Mendip Local Plan Part II: Sites & Policies – Pre-Submission Consultation Consultation Response Form Please use this form to respond or make representations on Local Plan Part II and associated consultation documents. For information or advice, please contact the Planning Policy Team by email at [email protected] or phone (0300) 303 8588. Contact Details If you have appointed somebody to act as your agent, please give their contact details. All correspondence will be sent to the agent Name: Jonathan Channon Agent Name: Organisation (if applicable): Company Name: Address: Postcode: Email: Tel: Date completed: 10th Feb 2018 Date completed Do you wish to be notified of future stages of Local Plan Part II (tick box) We will contact you by e-mail only unless you confirm here (tick box) Data protection – please read - The information collected as part this consultation will be processed by the Council in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. The purposes for collecting this data are: to assist in plan making; and to contact you, if necessary, regarding the planning consultation process. Please note that representations must be attributable to named individuals or organisations at a postal address. Representations and contact names will be published on the Mendip website but no other personal information Copies of this form are available from Council Offices and Access Points or can be downloaded from www.mendip.gov.uk/localplanpart2 . If you require this document in another format such as Braille, large print or another language then please contact us. Please use a separate form for each site or main issue you wish to make. You can also attach one contact form to a group of representations. Please make sure any separate documents include your name –so they can be clearly identified. Please return your response by 5pm Monday 12th February 2018. By post to: Planning Policy, Mendip District Council, Cannards Grave Road, Shepton Mallet, Somerset, BA4 5BT By email to: [email protected] By hand to: The Council offices in Shepton Mallet (address above). Mendip Local Plan Part II: Sites & Policies - Issues and Options Consultation For office use Details of Objection/ Comment./Representation Name /Organisation Jonathan Channon Please indicate the document to which your representation relates (e.g. policy, paragraph DIT 008 number, HELAA site reference ) Do you consider the Local Plan is Legally Do you consider the Local Plan is Sound 1 ? Compliant? 1 Yes No Yes No Do you consider it necessary to participate at Yes/No examination hearings? (eg present oral evidence) Please provide details below of why you consider the Local Plan is not legally compliant or is unsound. Please be as precise as possible. If you wish to support the legal compliance and soundness of the plan, please also use this box to set out your comments. 1. There is no to little demand to new housing in Ditcheat as seen in the investigations in that there has been little development over the last 10+ years. Shepton Mallet has a large development on-going 6 miles away. Evercreech’s development has taken place and they cannot sell the houses. Castle Cary although in South Somerset, 3 miles away has 500 new houses being produced. 2. Adding 16 houses taking the assumption they may be populated by families with 2 children each, you have a demand for 32 children at the local school which is full. Guidance has been given that monetary donation could be required for the school however the school has no green/brown field areas to develop and extend the school to fit new students in. 3. This land is used for crops and encourages wildlife. Most evenings owls can be heard, building on top of this land will remove their prey which in turn will remove the owls. 4. Housing behind this land experiences minor flooding in gardens in the autumn and winter months. Adding housing behind this could increase flooding as there is nowhere for the water to go so more could build up in the gardens. 5. The land backs onto a minor road although is in heavy use by milk tankers visiting the local cheese factory and agricultural vehicles. There is a tight S-bend at the edge of the land. Increasing more traffic onto this minor road and tight corners would be ill advised. 6. Noise and light pollution - Ditcheat is a small rural village, adding more houses here will increase noise and light pollution for the population. 7. The land allocated at this site is far too large. Based on MDC calculations approximately 70 houses could be built on this land. Seeing as Ditcheat has 250 houses it’s plain to see this would have a detrimental affect. Looking at Lintern Close, Ditcheat which has 15 houses on Google Maps the area allocated should be of similar 1 See our Online Guidance note on what these terms mean 2 Mendip Local Plan Part II: Sites & Policies - Issues and Options Consultation size. Below is an indication of the size of Lintern Close on the proposed area as shown in a blue outline. 8. Normalizing this area you would end up with potentially more land than Lintern Close which would look like the below: 9. Even at a reduced area I would encourage the other two sites are made full use of in their allocation. These sites have access to services already and their affect on the current village aesthetics and existing residents would be minimal in comparison. DIT009 of five houses & DIT010 of three houses leaving 8 houses required. I know MDC cannot go on rumours but I have heard rumours that 4 holiday cottages within Ditcheat are going to be changed to a permanent use so does that lower the required number of houses? If so that leaves 4 houses on a large plot of land. 3 Mendip Local Plan Part II: Sites & Policies - Issues and Options Consultation 10. The current development limit stops at the edge of this proposed land. Extending this development limit sets a precedent for future development in Ditcheat. If DIT009 & DIT010 are used to their suggested allocation extending the village’s development limit for 8 houses (possibly 4) would be inappropriate in my opinion. 11. As MDC note, any development here would need to provide pedestrian access to the centre of the village. As noted earlier the road by this land is a busy minor road with an S-bend at the top. The only way to successfully provide this access as far as I can see is to obtain land on the opposite side of the road or the field next to this proposed land or through the cricket pitch. The Cricket pitch has been defined or is in the process of being classed as green space so a footpath through this area should not be allowed. It is used by the local school due to their limited size and not having a playing field next to it. Having people walking through their playing field potentially dropping litter, dog fouling and degrading the land through foot fall would be just wrong and to the detriment to the pupils of the school. 12. The Parish Plan conducted recently advocated that people wanted small developments and allocating such a large are would be against their wishes. 4 Mendip Local Plan Part II: Sites & Policies - Issues and Options Consultation For office use Details of Objection/ Comment./Representation Name /Organisation Jonathan Channon Please indicate the document to which your representation relates (e.g. policy, paragraph DIT009 number, HELAA site reference ) Do you consider the Local Plan is Legally Do you consider the Local Plan is Sound 1 ? Compliant ? 2 Yes No Yes No Do you consider it necessary to participate at examination hearings ? (eg present oral Yes/No evidence) Please provide details below of why you consider the Local Plan is not legally compliant or is unsound. Please be as precise as possible. If you wish to support the legal compliance and soundness of the plan, please also use this box to set out your comments. 1. There is no to little demand to new housing in Ditcheat as seen in the investigations in that there has been little development over the last 10+ years. Shepton Mallet has a large development on-going 6 miles away. Evercreech’s development has taken place and they cannot sell the houses. Castle Cary although in South Somerset, 3 miles away has 500 new houses being produced. 2. Adding more houses will have a potential knock on affect to schooling if children move into these new houses with no room for the school to expand currently. 3. However, there is some discrepancy with this site. It was not included in November 2017 council meeting but included in the full council meeting in December 2017. As it stands there is 5 houses allocated to this land. It has access to services and is tucked away in the village which should have minimal impact to village residents so if housing is required then I am in favour of this plot. 4. This also agrees with the Parish Plan in that it is small scale development 2 See our Online Guidance note on what these terms mean 5 Mendip Local Plan Part II: Sites & Policies - Issues and Options Consultation For office use Details of Objection/ Comment./Representation Name /Organisation Jonathan Channon Please indicate the document to which your representation relates (e.g. policy, paragraph DIT010 number, HELAA site reference ) Do you consider the Local Plan is Legally Do you consider the Local Plan is Sound 1 ? Compliant ? 3 Yes No Yes No Do you consider it necessary to participate at examination hearings ? (eg present oral Yes/No evidence) Please provide details below of why you consider the Local Plan is not legally compliant or is unsound.