Responding to the "REVISED" Core Strategy.

Yesterday there was a meeting of the South Glos Joint Planning Committee. Their purpose for meeting was to review the REVISED proposals for the Core Strategy, being proposed by the SG Planning Department, in the light of public Representations.

Members of the public were permitted to attend this meeting. Below is the approximate text of the presentation made by STGH's Rob Hudson, trying to raise awareness with councillors of the huge shortcomings of this latest document.

Comments to Joint Meeting of Planning etc Committee – 8^th December, 2010.

Thank you for the opportunity to address you this morning. My primary interest is in the Thornbury section.

I haven’t had long to digest the changes made to the pre-submission draft. As you are only too well aware it is a bulky document.

However, we in Save Thornbury’s Green Heritage do not believe that the changes made address the issues facing the town, and the preferred location for development at Park Farm is not justified by the evidence. Moreover, there has been totally inadequate engagement with the community. There has been no discussion about the options, and no opportunity to sensibly debate the best way to meet the needs of the town.

Hopefully the proposed Localism Bill will give us a framework to influence the way in which council planners, officers and elected councillors ‘listen‘ to residents in the future.

In the meantime I’ll highlight briefly a few major concerns –

Thornbury Responses to Core Strategy:

More than 2/3rds of the respondents to the Core Strategy made representations about Thornbury, and of the 739 individual representations concerning Thornbury 713 opposed the strategy and only 26 supported it – 96.5% against!

The Castle School’s ‘longstanding aspirations’:

It says (SA 4.41c) ‘Option 6 is the only option capable of realistically enabling the Castle School to consolidate onto a single site at Park Road’. Have you challenged your planning officers to justify this statement? It is simply not true – any of the options could allow for this to happen. Why are these statements being made? In any event, the Core Strategy should be about meeting Thornbury’s housing needs, not those of one school.

The so-called ‘current defensible boundary’ of Morton Way (SA 4.41a):

Where did the phrase ‘the community’s desire to protect land beyond Morton Way from development (4.42)’ suddenly spring from? Who in the community was asked? In the TTC questionnaire in 2008 (the only research carried out with residents) a majority of the people

who responded preferred Morton Way for development – in fact giving it more votes than for all other sites combined. If it is the Thornbury Town Councillors’ desire to protect land beyond Morton Way, please say so. The community - 700+ (96.5%) of whom objected to the

proposals for Park Farm in the core strategy - desire to protect land at Park Farm. A petition of 100 Morton Way residents did not want development at Morton Way – significantly they did not want it at Park Farm instead.

Who has decided that the Park Farm site ‘…is set by physical boundaries which will limit the extent of development therefore a precedent would not be set for longer term expansion and there would be less likelihood that development here would encourage an unsustainable commuter suburb’(4.41c)? Where are these boundaries? I can accept Oldbury Lane and Butt Lane to the north, but what on the west? Kington Lane? The River Severn? Surely this is a recipe for Oldbury and Thornbury to be combined into one commuter sprawl.

The destruction of an historic deer park adjoining Thornbury Castle, St Mary’s Church and the medieval fishponds:

Are you actually aware of the site proposed and what its historical significance is? If not, I have a map here I’ll be delighted to share with you.

Are you aware of the 300 year old hedgerows, the streams, and the wet wood land? Building houses here – however carefully landscaped – will eliminate the kingfishers, egrets, curlews and lapwings, and destroy a significant area of historic green fields for ever.

The spurious arguments and inaccurate evidence for addressing the issues of falling primary school rolls and improving town centre vibrancy.

I don’t have time to give you details about these now, but the empty shop premises (which conveniently exclude Tesco as it is deemed to be ‘out of centre’) are way below national and Bristol averages, and primary school numbers are no longer falling! They are already moving in a positive direction. One primary school in Thornbury has had to go to appeal this autumn to expand its places. Lies, damned lies, and statistics!

The strategy regarding Thornbury is flawed, not evidence based, and totally ignores the views of residents.

When considering the part of the Core Strategy relating to Thornbury, I ask you to listen to the voice of the residents, and delete it from the plan. Do the job again properly, backed up by fact based evidence which supports the correct conclusion, and with full consultation .

Thank you.

Rob Hudson, Save Thornbury’s Green Heritage