Formby Civic News The Formby Civic Society Newsletter Registered Charity no 516789 April 2011 Listed Cottage in Peril by Desmond Brennan Inside this issue: Listed Cottage 2 in Peril. Planning 3 Matters. Managing 4 Woodland. Dr Sumner & 3 the Lifeboat. Wildlife Notes. 8 History Group 10 Eccle’s Cottage , Southport Road, 1968; photo M. Sibley. Report. 11 The cottage at 1 Southport Road, known “Outbuildings and Croft”. Reg Yorke Art Group Re- until modern times as Eccles Cottage or suspects the Paradise Lane buildings port. Eccles Farm, is located on the north side were a good deal older than the sole sur- Ravenmeols 12 of the road at its junction with Paradise vivor of this group of buildings. James Heritage Trail. Lane. It dates from the first half of the Eccles paid 7d Tithe to the Rector for his 18th century and is a Grade 2 Listed house and 4d for the “outbuildings”. Formby-by-the 12 Building. The 1968 photograph of the -Sea. After several years of neglect, today building shows at that time it was in rea- Chairman’s 15 finds the building in a parlous state, es- sonable condition, although, even then, Notes the unevenness of the roof indicates that pecially the single story with attic part of all was not well with its timbers. The New Notelets. 15 detail from the 1845 Tithe map (see next page) shows that, in its early days, the cottage was surrounded by an extensive NEW NOTELETS patchwork of fields - very different from today. We know from the information (See page 16) accompanying the map that, at that time, the property was owned by Mary Form- Now available from by and occupied by James Eccles, who Select, Derbyshires, also “occupied” the somewhat longer Ray Derricott or neighbouring cottage further along Para- Tony Bonney dise Lane which he used as Listed Cottage in Peril After several years of neglect, today the building which is believed to be cantly impaired as a result of the tional circumstances may harm to or older than the 2-storey eastern end. outward movement of the wall. Pri- loss of a heritage asset be contem- There has been gross ingress of water or to the very recent installation of plated. Further, PPS5 protects to the western part of the building for two timber buttresses, the wall was against deliberate neglect of or dam- a very long time; the photograph on in imminent danger of collapse. The age to a heritage asset with the in- the previous page shows the southern attic floor has also been secured by tention of furthering the possibility slope of the roof, and the condition of strategically placed steel supports. of redevelopment of the site; it the northern slope is no better. As a So now we await the answer to the states specifically that deterioration result, there must be extensive rot of question “What happens next?” brought about in this way is to be the roof timbers and of the floor of disregarded when the decision is the attic. The south facing wall of the In anticipating the answer to that made whether or not to permit rede- building has bowed out by about 4 question, everyone concerned needs velopment. The Council does not inches under pressure from the roof to bear in mind that Planning Policy have powers to require the building and the attachment of the wall to the Statement 5 Planning for the Histor- to be brought to a habitable condi- western gable is severely impaired, as ic Environment (see the August tion, but it does have a duty to pre- the photograph shows; the connection 2010 Newsletter) requires that every vent the building becoming totally to the wall of the timbers supporting possible means of preserving an derelict and, through planning de- the attic floor must also be signifi- heritage asset must be purposively velopment control, the Council has a pursued and that only in very excep- powerful means of influencing what happens at this location. Detail from There are very few remaining of the 1845 these historic buildings which con- Tithe map nect us to our past and we must do all in our power to ensure their preservation; the other examples in Eccles Cot- Formby show how it can be done. tage We appeal to both the owner of the property and the Council to honour their responsibilities to the building and the community in resolving what we acknowledge is now a dif- ficult situation. Page 2 Formby Civic News Planning Matters by Desmond Brennan Sefton's emerging Core Strategy, amended form, requires that at any tified Needs) is intermediate in which is a key component of the Lo- time during the life of the LDF there character. cal Development Framework (LDF), should be available sufficient land for reached another significant milestone housing development for five years Option One - Urban Containment: when its foundation Options Paper ahead. The purpose of the Green Belt The essential feature of this option was approved by Cabinet on 17 Feb- Study is to identify sites in the green is that no green belt land would be ruary to go for consultation. The Core belt contiguous with urban areas released for development. This Strategy is predicated on the extent of which might be used to satisfy this would mean that only 4850/17 = new housing in the borough to be rolling five-year demand for land 285 new homes would be built an- planned for in the 17 year period with minimum impact on the larger nually in the period up to 2027. 2010 - 2027 and the purpose of the green belt. Without it, the Council Because most of the development Options Paper is to inform the debate would be vulnerable to appeal by would be on relatively small sites which will decide the issue. would-be developers to the Planning involving fewer than 15 units, most Inspectorate which might then allow of the development would not trig- The Options Paper is based on a ger the inclusion of an affordable number of data gathering studies. The development on green belt land out- side the context of a coherent long housing component; consequently, most important of these is probably affordable housing needs would be the Strategic Housing Land Availa- term plan; it has already been demon- strated that planning inspectors can very far from being met. Although bility Assessment, first carried out in the population of the borough is 2008 and updated last year (the up- be persuaded by such an approach (but not in cases involving Sefton, declining, because households are dated study has yet to be published in getting smaller, the need for hous- full); from this study, it was conclud- which for the moment has sufficient urban land available). ing is growing, so the restriction on ed that there is sufficient land within new housing would result in an urban boundaries for approximately outflow of population and the re- 4850 new dwellings in the period to maining population would be de- The consultation on the Council’s 2027. clining in age. The result would be Another important dataset was pro- Options Paper has been deferred a smaller workforce and lower eco- vided by the Employment Land and until after the May local elections. nomic activity; in addition, it would Premises Study; it showed that there not be possible to replace the South- is just sufficient employment land for port Business Park because a suffi- the period to 2027; however, it found Another very important study is that ciently large site would not be that there was a need for a new site of carried out for the Council by a firm available. specializing in predicting housing approximately 20 ha to replace the Option Two - Meeting Identified Southport Business Park. The deter- need, the results of which have only just been published. The computer Needs: When the several parame- mination of the Council to minimize ters influencing housing demand are change of use of existing employ- model used has successfully with- stood scrutiny at various public en- assigned their most likely values ment land is embodied in the Supple- and allowed to interplay according mentary Planning Document Safe- quiries. Amongst the many factors it takes into account are: changes in to the consultant's computer model, guarding Employment Land which the resulting best estimate for the was consulted on in December; this population size and age distribution, changes in household composition, number of new homes required for document, which when finally adopt- the 17 years of the plan period is ed will become part of the LDF, sets changes in migration, housing policy relating to affordable and social hous- 8160, i.e. 480 per annum, 36 of out the very restrictive conditions which would be in Formby. To the under which existing employment ing, housing renewal, the character of the local housing market in different plan period total has to be added sites could be redeveloped for new 360 new homes to allow for unmet housing or any other purpose. parts of the borough, changes in local economic activity. The study entailed demand arising from a restrictive Particularly controversial is the Green making predictions for eleven differ- housing policy in the seven years Belt Study, the findings of which ent scenarios, some of which were prior to the plan period. Thus, land have yet to be published in full, but chosen to elucidate characteristics for 3670 new homes, requiring ap- which have been taken account of in rather than for their predictive value. proximately 150 ha will have to be the drafting of the Options Paper and The Options Paper draws heavily on found in the green belt, some of it some of which are available in very this study.