not consider these sites are deliverable at the rates outlined in the Core Strategy.

As was said at the recent Halterworth Planning Enquiry, a range of small sites would be 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 plug into the highway networks and the existing infrastructure that is Southampton.

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, then 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 all over again. And Whitenap, unfortunately, 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’ land and Network Rail's land both of which will require a potentially expensive way-leave. That will be difficult to negotiate.

So what has Test Valley done? In policy Com 3 and in paragraph 4.34 on page 57 it removed the need for the bridge over the railway! 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. The Planning Inspectorate will, I am sure, agree with me that allocating a site because it is sustainable is one thing but then removing the one factor that makes the site sustainable is, at best, poor planning and at worst, deceitful.

Later in the meeting, an obviously embarrassed Planning Portfolio Holder, Cllr Hatley, reinstated the need for the railway bridge. However, it is clear that achieving the bridge will be a complex and expensive process which also undermines the ability of this site to deliver the housing needed to meet the Borough's five year housing supply. This is presumably why TVBC tried to get the bridge removal through the Council without anyone noticing. As best as I can ascertain, the bridge removal was NOT discussed by the Plans Panel, a body of Councillors that helps draft the Core Strategy.

• Forest Park sterilises land ‘forever’
I also criticised the boundary of the proposed Forest Park in southern Test Valley which lies across the northern rim of Southampton City. Whilst I support the principle of creating some areas of Forest Park, what Test Valley's current proposal does is sterilise this land for ever. It can never be used for housing. So where do you put Test Valley's housing needs after the year 2031?

• Condemns Romsey to an urban future
There is nowhere else left, except adding housing on to Romsey or North Baddesley or Valley Park. Why should our settlements be sacrificed to house Southampton's housing needs? 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. It's what happened in the past, is what happens now and it is what will happen in the future.

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 I want to leave to our children.

• Significant green gap agreed if plan goes ahead
In case I don’t win the argument at the Enquiry in Public next year, I have in the meantime continued to negotiate with Test Valley to obtain the best deal if ‘Whitenap’ was to go ahead. The landscaping barrier between Tadburn and the possible new development will now be 40 metres (150 feet) wide and the open space and the school playing fields will be between the present housing and the new development which is a big gain over the situation that prevailed in the previous Core Strategy.

PRESS RELEASE 14TH NOVEMBER 2011 - New Version of TVBC Core Strategy has fatal flaws

Reliance on just two sites in south of the Borough
What hold does the landowner have on the Council?
Forest Park sterilises land ‘forever’
Condemns Romsey to an urban future

At its full Council meeting on 10th November 2011 Councillors agreed to publish the Borough's Core Strategy Planning document for public consultation. The consultation will take place between 6th January and 17th February 2012. The Core Strategy sets out the Council's proposals for land use and housing allocations until the year 2031.

The key message in the document is that Test Valley will require additional 12,550 dwellings at the building rate of 502 a year across the Test Valley area. The main concentrations says Test Valley Borough Council, will be around Andover and Romsey. The building rate in the seven parishes of southern Test Valley (Romsey Town, Romsey Extra, Ampfield, Valley Park, North Baddesley, Chilworth and Nursling and Rownhams), is 172 dwellings a year.

After taking into account the sites already allocated such as Abbotswood, the Brewery site and Redbridge Lane, the residual requirement for southern Test Valley is 1,853 dwellings to be located, according to TVBC planners at two main sites, Whitenap (1500) and Hoe Lane, North Baddesley (300).

At the meeting in response to the presentation of the document by the Planning Portfolio Holder, Cllr Martin Hatley, local Romsey Councillor, Mark Cooper, speaking on behalf of the Council's Liberal Democrat Group said,

"We can support 98% of what is in the Core Strategy. But it's a bit like a brand new car; bright and gleaming. But imagine if the new car has a hidden, broken, mechanical component. It looks fantastic but the car won't go; it's not fit for purpose. Indeed, it is useless."

"That is exactly the problem with this Core Strategy. The flaws are fundamental. The 2% that is wrong renders the whole document unfit for purpose and, like the last time TVBC produced a Core Strategy, it will be found unsound by the Planning Inspectorate next year.

"So why is it unsound? The problem is that 1,800 of the 1,853 residual housing requirement 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. But most damningly, both sites are in the hands of one landowner. The question has to be asked - "What hold does this one landowner have over Test Valley Borough Council? He will benefit hugely; a gross profit of at least £1 million for every one of his 150 development acres. Other landowners; smaller more modest outfits for example, don't get a look in. Why? I can't answer that question. Can Cllr Hatley?"

"The Government, during the drafting process of this Core Strategy, made it quite clear that deliverability, not allocation of sites, is the key to meeting our five year land supply targets. So, we are depending on just two sites and on the whim of just one landowner. I tell you now, the Planning Inspectorate will not believe these sites are deliverable at the rates outlined in the Core Strategy.

"As was said at the recent Halterworth Planning Enquiry, a range of small sites would be deliverable and would give market choice exactly in line with Government policy. We believe this should include a range of sites south of the M27 motorway where they can plug into the highway networks and the existing infrastructure that is Southampton."

"The last Core Strategy was castigated by the Planning Inspectorate. She said then that site selection raised concerns. She said we 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 then undertaken the environmental work to justify the site selection. My interpretation is that the Borough exposed itself to the accusation that it bent the data to fit their chosen two sites."

"So, we've done the sustainability criteria exercise all over again. And Whitenap, unfortunately, comes out quite well but only because, with a bridge over the railway, it lies quite close to the town centre."

"But remember, 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 land and Network Rail's land both of which will require a wayleave. That will be difficult to negotiate. So what has Test Valley done? In policy Com 3 and in paragraph 4.34 on page 57 it has removed the need for the bridge over the railway. Residents will have to drive south to Ashfield and drive north along the Mile Wall to reach Romsey town centre, a journey of nearly two miles. That puts Whitenap further away than Abbotswood. The Planning Inspectorate will, I am sure, agree with me that allocating a site because it is sustainable is one thing but then removing the one thing that makes the site sustainable is at best very poor planning and at worst, deceitful."

(Later in the meeting, an obviously embarrassed Cllr Hatley reinstated the need for the railway bridge. However, it is clear that achieving the bridge will be a complex and expensive process which also undermines the ability of this site to deliver the housing needed to meet the Borough's five year housing supply which is presumably why TVBC tried to get its removal through without anyone noticing. The bridge removal was NOT discussed by the Plans Panel, a body of Councillors that helps draft the Core Strategy).

Councillor Cooper all criticised the boundary of the proposed Forest Park in southern Test Valley which lies across the northern rim of Southampton City.

"Whilst we support the principle of creating some areas of Forest Park, what Test Valley's current proposal does is sterilise this land for ever. It can never be used for housing. So where do you put Test Valley's housing need after 2031?"

"There is nowhere else left, except adding on to Romsey or North Baddesley or Valley Park. Why should our settlements be sacrificed to house Southampton's housing needs? 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. It's what happened in the past, is what happens now and it is what will happen in the future."

"By sterilising this huge tract of land on either side of the M27 for the benefit of Southampton people you will condemn the rest of southern Test Valley and Romsey to a thoroughly urban future...and that is not a legacy I want to leave to our children."

The Core Strategy document was voted on chapter by chapter. The Liberal Democrat group voted against the sections that carried the southern Test Valley housing allocations and the Forest Park proposal.

Core Strategy Unsound, Withdrawn, Public Enquiry Cancelled.
Planning Councillor should resign.

'Unsound' was the Government Planning Inspector, Ms Jill Kingaby's decision on Test Valley Borough Council's Core Strategy at a public meeting in Andover on Friday 1st May. The Core Strategy is the planning blueprint for the future of Test Valley, Andover and Romsey up to 2026.

The Core Strategy document contains the housing allocations at Abbotswood (800 dwellings; the planning permission for which has been "called in" by the Government), the 1,600 dwellings at Whitenap and the 400 at Hoe Lane, North Baddesley .

"Being found 'unsound' means that the Core Strategy is therefore withdrawn and the Enquiry in Public (EiP) scheduled for this summer is cancelled. The Core Strategy will have to be re-drafted to meet the withering criticisms of its layout, content, faulty research and lack of vision expressed by the Planning Inspectorate. The re-drafting will take as long as a year and it will be some time after that before a new EiP is set up”, says Cllr Mark Cooper, a Romsey Test Valley Borough Councillor and a strong and consistent critic of Test Valley's decision to grow Romsey by more than 34% over the next few years.

”The old 2006 Borough Local Plan stays in force but is becoming out of date; in the meantime other landowners will make planning applications to try and get ahead of the Whitenap allocation. If they succeed, Whitenap could either be reduced in scale significantly or delayed several years...or both. The Prince of Wales Foundation for the Built Environment which has been brought in by the Whitenap developer, has just this last week circulated 10,000 copies of an eight page A3 colour brochure to every house in Romsey and District or so they say. Their plans may now be obsolete. They are certainly premature”.

At the beginning of the meeting Ms Kingaby made reference to a letter sent to her by Cllr Cooper. This was a copy of a letter he had sent to the Government Office for the South East (GOSE) in February 2009 complaining about the inadequacies of Test Valley's Core Strategy.

“I spent a huge amount of time explaining to my Council colleagues in private and in public that they had to take notice of the GOSE criticisms of Test Valley’s Core Strategy,” says Cllr Cooper. "I wasn't just defending Romsey's residents from yet more development. I was trying to get them to appreciate how important the advice coming from GOSE was".

“GOSE sent Test Valley comments on what is referred to as a Regulation 26 letter in February last year and further very strong criticisms in the regulation 27 letter sent to Test Valley on 12th December 2008. Officers did not fully inform Councillors about the problems the Core Strategy had run into, and kept the information from GOSE away from Councillors. Even after I had circulated all Councillors with the GOSE comments in january last, officers and the Planning Portfolio holder, Cllr Martin Hatley, denied there was any problem and that the Core Strategy was ‘sound’.

“They even went ahead and published a Local Development Strategy a month after GOSE had instructed Test Valley to redraft it. Such incompetence is breathtaking and there is going to be a very high financial cost to meet because a lot of research needs to be done again, and properly this time, and the whole project completely redrafted at a time when staff have not been replaced in order to meet savings targets”.

“I warned them, again and again, that the Core Strategy was unsound. Test Valley's response was a bemused silence. Council Tax payers have a right to expect that a Core Strategy should be written in accordance with current=2 0planning practice. The Planning Portfolio holder, Cllr Hatley, who has presided over this mess, mostly with his head firmly buried in the sand, should resign forthwith”, says Cllr Cooper.

Letter to: Roger Tetstall, Chief Executive, Test Valley Borough Council.

Dear Roger,

Test Valley Borough Council's Press Release (Attached) suggests the Council is still in denial about what has happened to the Core Strategy. If Ms Kingaby's comments in her nine page critique of the CS are compared with Mr Lees' Press Release from last week they seem to be about two entirely different documents. Or is TVBC collectively going to join the Forward Plans Department and place all its heads firmly in the sand?

Fact:-

1 Ms Jill Kingaby, the Government Planning Inspector said in her exploratory meeting on the 1st May..."the Core Strategy is withdrawn until redrafted" and that this is because it is "unsound"..

2 The Enquiry in Public scheduled for June 2009 will now not happen.

3 The Planning Inspector listed actions under eight headings (see page 9 of her written report) which makes a number of major changes that are required to the Core Strategy....only "If a way forward can be found, this should be timetabled so that it is clear when the Examination might resume..."

4 One of these requirements is that Test Valley has to..." go back to the SHLAA (Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment) and make sure it has been carried out in accordance with Government guidance and has engaged stakeholders and covered all relevant parts of the Borough. Look very carefully again at the proposals for new housing development having regard for the split between previously developed land and greenfield sites. Look at strategic allocations to ensure that they are the best available of alternatives, and are all justified. If they are not make changes" Ms Jill Kingaby Para 5 page 9.

This will involve a large volume of work to do properly. The sustainability and suitability of every land allocation in the "unsound" Core Strategy has to be looked at again. This is what Ms Kingaby is saying but judging by their press release, Test Valley is ignoring her in the same way that it ignored advice from the Government Office for the South East (GOSE) contained within the Regulation 26 and Regulation 27 documents and which were kept from Councullors until I circulated them.

If this work is glossed over, the Planning Inspector will not permit even a redrafted Core Strategy to go forward for Examination.

From: Mark Cooper - Romsey Town County Councillor - Romsey Tadburn Borough Councillor

Government Planning Inspector, Ms Jill Kingaby, has found that Test Valley Borough Council's Core Strategy, that is its planning blueprint for the future of Test Valley and Romsey, to be 'unsound' at a public meeting in Andover on Friday 1st May.

The Core Strategy document which contains the housing allocations at Abbotswood (the planning permission for which has been "called in" by the Government), the 1,600 dwellings at Whitenap and the 400 at Hoe Lane North Baddesley.

Being found 'unsound' means that the Core Strategy is therefore been withdrawn and the Enquiry in Public (EiP) scheduled for this summer has been cancelled. The Core Strategy will have to be re-drafted to meet the withering criticisms of its layout, content and lack of vision expressed by the Planning Inspectorate. The re-drafting will take as long as a year and it will be some time before a new EiP is set up.

The old 2006 Borough Local Plan stays in force but is becoming out of date; in the meantime other landowners will make planning applications to get ahead of the Whitenap allocation. If they succeed, Whitenap could either be reduced in scale significantly or delayed several years...or both!

At the beginning of the meeting Ms Kingaby made reference to a letter sent to her by Cllr Mark Cooper. This was a copy of a letter Mark had sent to the Government Office for the South East (GOSE) in February 2009 complaining about the inadequacies of Test Valley's Core Strategy. Some of the inadequacies appeared in Ms Kingaby's report.

Unfortunately, as Test Valley's Plans Panel meets in secret, parts of the letter which refer to the Plans Panel have had to be struck out. Sorry, but that's the way Test Valley does things

Mark Cooper's Response To The Prince's Foundation leaflet promoting the Whitenap Development
Some of you will have received an eight-page glossy from the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment.
To read Mark Cooper's letter to Tadburn residents about this leaflet CLICK HERE

Whitenap
Mark Cooper has been a vocal opponent to the development that is proposed near Whitenap in Romsey.

For years the land at Whitenap between the allotments and the Ashfield Roundabout has evolved into a wonderful piece of gently undulating valley floor landscape. The old hedgerows remain and there are hundreds of mature oaks. This photograph is taken from Beggarspath Wood looking north west towards Romsey. The wood contains an element of Ancient Woodland and is a SINC, a Site of Interest for Nature Conservation. The proposed development by Test Valley Borough Council and the Princes Trust for Built Environment involves getting 1600 dwellings and 600 jobs on to the site...development would have to be hard up to the woodland to get all this building into the site.

Abbotswood

Mark Cooper's Statement on Abbotswood application 12th February 2009

Agenda item 3: declarations of interest.

I declare a prejudicial interest on item 7 page 10 application number 08/0475/OUTS inasmuch as the applicant has included a Medical Practitioners’ Surgery within the application and has subsequently made an approach to my wife’s Practice Manager on the matter. With your permission Chairman, I will make a statement and then vacate the chamber.

Agenda Item 7. Statement.

Mr Chairman, Test Valley Borough Council is caught between a rock and a hard place on this application; if you refuse it on, say, the grounds of pre-maturity you will find yourselves involved in a very expensive appeal; if you grant permission you may find yourselves caught up in a judicial review. The site is, after all, captured in the Core Strategy Document, a document which is, we are told by the Government Office for the South East, currently flawed.

Based on research I have seen, of all the potential housing sites supposedly considered by Test Valley, Abbotswood is probably the least sustainable on the current and emerging sustainability criteria.

It is a location that began life merely as a Reserve Site for 500 dwellings and now like some nightmarish chimera, (which is a tautology I know):- it is a Preferred Site for 800 dwellings. How did that happen?

Councillors; what has happened is that you have allowed officers and developers to cajole you into accepting this site. It is the least sustainable site around Romsey. So the logic of this allocation is that every other site in southern Test Valley is equally or more sustainable. By being cajoled into this situation you become the agents of Test Valley Borough Council’s perverted ambition to grow Romsey from its current 17,000 population to something nearer 30,000 between now and 2036. That is not sustainable growth. This is the Andoverisation of Romsey. Abbotswood is the breach in the development dam.

Thus, I remain utterly opposed to the granting of outline permission for 800 dwellings at Abbotswood. Some think that 500 may have been slightly more palatable, but certainly not 800. For pragmatic reasons, I strongly urge you to defer this application in order to allow the competing sites to be tested at the Examination in Public by the Planning Inspectorate whenever that is due to take place without the pressure of developer donations.

Deferral also allows you to sidestep the twin threats of Appeal by the applicant or Judicial Review by competing landowners.

I suspect the majority of this Committee will, for various reasons, support the outline application at Abbotswood and if that is to be the case I would urge you take note of Condition 11 in your supplementary papers. A key feature of this application is the under-grounding of the electricity transmission cables and the removal of the pylons. There are strong aesthetic, marketing and health reasons for doing so. But I have received strong representations from Romsey Scouts about the need to underground the electricity cables that currently pass over their site. These cables continue northwards over this Borough’s Woodley Cemetery. Within the cemetery is a conventional pylon stood on four concrete foundation blocks, the whole occupying a square some 40 feet x 40 feet. It is a truly intrusive feature and hardly compatible with the ambience of a cemetery. Whilst I was visiting the cemetery recently there was a constant stream of visitors to tend the graves: it is an unusually busy place.

If under-grounding is appropriate for the Abbotswood development it is also appropriate for the Scout land and our cemetery.

Officers tell me that to remove the pylon and cables and underground them along the north eastern edge of the site will cost £300,000. This is not an onerous condition to place on the developer, even with all the other conditions applied to this application. I understand a £6million contribution to Hampshire County Council for school provision is required. £300,000 is 1/20th of this. On this kind of development given a normal market, the net profit is between 10% and 15%. On 800 dwellings that is between £20million and £30 million…the developers can afford the £300,000.

Bearing in mind Test Valley has increased cemetery fees last year by 15%, this year by 15% and next year by 15%, cemetery visitors certainly deserve better than a cemetery blighted by a looming pylon and our scouts deserve a site that is not blighted electricity transmission lines. I urge members if that are minded to approve, to only approve this application if the extra under-grounding is included within condition 11.

TVBC Core Strategy Document Not Fit For Purpose - 28 Jan 2009

In its current draft The TVBC Core Strategy Document is clearly "unsound", a word used in several places throughout GOSE's document. This follows a highly critical analysis of the first consultation draft...ie the version published at the 10th January 2008 Council meeting...I said the Core Strategy was defective then....in the summer GOSE said it was defective and yet TVBC went ahead and published the pre-submission draft in October and it is the fact that TVBC has largely ignored the Regulation 26 comments that has led to the highly critical Regulation 27 comments.

The effect is that the Core Strategy will need part re-drafting ...the re-drafting will need public consultation, so there is no way that the CS will be found a slot before an Enquiry in Public Inspector by June/July 2009.

As Abbotswood is part of the CS and as the CS is defective, there is no way that TVBC should be deciding the planning Application for Abbotswood on Tuesday next. (This is the site where Perbury Homes donated £5,000 to Romsey Conservatives just after the Council had increased the allocation from 500 dwellings to 800 dwellings so it will be interesting to see how members vote at Southern Area Planning on Tuesday if the application us progressed).

In fact, the developers probably know that the CS is defective and are trying to get their permission issued before the current Core Strategy is withdrawn and corrected which is why they are in such a hurry despite the economic downturn.

TVBC has also ignored Marie O'Sullivan's comment that the LDS needs a revised draft. It went through Cabinet unchanged on 7th January!