Appeal Documents

Ian McLennan Windsor House, 47 Church Road Laverstock, Salisbury SP1 1QY 01722 332233 [email protected] Planning Inspector Submission to Appeal of Wiltshire Council Planning Appln S/2009/1943 500 Dwellings in the Strategic Gap between Ford and Hampton Park both within the rural parish of Laverstock & Ford. I thank the Inspector for accommodating me at this time (9.30am 5 May). Very much appreciated. First some background. I was first elected to represent Laverstock ward as part of Salisbury District Council in May 1995. At the time Hampton Park was a field. The initial 300 houses had been built at Bishopdown Farm and the L&F Parish Council had been persuaded that they should permit a boundary change as the new properties were nearer to Bishopdown council estate than Laverstock. Permission for Bishopdown Farm was granted on appeal. Later, I was approached by the then Forward Planning manager and advised that the next application would be for 500 dwellings and that the council wished to reach agreement with the developer for much needed infrastructure which was not granted at the Bishopdown Farm appeal. Agreement was reached and the existing Hampton Park was built and now has the 500 dwellings. It remains in the parish of Laverstock & Ford by a unanimous vote of the whole parish, when a further boundary change was suggested. The remaining land was left as a vital strategic gap between Ford and Hampton Park communities. In fact planning permission was granted for a club house and golf course on all the remaining land and this attracted many buyers to Hampton Park. In 2003 owing to the envisaged building at Old Sarum, a number crunching exercise ‘warded’ Hampton Park away from my Laverstock Council Ward, although it remains in the L&F parish. I continued to represent the rest of the parish as Salisbury District Councillor until it was replaced by Wiltshire Unitary Council, in 2009, when I was elected to serve Laverstock, Ford & Old Sarum. I offer this background as I am the only person to have been constant, throughout the Hampton Park development. I can state that throughout the current Local Plan process leading to adoption in 2003, the land between Ford and Hampton Park was documented as an important strategic gap separating two communities within the same parish. The words ‘strategic gap’ – which are still used today by councillors and officers, when discussing this land – were finally removed by the Local Plan Inspector, who stated that as it was clear why the land was retained, there was no need to use the words strategic gap in the Local Plan – it is a given and understood. In the current Local Plan, Laverstock & Ford Parish accepted 674 dwellings at Old Sarum, in order to bring much needed facilities to existing stranded and isolated residents. Against the will of the people, 125 additional dwellings were slipped in at the last and these have since been built. However, the developers did properly negotiate additional infrastructure. The Affordable Housing % which was initially 25% was increased to 33% and welcomed by the Laverstock residents, as their families had first claim to these properties. Local houses for local people. Of the 674 dwellings at Old Sarum, the 200th dwelling was occupied just before Christmas 2010. None of the employment allocation has been taken up. As yet and many units are empty on the existing Industrial Development at Old Sarum Airfield. So much for the demand for housing that supposedly warrants a violation of existing Local Plan policies. On Wednesday, I heard the appellants representative make great play that there is no approved DPD in place for Wiltshire Council, so this could not be relied upon. My observation is that the Salisbury District Local Plan is still the current policy document and therefore the strategic gap separating Ford and Hampton Park is still the required and desired gap and that this planning application is unduly presumptive and reliant on a Core Strategy which is yet to be finally consulted upon and not yet judged by the Planning Inspector. There was much discussion about bus services and how well Bishopdown was served for buses. That is true. The Wilts & Dorset R2 serves the council estate and is frequent. However, the bus service which serves Bishopdown Farm/Hampton Park is the R11 and that is an hourly service totalling 11 buses each way Monday to Saturday. There is no real linkage between Bishopdown and Bishopdown Farm/Hampton Park so anyone living in a dwelling on the existing strategic gap would use the infrequent R11 service or have to walk about three quarters to a mile to the nearest bus stop on Bishopdown. Should 500 dwellings be added to the existing 800 then this would be larger than Bishopdown, so surely a comparable service to R11 should be expected and residents encouraged, to use the service, helped by proper contributions from any developer? As an example, Old Sarum residents will benefit from a much improved bus service and receive a voucher for a one year pass, as described yesterday. This was agreed as part of the original masterplan and came from the developer as a reason to let them develop. Each household also gets 2 bicycle vouchers! The road network and the links to the A36 was also stressed by the appellants. However, what was not stated by either side is the huge detrimental effect of traffic rat running through Laverstock village and either to Salisbury or to the A36 via an extremely inadequate and very narrow, rural road Milford Mill Road. Recently, Wiltshire Council built a new section, when the Petersfinger Park & Ride was completed. The road from the A36 now looks, for a short section, like a motorway, before suddenly reverting to its normal state. Alongside this ‘motorway’ is a huge Tescos. Tescos in Salisbury has the largest market share of its catchment area, of any Tesco store in the country. Wiltshire Council seem unable to stem the ever increasing flows of traffic on this rat run and another 500 dwellings potentially using the route either to access the A36 (savings a considerable distance) or Tescos and Southampton Road retail area would add to this increasing problem. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. I now turn to the planning application which was considered by the Wiltshire Council Strategic Planning Committee on 16th February 2011. You will already have the documentation from that meeting. It was made clear that “The bulk of the houses were designed to a Code Level 3 standard (following the code for sustainable homes).” Surely, if any application is to succeed nowadays in an area where development is not desired by the local people, they should at least be above mediocre in their sustainability banding, when that banding extends to 6? The thrust of the committee decision is captured in the first resolution point of the minutes: 1. The proposal for 500 dwellings would involve the redevelopment of a significant area of agricultural land which (prior to the formal adoption of the South Wiltshire Core Strategy) is currently 'open countryside' and outside any housing policy boundary. The site is visually important as it forms an area of open land that provides a strategic landscape gap between the built up limit of the city and the adjacent rural settlement of Ford to the north. Consequently, this large scale proposal would extend housing into the important landscape setting of Salisbury and result in the loss of the existing and attractive open gap between Pearce Way and the adjacent rural settlement. The proposal is therefore contrary to the aims of policy G2, H23 & C7 of the Salisbury District Local Plan. The councillors who sat on that committee came from all over Wiltshire. They had completed an extensive site visit and concluded what I had known all along. That this site is in the open countryside and outside of the Local Plan. More importantly, it is part of the Landscape setting of Salisbury and is contrary to our Policy C7. “Within the landscape setting of Salisbury and Wilton, new development will not be permitted during the lifetime of this plan, to ensure there would be no detriment to the visual quality of the landscape and to enable allocated developments to be assimilated.” Much emphasis was given to the threat to Ford in particular and the need to protect its outlook and rurality. The adverse effect of any development on the setting of Old Sarum Ancient Monument and Cockey Down SSSI was also seen as essential to overcome. It was highlighted that the application fell well short on meeting infrastructure needs and that much of the landscape nearby is either SSSI or very sensitive and that these aspects had not been addressed. It is also documented that the members also agreed that: There is a reduced requirement for housing in South Wiltshire. That there is a desirability of a meaningful strategic gap between Hampton Park and Ford That the proposed buildings would be an intrusion in the landscape. In the application, development is proposed on both sides of Green Lane bridleway with several surfaced crossing points included to access both sides of the proposed development. Any development to the east of Green Lane would have a huge detrimental impact on Ford Lane residents. The carving up of Green Lane is really unacceptable and would totally destroy the whole essence of the very rural throughway, which also is part of a bat run, according to those official bodies that know about these things. Green Lane should be protected at all costs and no development east of it and to the west, a suitable green strip between Green lane and any garden of a new dwelling.

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