LAST CHANCE TO OBJECT TO THE PLANNING INSPECTOR

In December 2010 the revisions to the Core Strategy were produced by South Glos Planning department, consisting of a 750+ page document, which only became available days before the Cabinet and Full Council were to discuss it, and despite our efforts in the 5 minute time slots provided at these meetings to challenge the conclusions, the strategy was signed off.

But it isn’t over yet! A Planning Inspector appointed by the Secretary of State has to be convinced that the Core Strategy is sound and justified before South Gloucestershire can proceed.

Having spent the last 9 months reading hundreds of documents, talking to residents, researching evidence, and attending endless meetings, the Steering Group of Save Thornbury’s Green Heritage believe that the Core Strategy for Thornbury and in particular, the way Park Farm has been selected, is far from sound and justified.

This is the last chance we have to make comments to the Planning Inspector on the recent changes.

Please send your comments on the revisions made to the Core Strategy by Friday 18^th February. Email them to: planningLDF@southglos.gov.uk

To help you formulate your own response, we have listed below just a few of the reasons why the process followed by South Glos Council (SGC) has felt so inadequate, and why so many of Thornbury’s residents feel disenfranchised from it.

Comments from Save Thornbury’s Green Heritage on the revised Core Strategy

• The process used for Thornbury was different from that used for the rest of South Gloucestershire (Thornbury was an ‘add on’ after the process started, at the Town Council’s request)

• The Sustainability Appraisal (SA) ostensibly used to support the selection of the site was not made available until some months AFTER the selection had been made (in 2010).

• The SA for the rest of SGC’s Core Strategy was produced in 2008. The population of Thornbury did not have an opportunity to debate the site options whilst in possession of the SA data before the decision had been made
  

• The views of Thornbury residents have been ignored at each stage of the process. (‘Improvements’ to the CS and SA have been made to take account of representations, but no notice has been paid to the actual concerns raised).

• SGC’s attitude to ‘community involvement’ is to follow their Statement of Community Involvement process - but totally ignoring all counter arguments - and then say they carried out public consultation.

• The majority of the Core Strategy (excluding Thornbury) appears to have required only minor changes between August 2010 and December 2010, probably because the residents were able to share in the SA data at the Issues and Options stage. However, Thornbury - 500 houses out of 21,500 - elicited 2/3rds of all the representations, a total of 736, of which over 95% objected to the preferred location

• As a result of the points made in the representations by STGH and others about the inadequacy of the SA, SGC has had to fundamentally rewrite it, and has belatedly included attempts to justify its decisions.

• The revised SA is still totally inadequate, biased, and should be started again from scratch

• It has still singularly failed to provide evidence that building 500 houses will improve the vibrancy of the town centre, address school roll issues, or the town’s alleged demographic issues.

• The site at Park Farm is still the least appropriate in Thornbury – as pointed out by the Planning Inspector in 2006 – because, inter alia

1. it is too far from the town centre to walk,
2. it forms a logical edge between the town and the countryside of the Severn vale
3. it is too close to some of the main historic sites in Thornbury – the Castle, St Mary’s Church, the mediaeval fishponds, listed buildings – and it would irrevocably destroy an ancient deer park
4. the flood risk pushes most possible development to the north of the site
5. it contains a wide selection of Biodiversity Action Plan priority protected species
6. it would require major infrastructure development to make it viable at a time of national austerity
7. it contains mainly Grade 2 or 3a agricultural land, much of it organically farmed
8. Access via Butt Lane will exacerbate already serious traffic problems
9. Transport connection onto Park Rd has not been properly thought out – there are serious safety and traffic issues, plus impact on the conservation area.

Our conclusion is the same as in August: the choice of the Park Farm area as the preferred location for housing development should be deleted from the Core Strategy as it is not based on a sound foundation of evidence, and there has been minimal consultation with the residents of Thornbury.

Why can’t we have a proper analysis of the needs of the town, and a plan to meet them?