Meeting with Richard Fuller MP Wednesday 28th July 4pm at 8, Chapel Close

Present:

Richard Fuller - MP for North East – Conservative

Darren Edwards - host and resident of Chapel Close, for 9 years, chose it for rural lifestyle and space for horses, dogs etc. – will be surrounded by Dennybrook if it goes ahead

Keith and Maggie Turner – residents of Chapel Close, Honeydon. Lived here since 2012, keep goats and are largely self sufficient.

Stephen Moon – Borough Councillor for ward – standing in for Tom Wootton who has a potential future conflict. Conservative.

Jo Ibbett – Chair of Parish Council and resident of Chapel Close, Honeydon.

Stephen Ferguson – Mayor of and Independent County Councillor for St Neots East & Gransden

Lucy Crawford – Clerk of Staploe Parish Council and resident of Staploe

Gordon Johnston – Vice Chair of , and Parish Council. Has lived on Staploe Road just south of Tythe Farm since 1982. Tythe Farm will be on the boundary of the proposed development.

Martin Yemm – Chair of Wyboston, Colesden and Chawston Parish Council. Lives in Colesden. Dennybrook would not reach as far as Colesden but one access point is on the Colesden Road and Colesden would be severely impacted by EW rail.

Ian Francis – resident of Goodwick Drive, Honeydon since 2008.

Lorraine Jewell – resident of Upper Goodwick Farm, Goodwick Drive, Honeydon since 2012. Would be surrounded by development if Dennybrook goes ahead.

Martin - Wyboston have had so many things to contend with – A428 / Black Cat, EW Rail and now Dennybrook – it is overwhelming

Lorraine – you can’t mitigate against this development for local people – everyone moved here for the open green space

Richard – was born and grew up in Bedfordshire all his life. His priorities for his constituency at the moment are to maintain the rural lifestyle, challenge the Luton airport stack and lack of effective consultation, and challenge the Oxford Cambridge Arc. The OxCam arc vision originated in a report by the National Infrastructure Commission chaired by Lord Adonis which sought to stimulate economic growth and increase housebuilding. The Commission set a target of 1 million homes by 2050 of which 600K homes were from current plans, approx. 270,000 from projected additional local economic growth and a further 230,000 of London overspill. The current government say one million homes is no longer a target. He is challenging the overall concept of the OxCam Arc and also dis-assembling it to more local areas. Richard – the EW rail is a great “idea” in principle but the route and subsequent decisions (e.g. diesel, freight) were unexpected. It was expected to follow the A421 transport corridor with a parkway station. In Jan 2020 EW rail decided on a route through Bedford necessitating an entirely new transport corridor through North Bedfordshire. He is going to “walk the routes” with the Chief Executive of EW Rail so constituents can raise concerns that the northern route is hillier, longer and less environmentally friendly than the route along the A421. Councillors did not get an opportunity to vote on the Mayor’s submission to the 2019 Consultation which recommended this route. He explained that infrastructure improvements usually require a commitment to extra houses being built.

His voice has no more standing than other members of the public in individual planning application processes as decisions are determined by Bedford Borough Council who have a directly elected Mayor with executive powers. He will support our campaign to retain the rural character of the area.

His aim to tackle this is to reduce pressure for houses by challenging the Ox Cam Arc, to reduce pressure for houses by challenging EW rail and to increase the power of Neighbourhood Plans.

Darren – 9 months after the cut off date for site submissions there was a huge increase in the area of Dennybrook. (See blue shaded area below added in May 2021). He is concerned that the site could continue growing and feels that it is important to gather support from other parishes in the area. There are plans for 7.5K homes in Tempsford and further development is already planned for St Neots at Wintringham Park and Loves Farm. It is excessive development concentrated in one area.

Stephen Ferguson. St Neots Town Council have very little say about neighbouring authorities plans to build on their border. They gain very little benefit from it – no s106, CIL or council tax but it puts extra pressure on facilities in the town.

Richard – the spatial framework released in Feb 2021 describes the introduction of development corporations associated with the route of East West Rail. The Local Plans will have to conform with what these dictate. .

Darren asked how the Mayor can be challenged

Stephen Moon – Parish Councils need to be quick to work together to challenge decisions. The Mayor is elected. Elections are the only effective way to challenge.

Tom – the number of important consultations we are being asked to consider is overwhelming. Too many 500 page, highly technical documents. He pointed out that there are no suitable roads in the Dennybrook area for large scale development.

Darren – was very poorly planned – there is nowhere to drop off or collect your children from the school for example.

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Martin – Wyboston PC objected to an application to extend the lorry parking at the end of Channels End Lane because the road was already unsuitable for HGV’s but were told that the licences for the HGV’s had already been granted so there was nothing that could be done. Planners don’t consider the highway implications of permitting something which then leads to an increase in an unsuitable use of land.

Darren – only 36% of the land in the UK is croppable. Dennybrook is on grade 2 agricultural land. He feels that Twinwoods is a more suitable site – much of it is brownfield land.

Lorraine – works for the NHS and has been working extremely hard during the pandemic with little time to look at all these developments in the background. Decisions are being made with little opportunity to effectively challenge. She had hoped that the Green Party would be supporting the southern route for the A421 as it is a much more environmentally friendly route but she found that they were supporting the northern route because the southern route affects their voters disproportionately.

Richard – the Local Plan is the responsibility of Bedford Borough Council. The new housing need algorithm reduced the housing need target for Bedford Borough but was subsequently withdrawn. He wants to reduce pressure so that there is no increase in the rate of building in the Borough.

Maggie – the Mayor says the new targets mean an increase in houses that need to be built. She wrote to Dave Jones the Senior Planning Officer at the Ministry of Housing replied and asked “If the council submits a plan that then goes before the inspector and is rejected, is the council then deemed not to have a plan in place or are they given time to revise it?”. He said that “if the Plan is found unsound, Bedford would need to commence work on a new plan and take account of the Inspector's views. For development management purposes, Bedford would refer to their 2030 plan adopted in 2020 to make decisions until any new plan was adopted. Bedford have been asked to undertake an early review of this plan. Whether their plan will be deemed out of date 3 years after adoption is a matter that will be the subject of a public examination”. It is all very confusing.

Stephen Moon – 2035 local plan included Colworth. That couldn’t go ahead so they reduced the timeframe to 2030 to reduce the number of homes they had to plan for. This was passed by the inspectorate with the proviso that the plan be reviewed by Jan 2023 – hence the 2040 plan and the housing target is now higher than the previous one when preparing the 2035 plan. The 2030 plan will stay in force but may not be deemed up to date.

Tom – the data on which they are basing the housing targets is out of date. Based on 2011 census, pre-pandemic housing needs, we don’t know where the EW station will be etc. Why not wait?

Stephen Moon – the accurate data you want doesn’t exist yet. Other Councils are successfully preparing plans based on these targets and they are being passed by the inspectorate and implemented.

Richard –His constituencies are growing at 3 x the national average. He suggests that we ask the Mayor for the data supporting the targets. If the Local Plan is not adopted then the developers put in speculative applications. Developers have a lot more money for lawyers than Local Authorities.

Darren – it seems the Mayor is putting all his eggs in one basket – ¾ of his plans are very dependent on a new settlement in this direction.

Stephen Moon – don’t forget there are another 6 options not listed as the preferred options presented by Bedford Borough Council. These can be viewed in the Development Strategy Topic Paper He pointed out that in the 2030 plan it was the option that got the most votes that was adopted. He feels the consultation is misleading – it doesn’t mention the other 6 options and doesn’t say that more than 2500 homes would be planned for Wyboston.

Gordon – Taylor Wimpey’s plan is for 10,800 by 2050

Stephen Moon – feels this is unlikely – developers tend to dribble houses onto the market to maximise house prices.

Darren – there have been three serious flooding incidents in the past year in St Neots. Developers say these can be managed with Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) but these have to be maintained of they fail.

Stephen Moon – the site appraisals for this site identifies some of these issues.

Maggie – the Clerk prepared a very good presentation for the PC meeting showing the site appraisal and the development strategy topic paper – she recommends everyone reads it.

Richard – the elected representatives don’t like to go against the advice of their officials. Is it helpful to say “as identified by officers” Stephen Moon – it may be but the key issue is that the last plan was never endorsed by full Council until it was too late to make any meaningful input. It was just a question of “Is it sound and is it legal?”. If they had voted that it was not then there would have been no plan and developers would have been free to make speculative applications. There was no input from Councillors during the plan process.

He suggests the Parish Council run some letter writing workshops.

Lorraine – the planning consultant who will be advising the Parish Council has been paid for by local people. Many people in surrounding areas don’t know what is going on.

Stephen Moon – be aware that rightly or wrongly, residents will be accused of being NIMBY – we need to object with good planning reasons.

Ian – is it worth making the point that not all the options are being presented in the draft Local Plan (Stephen and Richard said yes it is). Also he is concerned about the volume of development in the area with Tempsford, Camford, Wintringham and Loves Farm. He showed a rough sketch map with all proposed developments in the area which is shown below. He emphasised this may not be 100% accurate but the references to Camford around Tempsford are taken from this document: Camford

It was proposed in 2017 and shelved but seems to have reemerged since the EW rail and A428 has been approved.

Stephen Ferguson – St Neots has a character of its own as a market town – if all of this development goes ahead it won’t be a market town any more.

Jo – the A1 can’t cope as it is. The A428 / Black Cat won’t be in place in time.

Stephen Moon – a station at Tempsford is likely and this is the strongest argument for Dennybrook. A parkway station at Twinwoods has been discounted. Tom – greenfield sites are not necessarily cheaper than brownfield – brownfield sites get some financial support from the government.

Gordon – they learned from Wyboston Garden Village submitted for the 2035 plan that if it doesn’t go ahead the site submission does not go away. It comes back at the next call for sites.

Lucy – Richard is our representative to the government. She would like him to challenge the government on the following:

• The directly elected Mayoral system – there is too much power vested in one person • The housing numbers – she thinks there should be a cap of no more than a 20% increase in any 20 year period (Bedford Borough Council are having to build 36% more houses in the Borough) • The threat that if anyone challenges the housing targets there is a threat that the inspectors will throw out the plan and there will be deemed to be no up to date plan in place and we will be open to speculative development. • The need for funding to be available for Neighbourhood Plans for administrative time eg. for Parish Clerks to help prepare them and additional admin time if there is a large strategic development proposed such as this. At the moment funding for Neighbourhood Plans does not cover paid hours for the Clerk or any admin time.

Tom – the reports we have to read to really understand these consultations eg.; the technical documents for the East West Rail and the transport reports for the Draft Local Plan are 500 pages long and very complex. It is not reasonable to expect members of the public to spend this much time and effort to read and understand them.

Darren asked how to see who voted for which option in the Local Plan. Stephen said that this would be made available by Bedford Borough Council.

Richard suggested that in order to make our voices heard we would need to work together with other Parish Councils and gave the example of the BFARe campaign which he suggested has been very effective. Team up and get records – freedom of information requests, who are the key people to target. Get minutes of meetings eg Bedford Borough Council and EW rail / Ox Cambs Arc group.

Richard – housing targets are based on the ratio of house prices to income and in our area this is high. People can’t afford to buy a house. The new algorithm brough the total number of homes needed down for Bedford Borough Council but now the algorithm has changed and the focus is on cities and urban growth. The government are producing a new algorithm and Richard will be scrutinising it carefully.

The Planning Act is designed to speed up the process for building houses. There is too much focus on individual planning applications. The new act proposes broad areas of growth, protected areas etc. Richard supports this but with the caveat that if you are trying to bring house prices down then if the Local Authority is given a target and delivers it then it should be protected from further development. He thinks that if development is proposed in a parish then the Neighbourhood Plan should be used to allocate how much housing, where and what design. He also feels that if developers are granted planning permission there should be penalties and a tax schedule with the build schedule. He thinks it would be a good idea to charge them e.g. 150x the council tax for unbuilt properties to encourage them to build. There are 1 million approved planning permissions in the country – Richard thinks there should be a use it or lose it policy. He also thinks there should be a tax on landowners for the gain they make on land that is built on. He agreed with the need for a cap on housing numbers at a certain percentage and that 36% in Bedford Borough Council is too high.

Stephen Moon – the planning act also works to ensure the right sort of houses are built.

Richard – he thinks that Neighbourhood Plans should be the key building blocks for development. He thinks that the affordability factor in the algorithm is given too much weight because interest rates are much lower now so houses are more affordable.

Richard – housing targets can change quite rapidly so he will continue to challenge the Ox Cam Arc, the housing algorithm, the need to use Neighbourhood Plans as the building blocks and the need to build out the existing planning permissions.

Lucy asked how the use of Neighbourhood Plans would work – most communities don’t want to build more houses than their own community need. We only need a tiny number – we would never choose a strategic allocation of 10K+ houses. Richard disagrees and believes some areas might want to build more than their allocated housing target.

Tom – this area is growing 3x faster than elsewhere. How does this agree with the “levelling up “ agenda?

Richard – the government are trying to achieve this by moving the jobs eg factories / businesses into the north which then moves housing demand with them.

Gordon. The Mayor is chair of the transport committee for ’s Economic Heartland (Ox Cambs Arc). The transport committee have said that Bedford Borough Council housing development in the St Neots area is intended to feed into Cambridge.

Stephen Moon – one argument against the Wyboston Garden Village in the Local Plan 2035 was that it was not going to benefit shops and businesses in Bedford.

Richard – are we in contact with Central Beds – (Lucy and Stephen Ferguson – not yet). Richard recommends we contact them.

Stephen Moon – they are a bit behind Bedford Borough Council with their Local Plan – they don’t need to review theirs just yet.

Ian – the Camford Vision Document has links we could look up

Richard – Cambourne is seen as the model for high quality planning. The government slogan is infrastructure first. He recommends that we reach out to Tempsford.

Richard referred everyone to the spatial framework published in Feb 2021 which provides further details of the development corporations.

Stephen Moon – concerned that development corporations will lead to democratic remoteness

Richard – his aim is the effective demolition of the Ox Cam Arc concept. Lord Adonis had a vision for a railway line and a road. Bucks didn’t agree with the upgrade to the road through their county so it is an expressway only as far as Bucks. If EW rail gets deferred then the arc and development corporations are less likely to go ahead. Stephen Moon recommended we bring in other parishes such as Roxton, Great Barford and coordinate our consultation responses. He reminded people there are two parts to the response – respond to the options and then respond to the individual sites. Sustainability is a key argument.

Richard – talk to CPRE – they have been supportive to the BFARe campaign. Lucy – they have been in touch. The difficulty is that they want to challenge the housing numbers but the Mayor says this risks the plan not passing inspection.

Gordan will contact the organisation “Keep North Beds Green”. http://keepnorthbedsgreen.org/ and recommends others take a look at their website. [We have subsequently been informed that they support Dennybrook].

Richard agrees with the idea of a cap on the % increase in housing in a Local Authority.

Darren – Wixams and Waterbeach developments were on brownfield sites so it is very different from Dennybrook

Lucy – one issue with the current planning system is that there is no consideration for cumulative impact. Eg. at they keep adding more and more industrial units / more intensive uses of those units and the Bushmead Road is unsuitable for the extra traffic but the planning system doesn’t allow something to be turned down because the extra eg. 10 lorries per day would be too much if there are already 40 lorries per day.

Lucy recommended that people start making submissions now – they can always be adjusted before the deadline.

Lorraine asked why Twinwoods was not on the brownfield register. The problem with Twinwoods is the A6 – Sainsburys roundabout. Is there any way round this?

Stephen Moon said not unless there was a northern ring road which would not be popular with the northern villages. Lucy – but the Mayor wants the EW rail station in Bedford so there will be lots of extra cars going into the town centre. Stephen - there was no traffic study for having the EW rail station in the middle of Bedford.

Tom – the impact of Dennybrook on St Neots would be enormous with little benefit to them

Stephen Ferguson – St Neots Town Council feel a bit powerless – they can make comments. He feels that development corporations might be better as they might consider cross border issues. Johnathon Djanogly and they other MP for the area live towards Alconbury and Huntingdon and so they are supportive of the arc and EW rail but St Neots don’t feel the same way.

Richard – he thinks that the development corporations may come in after the Local Plans have been prepared.

Gordon – if development corporations come in Parish Councils will have even less say

Richard – if Denybrook does go ahead then it may be better if there was a development corporation because they would have to ensure they start with the infrastructure first and build infrastructure for the longer term.

[Ian has subsequently expressed concern that in the case of Dennybrook this would lead to creating infrastructure for 10,800 homes, not 2,500 thereby maximising the potential size of the development.] Martin – hopes that the new planning act will deal with the issue that landowners get permission for something which is a “foot in the door” which then leads to further development. He showed everyone the banners they have developed which are available for around £14 each.

The meeting closed at 6.30pm