New South Gloucestershire Local Plan 2018
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New South Gloucestershire Ref: Local Plan 2018 - 2036 Prospectus (For official use only) Please return to: Strategic Planning Policy and Specialist Advice Team, South Gloucestershire Council, Department for Environment and Community Services PO Box 299, Civic Centre, High Street, Kingswood, Bristol, BS15 0DR or if in electronic form by email to [email protected]. Responses must be received by Thursday 23th February 2017 Information on the new South Gloucestershire Local Plan, including the opportunity to respond online, is available at www.southglos.gov.uk/newlocalplanprospectus. 1. Personal Details (or client details if applicable) 2. Agent’s Details (if applicable) Title Mr First Name James Last Name Carpenter Job Title Clerk (where relevant) Organisation Falfield Parish Council (where relevant) Address Line 1 Whitegates Line 2 Sundayshill Lane, Falfield Line 3 Wotton under Edge, Glos Post Code GL12 8DQ Telephone Number 01454 260433 E-mail Address [email protected] Ref Number (if known) (IF YOU PROVIDE AN EMAIL ADDRESS WE WILL USE THIS TO CONTACT YOU) The information collected as part this consultation will also be used by the council in accordance with the data protection principles in the Data Protection Act 1998. The purposes for collecting this data is: to assist in plan making; and to contact you, if necessary, regarding the planning consultation process. Some of the data may be made public as it will form part of the evidence base used to inform the creation of planning policy documents. The above purposes may require public disclosure of any data received on the response form, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Keeping in touch You can register to be kept informed of progress with the new SGLP using this LINK and selecting ‘planning policy and strategy’ in the ‘topics of interest’ section. Page 1 of 21 Q1. We are keen to know what cross boundary strategic matters neighbouring authorities, government agencies etc. would like to engage with us on and which methods of engagement would best suit. Falfield Parish is on the boundary with Gloucestershire County Council and Stroud District Council Their decisions on development, highways and public services are as relevant to us as those of South Gloucestershire Council. The impact of any development north of South Gloucestershire needs to be taken into consideration as well as that of Highways England in relation to the M5/J14 motorway. Q2. Are the key priorities identified in paragraph 3.8 and in Topic Paper 1 the right key priorities for the South Gloucestershire new Local Plan to tackle up to 2036? Section 5.3 and Topic Paper 1 “Local Plan Key Priorities”. The key evidence base in this section should also include the south west regions agricultural land classification maps. Higher quality agricultural (Grades 1, 2 & 3) should be protected to provide food and non-food crops for future generations. Lower quality agricultural land, i.e. grades 4 (poor) and 5 (very poor) should be considered for re-use allocation first. Section 5.5 (Call for Sites). Landowners and developers should not be allowed to “call the shots” in deciding which land should be considered. This should be a strategic process and not a piecemeal process depending on what may or may not crop up under the call for sites. Q3. Have you any comments on what should be included in the visions for any of the following areas: 1. Overall vision for the whole of South Gloucestershire 2. Urban areas in the north and east of Bristol 3. Yate & Chipping Sodbury 4. Thornbury 5. Severnside 6. Rural areas As a Parish Council we can only provide comment on our own area of Falfield Parish which is a rural parish. The innovative transport solutions referred to in the SGLP prospectus is too vague. A recent planning application for large scale development in the village was refused on the grounds that the proposed development was unsustainable due to the location of the site and its distance to available services, facilities and employment and the high reliance on the use of the private motor car. Going forward the Parish Council believe that this position would remain unchanged. Page 2 of 21 Q4. Is the draft structure the most appropriate approach? Falfield Parish Council believe that the prospectus is too long and contains no real substance Q5. Do you consider the approach to combining policies and the range of policies identified is appropriate to address the land use issues facing South Gloucestershire As a small rural Parish Council we are not policy makers or qualified to understand all the policies. We are more concerned on what policies have been left out of the prospectus, for example agriculture and health than those that are identified. Q6. Are there other policies that are needed to address the land use issues relevant to South Gloucestershire? As mentioned in Questions 2 and 6 there is no mention of an agricultural policy. Q7. As part of this consultation additional sites and evidence supporting their deliverability can be made using the online response form available from www.southglos.gov.uk/callforsites Please ref to our site specific comments in relation to the following: Parish Councils response to the JSP (copy attached, pages 5 to 13) Parish Councils response to Planning application Ref: PT16/0770/O (copy attached, pages 14 to 21) which was refused by South Gloucestershire Planning Committee on the grounds that the application was un-sustainable. Page 3 of 21 Q8. Do you have any comments on the methodology used to construct the Sustainable Access Profiles? For example comments on the approach to defining the range of key services and facilities, assessing walking and cycling and public transport access. What criteria have been used to decide where will be profiled where there is no settlement boundary. We note that some local areas have been missed out, e.g. Tortworth and Leyhill and yet other small hamlets such as Latteridge, Hill and Rockhampton have been included. Although the importance for access to Superfast Broadband has been reduced in importance as a result of a consultation in 2015 Falfield Parish Council believe that as a rural parish it is important to have Superfast Broadband in order to be able to communicate to the wider world. The sustainability profile for Falfield is misleading in that it states that Superfast Broadband is available to the Village which is incorrect with less than approx. 10% of the parish able to access this facility. Q9. Do you have any comments on the findings and detail of individual Sustainable Access Profiles? E.g. are certain key services and facilities included which should not be, or are others missing? The location on the map for the Community Centre for Falfield is incorrect. The Parish Council would also question whether Falfield Village Hall could be considered a Community Centre as it is not open on a regular basis. Also Falfield Parish Council does not believe that Falfield Cars (now known as Happy Auto’s Ltd) can be classed under the heading of a “Comparison Store” within its current footprint. Page 4 of 21 Clerk: Mr James Carpenter, Whitegates, Sundayshill Lane, FALFIELD Falfield, Wotton under Edge Glos. GL12 (01454) 260433 PARISH COUNCIL [email protected] West of England Joint Planning Consultation C/O South Gloucestershire Council PO Box 299 Corporate Research and Consultation Team Civic Centre High Street Kingswood Bristol BS15 0DR 18th December 2016 Dear West of England Joint Planning Consultation Team, The following comments are the observations received from parishioners and that of Councillors from the parish of Falfield. The Preferred Spatial Strategy does not offer the most appropriate strategy for the area, there is a lack of in depth investigations and there are other alternatives which have not been adequately explored. There are reasons why this strategy and the identified location at Buckover could not and should not be delivered and we outline why in more detail below. We fully understand that further housing needs are to be provided within the West of England Region and that the option of creating a new settlement is one of just a number of approaches under consideration and consultation. We also understand that the “Garden Village” model is an untested approach within South Gloucestershire and with it carries a higher risk of failure and unviable infrastructure commitments which is a concern to the local community and Council tax payers. At this point we would like to repeat our comment made on the initial JSP consultation regarding the safeguarding of green belt where we felt that under this approach, inappropriately large volumes of housing could end up far away from the centre of the city of Bristol intruding into the rural countryside. This would also allow the urbanisation along the northern boundary of the Green Belt, where it is least sustainable and with an increase Page 5 of 21 in people commuting back and forth into Bristol. This would mean that over time Falfield along with other local villages would become a suburb on Thornbury. Firstly, the strategy relies on a suitable location being found for the new settlement. DCLG guidance for new garden villages recommends that any location has the support of the local community. Ideally it would be in a discrete location, away from existing settlements, on a brown field site, in a location where it does not unbalance, overwhelm or change the character of an existing community and put undue strain on the local services. To be successful, the settlement should aim to offer improvements to local infrastructure and be sustainable; it should not worsen situations or increase congestion problems. Car ownership should not be essential as there should be a range of cheap public transport options available to quickly access a variety of major employment zones, including access by rail, bus, cycling and walking.