Peak District and South Yorkshire Peakland Guardian Autumn and Winter 2020 Peaklandguardian 1 In this issue… Notes from the CEO 3 Planning reforms – the wrong answers to the wrong questions 4 Planning Sheffield’s future 6 Success for the Loxley Valley 8 Hollin Busk 10 Owlthorpe Fields 10 Doncaster Local Plan 11 Longdendale – the long game 12 Save our Monsal Trail 13 New OfGEM pylon plans 13 Decarbonising transport 14 Hope Valley Climate Action 15 Hayfield’s solar farm project 16 Greener, Better, Faster 17 Party plans for gothic lodge 18 Britannia Mill, Buxworth 18 Hope Cement Works Quarry ©Tomo Thompson Business Sponsor Focus 19 Right to Roam 19 New trustees 20 We have been the same Welcome from the CEO Ethel’s legacy 21 CPRE branch since 1927 but since 2002 we’ve also Welcome to the latest edition of the Peakland Guardian. The articles in this edition New branding and website 21 been known as Friends cover a very broad range of our work over the last 6 months. The Trustees and I are Obituaries 22 of the Peak District. We’re now very grateful for the work that the staff and volunteers have continued to put in, in very Membership update 23 going back to our roots: Same charity. Same passion for our local difficult circumstances, in order to protect the landscapes of the Peak District and South CPRE Peak District and South Yorkshire promotes the countryside. Yorkshire. beauty, tranquility and diversity of the countryside across the Peak District and South Yorkshire. We work to protect and Over the last 6 months, the pandemic has had little impact on our workload, indeed enhance its unique landscapes for everyone to enjoy now Follow us on social we are exceptionally busy at the moment, however the pandemic has stopped almost and in the future. We campaign for green spaces unspoilt by media all of our traditional fundraising activity. We would be extremely grateful if you could development; environmentally friendly farming and forestry, consider making a donation to support our work – the easiest way to do this is online and thriving rural communities. Please follow, share, like and ‘❤’ at www.cprepdsy.org.uk us to help us increase our social Registered charity number: 1094975 The charity was founded as CPRE Peak District and South Yorkshire in 1924 and on Registered company number: 4496754 media reach. Thank you! our new website, social media, and campaigning work you will see us ‘returning to our Cover picture: Walkers on the PDBW ©Ike Walker Back page picture: Stanage Edge as viewed from the Ox Facebook @cprepdsy roots’ at CPRE PDSY. Stones ©Tomo Thompson Julie Gough (our Fundraising and Marketing Co-ordinator, and editor of the Peakland Instagram cpre_pdsy Designed and produced by TMgraphics [email protected] Guardian) is leaving us after seven years to move to Scotland and work for the John Muir Trust – we’re very grateful for her work with the charity and wish her well in her Icons made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com Twitter @cprepdsy new job. A: Victoria Hall, 37 Stafford Road, Sheffield, S2 2SF Through this year of uncertainty, as we approach our 97th year, we continue to do T: 0114 312 2002 E: [email protected] our very best to protect the valuable landscapes around us. We are very grateful for W: www.cprepdsy.org.uk your support. Please stay well, Tomo Thompson, CEO Peaklandguardian 3 the proposed planning reforms set out the dropped. If this Government is serious wrong answers to the wrong questions, about tackling the climate emergency, it Major new planning reforms – and jeopardise local democracy as a needs to be much, much more ambitious result. on new builds. the wrong answers to the wrong We have long argued that the voices And we are also concerned about of local people need to be heard better in how the Government will ensure that questions planning so that communities can ensure new homes built in rural areas are truly they get the developments they need affordable, supporting the needs of local and in the right places. So, although we people in areas at crisis point with a stark welcome the Government’s commitment lack of available housing – not least for to all areas having a local plan in place, we key workers. also need robust legal guarantees that the The Government’s proposals include public are fully consulted regarding new building on brownfield land – a policy development. we’ve long supported: making use of this We are also campaigning for action neglected land before greenfield sites to address the climate emergency; the should be a priority. But if a brownfield- way that new housing is built can play a first approach is to work, local authorities significant role in this. need to be able to prioritise the building The Government’s aim to deliver carbon of those sites and reject unnecessary neutral new homes by 2050 represents losses of greenfield land. 34 lost years given that the Code for Sustainable Homes aimed to achieve the same thing by 2016 before it was The 8 changes that could demolish local democracy in planning 1. Central Government will impose mandatory, top-down housing numbers which local authorities will have no choice but to accept. 2. In the new ‘Growth’ and ‘Renewal’ zones, developers will automatically get outline planning permission. The Government are currently • An accumulating 3. Local Plans will no longer have development management policies, so planning consulting on major changes intended to backlog of unbuilt planning applications in your area will only be judged against national policy. reform an ‘outdated’ planning system. They permissions; 4. Your only opportunity to shape this process will be a 6-week consultation window say this would speed up the planning • Not doing enough to respond to the every 5 years to comment on zoning and design codes. If you miss those, you process and allow more building as the Climate Emergency; have no say. That’s a massive reduction in your ability to influence decisions country recovers from the coronavirus • Perpetuating car-dependent affecting your neighbourhood. pandemic. We wholeheartedly disagree. developments in an era when 5. ‘Permitted Development’ rights mean many other changes will happen without the We know that there are some real, walkable, healthy neighbourhoods need for planning permission, and therefore without public scrutiny. long-term problems with the planning are ever more needed. 6. Changes to the developer contributions regime and a new Infrastructure Levy system: But rather than tackling these problems, claim to help provide affordable housing, but the small print shows itmight do the • Not delivering nearly enough the new Planning White Paper - “the opposite. affordable housing; biggest shake-up of the planning system 7. The top-down housing numbers and zoning might spell the end for • Allowing sub-standard homes since 1947” – stands to make the problems Neighbourhood Planning and localism, despite some warm words. through Permitted Development worse. While chasing an invented notion 8. Requirements for new homes to be zero-carbon will be pushed back to 2050, rights; that planning is an obstacle to progress, undermining communities’ efforts to address the climate emergency. 4 Peaklandguardian Peaklandguardian 5 The current Issues and Options paper travel options, retains key community certainly contains visionary rhetoric: ‘we infrastructure and services (shops, Planning Sheffield’s future want Sheffield to become a fair, inclusive surgeries, schools) and helps regenerate and environmentally sustainable city’. We the city centre. Planning. Sheffield. Countryside. Green use planning system is central in providing fully support that. The document also The Council’s review into how the Belt. These are words that run like a stick democratically-accountable solutions. states that ‘in 2015, Sheffielders said loud current Green Belt performs against its of rock through the core of our work. It is therefore a crucial time to start and clear that they don’t want to see five purposes, as specified in national Since the 1920s, we have helped prevent re-planning Sheffield’s future, which was building on Sheffield’s countryside and policy, shows that virtually all of Sheffield’s urban sprawl, created England’s first the subject of the Council’s recent ‘Issues Green Belt’ and the Council still agree. But Green Belt should be retained. We Green Belt and argued for its protection and Options’ consultation on its emerging of course, this is an options paper so all support most of this analysis and also and permanence. Our next door Local Plan ‘The Sheffield Plan. Our City, Our ideas need to be on the table to ensure a recognise that some limited cases could countryside is one of Sheffield’s finest Future’. Sadly much delayed by internal fair and democratic process. be made for removing Green Belt through assets, and a vital underpinning for ‘The politics, this is the first step along a long To that end, a core issue for CPRE are limited urban extensions, but only where Outdoor City’ brand. journey to having new planning policies the spatial options for accommodating the exceptional net gains in sustainability At the same time, our countryside has in place by 2023 or so. Whilst the delay Government’s targets of the 40,000 new could be delivered. These are sometimes never been under greater threat, with is regrettable, leaving the ‘door ajar’ to homes that are needed in the city by 2038. termed ‘confident bites’. three crises to address: the climate crisis, inappropriate speculative developments, The Council have presented three crude What’s next? After the consultation the ecological emergency, and a dearth of the flip side is the opportunity to create options with varying degrees of building in closes, we will be working hard with affordable, sustainable homes fit for the a radical, innovative plan that will deliver the Green Belt.