DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THE STAKEHOLDER PLANNING WORKSHOP?

Did you know South Glos Planning department are hosting a Master Planning stakeholder workshop at the Armstrong Hall this coming Tuesday 1st February to examine plans for the new 500+ housing development ear-marked for Park Farm.
Are you a local stakeholder? Have you been informed of this event? Have you been invited to attend? Apparently entry is by invitation only.
Jane McDermott of SGC, contactable at jane.mcdermott@southglos.gov.uk or by phone on 01454 868712, is officially organising the event. We know of serveral delegates who are declining to attend, so you may wish to turn up on the night and chance your arm for a spare invite, or contact Jane in advance and advise her of your wish to attend.
Hopefully high up on the agenda will be:

• Why is SGC presenting our town with one developer on one site when the Residents of Thornbury are still waiting to be consulted on all the Issues and Options to do with developing our town, that never appeared when the rest of South Gloucestershire was considering its own Issues and Options.?

• Selection of this site is not based upon the Sustainability Appraisal but on an alternative undisclosed agenda - is it hoping too much that this will be revealed on the night? If not, delegates will hardly buy in to a development proposal based on deception and mis-information.

Do keep an eye on the website in the next few weeks - we will be rapidly updating you on events, and how to make your final submission to the Independent Planning Inspector by 18th February 2011.
Next stop after that - local elections in May when our so-called representatives can be held accountable for their undemocratic actions.

THEY CALL THAT AN EXHIBITION?

Disappointment for many hundreds of residents as South Glos Planners provide Thornbury with an Exhibition of "Damp Squib" proportions. Same inaccuracies; same rhetoric; same arguments for Park Farm that failed to convince us the first time round. Most galling of all, no meaningful answers to profoundly disturbing questions. Many of the planners were either misinformed or lacking the background information to be able to satisfy unhappy Thornbury residents.
Many residents walked away frustrated by the arrogance of planners and our seeming inability to hold them accountable to local people.
What Planners didn't tell you at the Exhibition (and how simple it would have been for them to show us this courtesy), is that if you continue to be unhappy with the revisions to the Core Strategy pertaining to Thornbury, you can submit a further representation which will go directly to the Independent Government Inspector who has the ultimate decision on whether South Glos has acted in a reasonable/justifiable and fair manner. We will shortly be posting our own recommendations as to what appear to be the main shortcomings of the Revised Core Strategy in relation to Thornbury. Either wait for this posting, or simply click on this link to download a form that you can use for your own personal response. Remember, you need to be stating why the REVISION of the Core Strategy is flawed.

DEADLINE FOR FINAL RESPONSES IS 18th FEB.

THEY THINK IT'S ALL OVER

• 500 plus homes to be built at Park Farm? It’s not too late to stop it!

Whatever South Gloucestershire Council want, a Planning Inspector still needs to be satisfied that this development is right for Thornbury. Cllr Claire Fardell recently pointed out that residents believed “…there is no point in responding because the matter has already been decided,” but it isn’t too late to have your say if you come to the exhibition at the Armstrong Hall, running from 10am til noon and 6pm til 8pm on Tuesday 18^th January 2011 and start by asking council officers these questions:-

Why does the Core Strategy claim we need housing development to counter an aging population when official statistics show Thornbury has fewer OAPs and more under 16s than the national average?

Why does the Core Strategy claim we need housing development to counter falling school rolls when the birth rate is rising, schools like St Mary’s are oversubscribed and others report stable numbers?

Why does the Core Strategy claim an increase in population will boost High Street footfall when current research shows a better retail mix and not greater numbers brings vibrancy?

Why Park Farm? Where are the defensible boundaries? What’s to stop developers building all the way down to the river Severn?

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD ON TUESDAY 18^th JANUARY.

IT’S NOT TOO LATE. IT’S NOT ALL OVER!

THE EXHIBITION -Two years too late?

Even if you've been reading your Gazette today you may not know that South Glos has finally proposed an "exhibition" about Thornbury's housing needs, to take place on Tuesday 18th January at the Cossham Hall from 10am-12pm and again from 6-8pm.

"South Gloucestershire Council’s ward members wish to ensure that local residents understand how this decision (to adopt the Core Strategy) has been reached. The exhibition will be a chance for local people to see why the Councils think there is a need for some more housing in Thornbury and why the Park Farm area has been chosen as the preferred site. "

This may well be SG's stated wish, but when does it plan to inform residents that this Exhibition is taking place?
If this exhibition does indeed deliver what it promises it would be quite remarkable. To date SG council has failed miserably to demonstrate both a need for more housing in Thornbury and reasoned evidence as to why Park Farm could possibly be the preferred site.

• Their Core Strategy was unintelligible to normal members of the general public lacking expertise in such matters (as was belatedly acknowledged at a recent Council Meeting by Clare Fardell 13-12-10).
  
• The Sustainability Appraisal was not a balanced appraisal whatsoever, but rather a biased, contradictory and inaccurate attempt to justify a decision that had been made long before any "consultation" was ever instigated.
  
• Local residents were not fooled, and responded en masse to the Draft Core Strategy official Consultation. More than 2/3rds of all respondents to the Core Strategy were making representations about the Thornbury section, and of the 739 individual representations concerning Thornbury 713 opposed the strategy and only 26 supported it – 96.5% against!
  
• But apart from a few cosmetic tweaks here and there, South Glos made no significant concessions to local opinion, and the main thrust of their plans remain unaltered.

So ultimately, what do we hope to learn from this exhibition? Difficult to answer at this stage, (a shame it didn't happen two years ago at the outset of the whole process!) but we are actively encouraging as many members of Thornbury/Morton/Oldbury as possible to attend the exhibition in an attempt to make South Gloucestershire planners accountable to local opinion. We will shortly be distributing a flyer suggesting lines of questioning residents may find useful in attending this event. (Also to be posted on this blog by early next week)

WE NEED HELP
- looking for some volunteers to deliver flyers to local residents over the next week or so.
Please contact me at ourgreenheritage@gmail.com if you can spare even as little as half an hour.

South Glos are also planning a stakeholder workshop on Feb 1st from 6.30-9.30pm to discuss further plans for the development of Park Farm, but that event is by invitation only. Have you been invited? Would you like to have been invited? Why not take it up with organiser Jane McDermott (jane.mcdermott@southglos.gov.uk)?

Following on from the exhibition it is not too late to make comments on the revised Core Strategy, which will be submitted not to the same old local SG planners who have pointedly ignored our views, but to an independent Planning Inspector who will scrutinise the whole process. (Deadline 18th Feb) Hopefully s/he will hold planners and councillors to account in favour of a fair and balanced process in Thornbury where the views of local residents count for something. But presumably we'll be told all about how we can submit our comments at the exhibition!