Suffolk View Spring 2018.Indd
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Suffolk View The publication of the Suffolk Preservation Society Registered Charity No. 1154806 Issue No:131 Spring 2018 • Annual General Meeting 8th June 2018 - Cockfi eld Hall • A Plan for a Green Future – how hard will it be? • Parish Councils – training for pro- active engagement • Best for Pure Conservation – Church Farm House, Sudbourne Suffolk Preservation Society | Suffolk View | Spring 2018 | no 131 Contents Foreword SPS Director, Fiona Cairns writes 3 Comment SPS Chairman, Andrew Fane, writes 4 From the Parish Council Chamber – a personal view SPS Trustee, Jessica de Grazia Jeans, refl ects on her personal journey through the planning jungle 5 Planning, Conservation & Heritage Overview Update and comment 7 County Courier News and issues from the districts, amenity societies and members 9 From the News-stand Copy and comment – update on matters of local and national interest 12 Quote of the Issue: In Remembrance: New Litter Regulation 14 Heritage Matters 15 - 22 ‘The House at Orchard Barn’ – Part 2. 15 Quality of Place Awards, Church Farm House, Sudbourne 17 Norfolk Oaks felled for Suffolk Building Restoration 20 Historic Brickwork in East Anglia – survey by Simon Swan Associates 21 Traditional Building Skills Courses – Essex Place Services 22 Membership 23 SPS Events Review 24 Diary Dates 25 SPS CIO Annual General Meeting 26 & 27 Notice of Meeting and Form of Proxy Market Place – Directory 28 Offi ces Patron The Countess of Euston © 2018 SPS. All rights reserved. Little Hall, Market Place, President The Lord Marlesford DL Printed by Lavenham Press Lavenham, Sudbury, Suffolk Chairman Andrew Fane, OBE MA FCA The views expressed in Suffolk View are CO10 9QZ Director Fiona Cairns, MRTPI IHBC those of the individual authors, and do not Telephone 01787 247179 Finance: Walter Wright necessarily refl ect the position of the SPS Fax 01787 248341 Chartered Accountants Cover photographs: Email [email protected] Editor Linda Clapham Front: Suffolk Countryside Website www.suffolksociety.org For editorial matters, queries and submissions. Back: Cockfi eld Hall, Yoxford Follow us on Twitter: @SuffolkSociety Like us on Facebook: @SuffolkSociety Founded in 1929, the SPS Charitable Incorporated Organisation Number 1154806 is working to safeguard the buildings and Operating as the landscape of Suffolk. County Branch of CPRE SPS holds and manages data in strict accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (2018) SuffolkSuffolk Preservation Preservation Society Society | | Suffolk Suffolk View View | | Autumn Spring 20172018 | no 130131 Foreword SPS Director, Fiona Cairns, writes approach this means the things which our natural environment is made up of – land, soils, minerals, ecosystems, species, freshwater, our air and our seas. Mr. Gove states “Long term action requires us to take diffi cult choices, some with considerable economic consequences, about conservation. In the past, our failure to understand the full value of the benefi ts offered by the environment and cultural heritage has to reviewing Areas of Outstanding seen us make poor choices. We can Natural Beauty with the prospect of change that by using a natural capital extending them, planting 11 million trees approach. When we give the environment across the country, doing more to protect its due regard as a natural asset – indeed ancient woodland and veteran trees, and a key contributor – to the overall exploring how ‘developer contribution’ economy, we will be more likely to give can be used to steer development it the value it deserves to protect and towards the least environmentally enhance it.” damaging areas. As somebody who has dedicated This all sounds very positive. But is her entire working life to the cause of it? Around 17,000 hectares of land is “Do More: Harm less” – environmental protection, this is nothing developed each year. Rising population short of a blissful affi rmation of all that growth and economic development a Green Action Plan has motivated and inspired me to work means that this Government is in the fi eld of conservation, but the big committed to building many more homes With great excitement the SPS welcomes question is - will planning guidance and than ever before. The local authorities in Michael Gove’s new 25 year Environment the new countryside vision be compatible Suffolk have recently issued Brownfi eld Plan with its commitment to “Do more: policies? The revised National Policy Registers, but the paucity of sites starkly harm less”, setting out the Government’s Planning Framework is expected this reveals how relatively little previously action plan to help the natural world spring and will serve to clarify matters developed land there is in our County regain and retain good health. It calls for for those of us striving to navigate the to build on. This means that most of the an approach to agriculture, forestry, land- development pressure with conservation new housing of up to 70,000 units (the use and fi shing that puts the environment constraint. approximate equivalent of building forty fi rst. Its aim is to achieve, in no particular Mr Gove’s plan covers a dizzying range new towns the size of Lavenham) could order, the use of resources more of topics, many of which do not impact be built on unplanned countryside. sustainably, enhancing beauty, heritage, upon our specifi c charitable objectives. I really want to embrace this well-being, engagement with nature, But the focus on “safeguarding and Government’s newly found commitment clean air and water, a thriving natural enhancing beauty of our natural scenery to the countryside with an open heart environment and wildlife, and reducing and improving its environmental value and even more open mind, but only time the risks from fl ooding and drought. while being sensitive to considerations will tell how the irreconcilable differences Interestingly, it seeks to embed an of its heritage” clearly chimes with between the Government’s growth “environmental net gain” principle for the SPS’s objectives. Action points of agenda and with Mr. Gove’s green one, development, based on the natural capital particular interest include a commitment can be dovetailed. 3 Suffolk Preservation Society | Suffolk View | Spring 2018 | no 131 Comment SPS Chairman, Andrew Fane, writes exceptional natural beauty also, where of this asset and the environment that man struggles to control the forces also provides ‘home’ to the majority of nature, and our woodlands which of our wildlife. This new vision is in many cases are again man-made, of grants for better management of as little true ancient forest remains. the countryside with environmental Lip-service is paid by many to the schemes like tree planting, better soil importance of these landscapes but management, wild fl ower meadows they are mostly allowed to evolve even and more help for a range of wildlife SPS Chairman, Andrew Fane, OBE where we have important designations through conservation management. such as Areas of Outstanding Natural Cumulatively, these could clearly be of Regular readers of editorials in Suffolk Beauty. But perhaps that somewhat huge benefi t, and no doubt the trade- View would be justifi ed in considering laissez-faire attitude is changing, and in off is seen as being preferable to mere that the planning team in Lavenham is a dramatic way, being led from the very subsidies for food production on a only interested in the countryside when top of government and as a result, not per acre basis. Despite such bold and it is under threat from new housing least, of Brexit. wide ranging ambitions, there remain developments, and that the rest of our The Government’s long-awaited 25 questions that loom over Michael lovely County can be left to fend for year Environment Plan presents a major Gove’s announcements for reform in itself. Of course, it is just such housing opportunity to dramatically enhance UK agriculture. Much of the detail has developments when done badly, or England’s landscapes and people’s yet to be revealed. But re-directing inconsiderately, which do have the access to them. https://www.gov.uk/ public investment in agriculture could gravest impact on the countryside we government/uploads/system/uploads/ reward the provision of public benefi ts, all love and are charged to preserve attachment_data/fi le/673203/25-year- including landscape. wherever we can. environment-plan.pdf Many commentators have However, occasionally it is a good A Green Future: our 25 despaired at the failure of government thing to turn that equation around departments to work together in the and look at our countryside fi rst and year Plan to improve the past on food and farming policy; so the in its own right, and to see how we, at Environment. announcement that Defra is committed SPS, can encourage or contribute to The Prime Minister, in her to a food policy to ‘integrate the measures that are positive for the sake introduction to the document, has needs of agriculture businesses, other of the countryside alone. And we do shown her determination that the enterprises, consumers, public health all recognise how very blessed we are ‘post Brexit new world’ will actively and the environment’ is also ambitious in Suffolk today with the extent and encourage changes in policy and and very welcome. sheer quality of our landscapes and practice that will strive to benefi t our Much of this is in gestation only as countryside settings, and for many of countryside rather than merely try yet, but SPS will be watching closely us they are one of the primary reasons to slow decline, as if that last were and commenting appropriately when for choosing to live where we do. inevitable. Both she and Michael Gove consulted or as part of our normal Suffolk’s landscapes are largely are now making demands for the future representations. We too want this new man-made, and have been stewarded of this priceless and irreplaceable asset culture to mean something and to be by generations of farmers over the – our countryside.