Hitcham and Taplow Society Newsletter 111: Spring 2019 £3.50 to non­members www.taplowsociety.org.uk Hitcham and Taplow Society Formed in 1959 to protect Hitcham, Taplow and the surrounding countryside from being spoilt by bad development and neglect. President: Eva Lipman Vice President: Fred Russell Chairman: Vacant Treasurer: Robert Hanbury Secretary: Roger Worthington Committee: Andrew Findlay, Charlie Greeves, Robert Harrap, Rupert Sellers, Nigel Smales, Jonathan Specktor, Louise Symons, Jacqueline Turner Newsletter Editor (and photos and maps unless noted): Nigel Smales Newsletter Production: Andrew Findlay Contact Address: HTS, Littlemere, River Road, Taplow, SL6 0BB [email protected] 07787 556309 Cover picture: Taplow between the rivers. (James Camplin). See Page 7. Editorial Grateful thanks to the many readers who kindly principle which depends upon councillors and expressed appreciation of last November's planning officers having the time, expertise and Newsletter 110, which paid tribute to our local knowledge to make decisions for the benefit antecedents who fell in the Great War. As of their communities. Page 3 wonders how well promised, the Society continues to explore how this cunning plan is working locally. Pages 4 & 5 Taplovians who fell in World War Two can be review the degree to which the 2013 vision for Mill better commemorated. Watch this space. Lane has lost its way. Pages 6 to 9 examine risks to It is remarkable how much our little corner of the Green Belts nationwide, around London and in world is threatened by ambition, lack of attention or Taplow's lowlands. Pages 10 & 11 conclude this incompetence. Consequently, this Newsletter adventure with glances at looming organisational returns to the primary aim of the Society – to protect and infrastructural plans. our patch from being spoilt – and focuses on Later pages celebrate our community and those Planning (with a capital P) and other plans and past and present who make it special. Our aspirations which affect us. Information and challenge is to follow valiantly in their footsteps. observations are current as at 25th April. Finally, thanks to friends in Hedgerley The Town & Country Planning Act (1947) Historical Society and Facebook's Maidenhead required local authorities to comprehensively plan Memories – indicated (MM) – who have shared and control development within their domains, a various images and cuttings. Acronyms Berkeley Homes (BH), Buckinghamshire County Council (BCC), Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), County Council (CC), Department for Transport (DfT), District Council (DC), Great Western Railway (GWR), Her Majesty's Government (HMG), London Green Belt Council (LGBC), National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), Office for National Statistics (OfNS), Parish Council (PC), Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead (RBWM), South Bucks DC (SBDC), Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), Taplow Parish Council (TPC), The Buckinghamshire Council (TBC) and Transport for London (TfL). Spring 2019 Page 2 Hitcham and Taplow Society Plans Local and Neighbourly The value of Taplow's two Conservation Areas – the In contrast, an application by Bristol City Council Village (1975) and the Riverside (1999), both for 1,500 homes was refused by its own councillors affirmed by Character Appraisals (2007) – has ebbed for not complying with its NP approved two weeks away amid legislative turbulence at national and before. Heartened that NPs can have teeth, Jamie district levels. Some think the combination of the Barnard, Martin Maund, Spencer Norton, George Localism Act (2011), which extended the power of Sandy, Nigel Smales and Roger Worthington local councils (and their officers), and the NPPF recently resumed planning for the Plan. Aspects (2012, revised 2018), which deregulated policies and under consideration include its overall framework, streamlined procedures to encourage development, the need for professional expertise, the impact of the has reduced effective public oversight. The revised NPPF on current protections, the possible relevance of the Taplow Parish Plan (2005) has removal from the Green Belt of the between­the­ diminished as SBDC's Local Plan (1999, revised rivers triangle (see Page 7) and the creation of a 2007) was replaced by its Core Strategy (2011) which supplementary Heritage Asset List to recognise and will be superseded by a joint SBDC / Chiltern DC improve protection of buildings, places, landscapes Local Plan (first draft 2017). and anything else we value. Hoping to exert greater influence, TPC secured Meanwhile, TPC and the Society agree the theme permission to prepare a supplementary for the restoration of Berry Hill Farm gravel quarry Neighbourhood Plan (NP) but paused pending must be "natural rural charm", with hay meadows delays to this latest Local Plan which even now preferable to any commercial development. has only "an unofficial and indicative timetable". Suggestions to Summerleaze include woodlands It might soon be released for consultation. Maybe and wetlands for wildlife and insects, bird­watching not. It might be approved by HMG and adopted hides, bridle paths, a challenging adventure in Summer 2020. Maybe not. It might it be playground, another for youngsters with den­ accepted by TBC if this new unitary authority building, woodcraft and other nature pursuits, two takes command (see Page 10). Maybe not. Such public footpaths – one recreating the ancient way doubts are fuelled by news that Bray abandoned south past Old Priory Garden down to the station, its NP after RBWM struck out just about the other from there to lower Berry Hill (avoiding everything in it, and a Cambridge council refused main roads) – and the revival of the Taplow Horse to adopt its local plan because HMG changes Show. In the spirit that it is up to locals to make the rendered it unrecognisable. best of our locality, have you any other suggestions? Proposals Pending SBDC is still considering planning applications micro­brewery in Ye Meads, a barn for quail for a riverside pub and new houses on Mill Lane rearing at Challen's Chick Farm (Marsh Lane), a (see Pages 4 & 5). Other outstanding applications 20m telecommunication pole at Miller & Carter include a new spa and conservatory at Taplow (Bath Road), a 2.4m wire boundary fence around House Hotel, replacements for Lamont House Cedar Cottage (Heathfield Road) and lifting (River Road) and Stonecrop (3 Saxon Gardens), a occupancy restrictions on Cliveden Stud House. t u ­ o y d y r a e r l k a d r u n i o F Q w t w w s e o r l o d p m n l a A T a Riverside Revival Taplow's riverside from Bond's blight descended, dreamers on headquarters) and a prospective Boatyard to the Papermill was both riverbanks yearned for a Hall & Woodhouse gastro­pub. once a mix of places to work, rest revival of our greatest shared And there will be yet more cars and play but, with their criticisms asset: Old Father Thames. Recent when Dunloe Lodge is rebuilt of proposals for a new pub and Newsletters have rued how the with nine apartments, not as more houses on Mill Lane, vague but welcome vision of the originally­approved replica Historic England and SBDC's SBDC's SPD – essentially, a brief family home. The pub would Conservation Officer are guilty of for prospective developers to be welcome – not least because historical revisionism. This was which BH's original 2015 design its garden, toilets and no "idyllic semi­rural waterside responded – has ebbed away defibrillator will be accessible location" for artisans. It was the as Planning acquiesced to to the public – yet despite the industrial rump of Taplow. The fragmentary creep by history here of unsightly gasworks liquified coal – an considering each subsequent gasometers, the Conservation extremely dirty, smelly business application myopically rather Officer exceeds both brief and for 120 years – and later the mill than in the context of a publicly context to challenge its massing recycled stuff much more agreed plan. The flux still hasn't and elevation. hazardous than wastepaper. As finally settled but elements are The re­designation of the slipping into sharper focus. Boathouses site as 'Residential' The Society is disappointed resulted in outline approval for with the increased number of a 'permitted development' new and proposed dwellings, squeezing 18 tiny dwellings up 9% from 211 to 229, and into its existing buildings. This dismayed at the vast area of car impractical scheme was parking that could cram the superseded by another for 13 riverbank, up 70% from 86 spaces dwellings and now by a Gage to 146 to serve Roux at Skindles, Properties proposal to replace Driftwood Cottage the new office block (a local BH the existing buildings with Spring 2019 Page 4 Hitcham and Taplow Society practical or visual link to prioritise a viable and vibrant Driftwood Cottage, its former future for our riverbank over lodge and stables, its illogical the conservation of outdated selectivity here will effectively elements of its past. blight the site. The other uncertainties relate The Old Boathouse was built to the future of 'the working over 120 years ago as a timber river'. SBDC is silent about its site shed to house boats, converted in and former Bond's Boathouse by the late 1940s to build speedboats Maidenhead Bridge where and again as offices in the 1980s. Marlow Boat Services plies Trigger's broom in Only Fools and riparian repair. Gage intends to Horses springs to mind – 17 maintain and enhance the replacement heads, 14 different moorings but its scheme may handles – except, unlike the have insufficient parking and broom, the Boathouse isn't as could the pub's proposed name – good as new. It probably never 'Taplow Boatyard' – be slightly was structurally capable of ironic since the latest sketch conversion to a high­quality shows BH's boatyard next door residence and certainly isn't now. half the size it was and without a Driftwood looks lonely, its nine­ chandlery, perhaps calling into inch brick walls the worse for question its commercial viability? years of heavy lorries thundering Yet with a little imagination, this past within reach.