St. Nicholas Hurst - A Design For Hurst A Design for Hurst Incorporating The Parish Design Statement Prepared and published by St Nicholas Hurst Parish Council March 2005 March 2005 1 A Design for Hurst – Notification of Amendments (August 2009) This note serves as an amendment to those planning policies within the ‘Design for Hurst’ document that have been updated or replaced since its adoption. Subsequent notes will be issued as Wokingham Borough Council continues to progress with its Local Development Framework. New Regional or National Guidance will also be included within these amendment notes. Local Plan policies which are still valid: • WBE5 - Trees and New Development • WBE4 - Landscape and Planting • WCC3 - Berkshire Central Forest • WNC3 - New Nature Reserves • WNC5 - Protection and Management of Wildlife heritage Sites • WNC7 - The Protection, Enhancement or Creation of Wildlife Corridors • WNC8 - Creating New Habitats through Development • WLL4 - Landscape and New Development Local Plan policies and SPGs which are no longer valid: • WBE1 - Design and New Development (Superseded by PPS1) • WHE2 - Development in adjoining conservation areas (Repeats PPG15) • WH11 - Design Guidance – Residential Development (Repeats PPS3) • WIC12 - Assessment of proposals for telecommunications development (Repeats PPG8) • WNC1 - Special Protection Areas and Sites of Scientific Interest (superseded by PPS9, SEP policy NRM4 & WCBV9, Birds and Habitats Directive) • WNC2 - Local Nature Reserves (superseded by PPS9) • WNC4 - Protected Species Conservation (Superseded by PPS9) • WCC7 - Extensions to Dwellings in the Countryside (outside the Greenbelt) (Superseded by PPS7) • WCC4 - New Non-residential buildings outside settlement boundaries (and outside the metropolitan greenbelt) (Superseded by PPS7). • WCC5 - Re-use and adaptation of buildings for residential purposes outside settlement boundaries (superseded by PPS7 para 17 & 18). • WOS10 - The Historic Environment (Repeats RSS policies INF4, INF5, INF8 and INF9 and SEP policies EN1 – 6) • WRE2 - Re-use and Adaptation or Rural Buildings for Commercial Use (superseded by PPS7) • WRE1 - Farm Diversification involving use of land for non-agricultural or forestry production purposes • Residential Design Guide SPG B1 (Replaced by the Borough Design Guide SPD) Local Plan policies that have been replaced by Core Strategy Policies: • WIC11- Public Utilities - replaced by Core Strategy Policy CP2 Inclusive Communities • WNC6 - Nature Conservation in wider countryside - replaced by Core Strategy Policy CP7 Biodiversity • WR25 - Allotments - replaced by Core Strategy Policy CP11 Proposals outside Development Limits (including countryside) • WOS2 – Housing Development Principles – replaced by Core Strategy Policy CP9 Scale and Location of Development Proposals • WOS3 - Development Control Principles - replaced by Core Strategy Policy CP3 General Principles for development • WCC1- Development in the Countryside - replaced by Core Strategy Policy CP11 Proposals outside Development Limits (including countryside) • WT5 - Environmental Aspects of Traffic - replaced by Core Strategy Policy CP6 Managing Travel Demand Policies that have revised numbering in the Core Strategy: None St. Nicholas Hurst - A Design For Hurst Table of Contents Chapter Page Introduction to the Fourth Draft 2 1. Introduction 3 2. Planning Context 3 3. Location and Geography 4 4. History and Village Context 5 5. Landscape, Setting and Character 6 6. The Natural Environment 8 7. Recreation 10 8. Local Economy 11 9. Highways and Transport 12 10. Street Furniture 14 11. Settlement 17 12. Buildings 21 A Appendix Acknowledgments A Design for Hurst has been prepared with the help of many individual residents of the Par- ish who are far to numerous to list. Nevertheless the St. Nicholas Hurst Parish Council ac- knowledges their debt to these people and thanks them for their help. In addition the Parish Council thanks the Members and Officers of Wokingham District Council and The Hurst Village Society for the help and guidance give in the development of the document. 2 March 2005 ST. NICHOLASSt. Nicholas HURST Hurst - AA Design DESIGN For Hurst FOR HURST 1. INTRODUCTION This document provides a context for new development in the Parish. It is based on an identification and analysis of local character and Chapters 11&12 particularly have been adopted as a Supplementary Planning Document by Wokingham District Council. If applied consistently in the development control process, it can encourage improved developmental design in the Parish. It has been a means for local people to contribute to the planning process and manage change within their own environment. The Design for St. Nicholas Hurst has been produced by the people of the Parish and is a statement of our aspirations for the Parish. At each stage, all households throughout the Parish have been invited to contribute their views and many have accepted those invitations. A great deal of work and thought by many people has gone into it, and it reflects the views of the whole Parish. Some development is inevitable in the Parish. The people of Hurst value their environment and strongly wish to retain what is good about it and ensure that its special character will be protected and enhanced when new development takes place. The Design for Hurst sets out to define that which gives the village and its surrounding countryside its distinctive character. From that is drawn a series of Objectives, leading to specific Guidelines for the design of any future development within the Parish which will maintain and enhance that character. This document provides guidance to all people contemplating any development in the Parish, from individuals planning a small extension to their house to a developer proposing a major planning application. It will also be used by the local planning authorities and the Parish Council to assess the impact on the Parish of any proposed developments. 2. PLANNING CONTEXT Development is managed in the context of a hierarchy of planning documents. When a document has been published and approved as a Supplementary Planning Document, it becomes part of the planning system, enabling it to influence decisions on planning applications and to be considered by an Inspector when determining planning appeals. This document complements the Wokingham District Local Plan of February 2004 (WDLP) and the Landscape Character Assessment for Wokingham. Hurst is defined in the WDLP as a Category B settlement within which only limited infilling and rounding off of sustainable development is permitted. The Parish Design Statement, chapters 11&12 of this document, was formally adopted by Wokingham District Council as a Supplementary Planning Document on 17th March 2005. Alongside each guidance in these chapters is a list of WDLP Policies that are particularly relevant to the guidance. Those considering development are advised to take note not only of these policies but also of all the other policies relevant to development in Hurst. March 2005 3 St. Nicholas Hurst - A Design For Hurst 3. LOCATION AND GEOGRAPHY Key Parish Boundary Railway Parish Church & Conservation Area N Village Envelope AreasOther ofmain sporadic developmentsettlement areas B3030 A321 Dinton Pastures Ashridge B3034 The Parish of St. Nicholas Hurst is situated four miles north of Wokingham and two miles south of Twyford in the county of Berkshire. It covers some 650 hectares and as such is the largest Parish in the administrative area of Wokingham District. The village is located on the A321 Twyford to Wokingham Road. There is a number of other smaller areas of sporadic development, the main ones being along Davis Street on the B3030 Twyford to Winnersh Road, along the B3034 Forest Road, from Bill Hill to Binfield and on Broadcommon Road. The River Loddon flows north along the western side of the Parish and a substantial proportion of the Parish lies within the alluvial flood plain of this river and its tributaries. The most important exceptions to this are Church Hill just to the west of the village centre, and Ashridge to the south-east. The M4 crosses the southern half of the Parish but does not have any direct access within the Parish. The A329(M) forms the south-west boundary, separating Hurst from Wokingham and Winnersh. The main London to Bristol railway line runs along the northern boundary, with a station in the neighbouring Parish of Twyford. A more detailed map of the Parish is attached as Appendix A. 4 March 2005 St. Nicholas Hurst - A Design For Hurst 4. HISTORY AND VILLAGE CONTEXT Perhaps unexpectedly, Hurst (“woody streets and places: Wards Cross, hill”) does not seem to have been mentioned Braybrooke Drive, Barker Court and until around 1220, while Whistley (Anglo- Almshouses; Dalby Close, Broadcommon, Saxon wisc = marshy ground; ley = a Hogmoor, Ashridge. meadow) goes back at least to the 9th The present population of the Parish is century, and was catalogued in the approximately 1,900 with an electoral roll of Domesday Book in 1086. Three years after 1,500. Despite the very rural nature of the Domesday, a church was built on the higher Parish, the level of local employment is land, now known as Church Hill, and nowadays very limited and most of the dedicated to St. Nicholas, so that the working population finds employment outside Parishioners of Whistley would not have to the confines of the Parish. cross the floods to worship in the nearest church, which was then in Sonning. The Parish forms a rural green gap between Greater Wokingham and Twyford, The Royal Forest of Windsor extended and also forms a barrier, with the River westwards to the Loddon. Osier growing and Loddon, to the eastward expansion of basket making (some for catching fish) would Reading. Maintenance of these have been an important part of the local geographical characteristics is essential if economy then, and were still practised at the Hurst is to retain its individual, rural identity. turn of the 19th Century. Much of the Forest On the other hand, it is part of England’s was cleared from the 13th century onwards, “Silicon Valley”, within easy reach of London both to create arable land and for its timber.