Open letter to Swindon Council's planning committee

To All Planning Committee Members

Dear Councillor

We beg your indulgence to clarify a few matters related to the planning application for mixed use development on land east of Dayhouse Lane and for a business park on Green Hill, west of Dayhouse Lane.

1. Whilst the planning inspector (who conducted the appeal that led to the refusal of planning permission for the previous planning application for the university) agreed that some development of the area might be permitted, the scale, nature and location was never discussed. You might remember the result of the planning application appeal for the Coate business park that took in 186 ha of land. Only 28.4 ha of this would have been used for buildings, road-building and car-parking. The remainder was proposed for landscaping and a golf course; but in February 1989 planning permission was still refused by the Rt Hon Nicholas Ridley, Secretary of State for the Environment who was not known for protecting greenfield sites!

2. The evidence base that Swindon Borough Council quote in bringing forward the proposed Swindon Core Strategy policy for “Commonhead” is assessed on the land area that extends from Broome Manor Lane to the A419 (i.e. Coate, Broome and Badbury Wick). There has been no assessment as to whether the land use put forward in the Swindon Core Strategy and in the planning application would provide a sustainable development. Just look at the shape of it for a start!

3. It has been suggested that the Save Coate petition that has drawn over 52,000 signatures only counts against the former planning application. This is patently untrue as the petition is worded as an objection to a change of use of the land in question.

4. The public has not had an opportunity to challenge the emerging Swindon Core Strategy policy for “Commonhead” through public inquiry and planning permission should not be granted for the planning application before this democratic process is played through.

5.  It seems that the planning application might be determined at your meeting dated 8 March. Please would you, at least, defer a decision by visiting the site, viewing it from Liddington Hill, Coate Water and Day House Lane in an attempt to picture how the proposed development might appear in the countryside. Please would you also take the trouble to learn why the landscape is of major literary importance to Richard Jefferies and how, with a little imagination, the historic Neolithic associations and the literary links can only add to educational/recreational opportunities in the future.  Please remember that Swindonians don’t have to go far to walk in a housing estate or business park! Leave them something special...

You all know that you (or future councillors) won’t be able to protect the countryside around Coate Water unless the buffer land is donated to the people and designated as part of the Country Park. If the developers were prepared to give the private land east and south of Coate Water CP to the University of Bath and then to UWE – put a condition in place that if they are given planning permission, they must give this land to Swindon Borough Council to expand the Country Park. It’s the least you can do.

Thank you.

Richard Jefferies Society and the Jefferies Land Conservation Trust

Can't Touch Coate!

We now have an anthem based on a song by M C Hammer and a BBC Wiltshire Radio interview with Councillor Peter Greenhalgh (Pogo) cleverly put together by Geoff Reid.

Download, listen and laugh by finding the Pogo Rap at the link below.

The Pogo Rap - (Can't Touch Coate If It's Under Concrete - 2011 Mix)

Say NO to draft Swindon policy to build on land at Coate and Badbury Wick

Here follows an open letter to Swindon Council's Cabinet members:

Dear Cabinet Member

 

At your Cabinet meeting, to be held this Wednesday [19 January 2011], you will be asked to recommend and endorse to Council the approval of the Revised Proposed Submission Document for the Swindon Core Strategy along with its accompanying land-use policies before it goes out for a period of public consultation.

 

One of the key themes in the draft document is “to promote local pride ... and community identity” expressed in emerging Swindon Core Strategy policy CT6 that Council should ensure “that decision making is transparent” and to “effectively communicate how the local community has influenced the decision”.

 

Please could I request that you look very closely at the proposed policy NC3 for “Commonhead” as this will now be given considerable weight when the revised planning application is determined. You should be aware that none of our objections to the former emerging Swindon Core Strategy policy SSP7 nor our suggested change to the policy for “Commonhead” has been accepted, despite the fact that more people objected to this policy than to any other part of the Core Strategy. This is without taking account of over 52,000 people who signed the Save Coate petition that opposed a change of land-use for the area in question.

 

The Council has done nothing to explain why our views have been ignored. Instead we are presented with a revised land-use policy for “Commonhead” that increases the housing allocation from 750 houses to 900, includes 15 hectares of B-use employment land (anything from offices to industrial use) that is not directly related to the function of the hospital (i.e. not a sustainable proposition from a transport perspective – the former proposal was to link 14 ha of employment land to the university to reduce the need to travel) and an objective “To create a new landmark gateway to Swindon from the M4”. By the latter, one can assume that the design principle is not to attempt to blend the buildings in the countryside respecting the views from Coate Water Country Park and the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty but to make it stick out like a sore thumb.

 

The policy states that “The area between Coate Water and the new development will be protected” but there are no guarantees. The Council does not own the land and it has broken similar promises before that we do not need to list. We all know that this policy will only lead to infill development extending to Broome Manor.  Persimmon Homes and Redrow Homes still retain options on the majority of this land – they will not stop.

 

Once again Richard Jefferies’ literary landscape heritage is ignored. Instead of being the butt of all jokes that Swindon is a cultural desert, the Council should be taking advantage of the fact that an author, born and raised at Coate and who has been voted as Britain’s favourite nature writer, wrote with such beauty and detail about this landscape in his works.

 

Please give the people of Swindon something that they can be proud of at last. Please do not follow the officer’s recommendation that the Core Strategy goes out with its current wording.

 

Jean Saunders

On behalf of the Save Coate coalition.

Councillor Greenhalgh has strange ideas about development

Councillor Peter Greenhalgh (Cabinet Member for strategic planning) made some outrageous statements about the revised planning application that were published in the New Year's Eve edition of the Swindon Advertiser.

Please write to Swindon Borough Council's planning department to voice your concern by 25th January 2011 at the latest.  The planning application will either be decided by Swindon Council's planning committee at their meeting dated 8 February or 8 March at the latest.

A sample letter follows:

Ian Halsall

Planning Officer

Swindon Borough Council

Wat Tyler House

Beckhampton Street

Swindon, SN1 2JH

Dear Mr Halsall

Revised Planning Application for Coate – Ref. No. S/10/0842

I have looked at the recent revision to the planning application submitted by Redrow Homes and Persimmon Homes to develop countryside at Coate and Badbury Wick. The minor tinkering with the proposals has done nothing to allay my concern that it is unacceptable development in its own right by virtue of the nature, scale, layout and location of the buildings. It will still set a precedent for infill houses and offices to be built on fields between the application area and Broome Manor. The majority of the business park area is still on the Coate Water side of Dayhouse Lane whilst some of the houses and the school also open out onto Dayhouse Lane. This is not a contained and isolated design that will discourage further growth.  

On being questioned about the revised planning application, Councillor Greenhalgh was quoted in the Swindon Advertiser on New Year’s Eve as saying: ‘This proposal is the best one I think that has been put forward for this general area ... I think this development will protect the character of Coate Water and should prevent building between this land and Coate itself.’ How does opening up an area that has been protected from housing and office development since about the 1950s suddenly act as a stop for more of the same? It will clearly have the opposite effect that will be encouraged by the land-owners of the fields around Coate Water who have been waiting to sell their land to developers since the Science Park proposals over 25 years ago. Indeed that building proposal was far less intrusive in the environment – yet Swindon Council was opposed to it and so was the Secretary of State. Redrow Homes and Persimmon Homes still have legal options to buy these fields if planning permission is granted.

Swindon Borough Council has proved that it can’t be trusted to keep any promises – first the hospital – that was to be a one-off building complex for the area between Coate Water and the A419/M4; then the university with the promise that if the university wasn’t built, there would be no housing and now this statement from Councillor Greenhalgh (the senior cabinet Member for strategic planning) who is clearly in favour of the latest plans.

Over 52,000 people have expressed their concerns and wish to see the countryside between Coate Water and the A419/M4 protected against further development. Please listen to the people and refuse planning permission.

Open letter to Swindon Borough Council

To: Ian Halsall, Planning Officer, Swindon Borough Council, Wat Tyler House, Beckhampton Street, Swindon, SN1 2JH

Revised Planning Application No. S/10/0842

Dear Mr Halsall

We maintain our objection to the revised planning application submitted by Redrow Homes and Persimmon Homes on 24 December 2010 along with the 52,000 good citizens who signed the petition urging Swindon Borough Council to protect a kilometre buffer of countryside around Coate Water from further development.

This planning application is not of national importance whereas the application area, although not designated as such, is of national importance as a result of its unique literary and archaeological heritage and it lies in an area that would have been included in the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty but for the intrusion of the motorway. These foothills to the downs soften the edges of Swindon and play an important role for the setting of Coate Water Country Park and provide additional habitats to support, encourage and enhance Coate Water Site of Special Scientific Interest, designated for its wildlife value. Dayhouse Lane in its own right is of immense recreational value bringing a small area of countryside within easy reach of Swindonians; whilst, at its centre, it boasts its own Local Nature Reserve – Day House Copse.

As such it is a well-known tenet of planning law that if you have to rely on conditions and Section 106 agreements to make an unacceptable planning application acceptable, then planning permission should be refused.

Making some reductions to the number, height and density of buildings and planting a few more trees does not make an unacceptable planning application acceptable.

On three separate occasions over the last 5 years, the Jefferies Land Conservation Trust has made approaches to the owners of Day House farm with a view to buying the field that borders the eastern edge of Coate Water Country Park to put it into wildlife conservation use. On all three occasions the Trust has been refused. Given that the latest approach was made recently and the field of interest is outside the application area, we can only assume that this field is still likely to be the next target for development. As such, if planning permission is granted for this proposal, it will set a very strong precedent for further development of houses and offices around Coate Water Country Park and will encourage infill between Day House Lane and Broome Manor Lane in order to better integrate the area with Swindon. This is a major material consideration.

Swindon Borough Council claimed that the new hospital would not set a precedent for more development of the area and that if no university was built at Coate, there would be no housing. Yet the Council is also promoting this site for housing and employment land. As such we cannot trust the Council to protect any buffer land around Coate Water Country Park and it is down to the good people of Swindon to do so.

revised planning application for Coate now in

Redrow Homes and Persimmon Homes presented a revised planning application to Swindon Borough Council just before Christmas. The Swindon Gateway Partnership proposes to use countryside at Coate mainly to build up to 890 new houses and offices mostly to the east of Day House Lane. The fields immediately next to Coate Water Country Park are not directly affected but judging by the look of the hospital, the views from Coate Water and the downs will be.

Swindon Council’s promises that the hospital building would be a one-off and, if the university wasn’t built at Coate, there would be no houses, have proved to be short-lived. There are no guarantees in place that, if this planning application is allowed, the fields around Coate Water won’t be targeted for development next. We all know that this will be the next step and that over 52,000 names on a petition urging the Council to protect the land around Coate Water means nothing. So much for democracy.

You can look at the plans (Ref No. s/10/0842) in the Council’s Offices at Wat Tyler House and should you wish to comment, write to Ian Halsall in the planning department. Some of the documents, including the illustrative master plan above, are up on the Council's web site

latest on the Swindon Gateway planning application

Objections to the planning application for 960 houses etc have been lodged by Natural England, the Environment Agency, Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment). About 100 objectors have submitted comments in all.

The CABE response has been put up on SBC’s planning portal - essentially they object that the proposed layout and design is poor

http://194.73.99.13:8080/WAM/doc/Other-299365.pdf?extension=.pdf&id=299365&location=VOLUME5&contentType=&pageCount=1

If this doesn't work, go to http://195.89.201.121/PublicAccess77/tdc/DcApplication/application_detailview.aspx?caseno=L34F9GPT04V00 and look in the folders.

The response from Natural England is pretty strong as they now have the remit to cover landscape matters (i.e. development that has an impact on the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) as well as conservation issues related to Coate Water Site of Special Scientific Interest. They are highly critical of the likely impact of the development on views from Liddington Hill and the Downs; they have concerns about the height of buildings, loss of mature trees, and the lack of information in the planning application as to what the development would look like. Least of all, Richard Jefferies is actually mentioned – at last!!! It says: “The significance of cultural associations with Richard Jefferies are under-estimated; it was the landscape in the vicinity that prompted much of his work, and much of that work was related to envisioning a future, changing environment (notably ‘After London’).”

With regard the potential impact on Coate Water, the main objection relates to the impact of development on the D-shaped field that is not within the country park and is outside the planning application area. This field is lovely and boggy (it is part of Day House farm) and is much used by over-wintering and breeding birds. Those who know it will be aware that there is a footpath that runs through the middle that attracts very few visitors. Natural England makes much of the fact that this field and footpath would become a major corridor for dog-walkers etc (as the other main footpaths run alongside the M4) whilst their concerns about cat predation is flagged up as a major concern.

Other objections are raised by them and others.

Evidently a revised planning application is to be submitted to Swindon Borough Council soon. It is expected that the housing numbers will be reduced from 960 to 890 along with other proposals that include a reduction in density and the height of buildings and to take out the landfill area from the development area.

Save Coate again!

The Jefferies Land Conservation Trust takes heart from the news released on 4 June that the Rt Hon Eric Pickles (Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government) has written to all councils to let them know that they can make planning decisions in the knowledge that ‘regional strategies’ will soon be history. The Minister is quoted as saying:

“It will no longer be possible to concrete over large swathes of the country without any regard to what local people want.”

Over 52,000 people, who signed the Save Coate petition, made it clear that the land between Coate Water and the new hospital should not be concreted over. The people have already decided.

After promises from Swindon Council that this land would be protected from development if the hospital got the go-ahead and, more recently, that if the university plans failed at Coate, there would be no houses, we are now faced with a new planning application (see overleaf) for nearly one thousand houses, offices and shops on the fields located mainly east of Day House Lane. The majority of the buildings proposed are 3-4 storeys high. They won’t sit quietly in the countryside without sticking out like a sore thumb; the hospital is already a blot on the views from Richard Jefferies’ beloved Liddington Hill and Coate Water that are immortalised in his writing.

Whilst the new proposals, unlike the last ones, do not extend to the edge of Coate Water Country Park, it won’t be long before Redrow Homes and Persimmon Homes apply to build on these fields too. If this site falls to the house-builders, it will set a precedent for more of the same.

We can’t trust the Council to safeguard the fields next to Coate Water no matter what they promise.

Please help to preserve Swindon’s best literary and historical heritage and to ensure that Coate Water remains a country park for wildlife and people by writing now to Ian Halsall, Planning Officer, Swindon Borough Council, Wat Tyler House, Beckhampton Street, Swindon SN1 2JH and object to planning application S/10/0842.

New building plans for Coate

Some news to report, at last – but you will have to wait until next week (Monday?) for confirmation – and it is not going to be good news. Redrow Homes and Persimmon Homes have submitted their new planning application to Swindon Borough Council for nearly 1,000 houses etc. at Coate/Badbury Wick. Assume that it will be the same as that proposed at the developers’ exhibition held earlier this year (see previous blog) and will take in land mainly east of Day House Lane.

There has been no response from the Horton family (owners of Day House Farm) with regard to our (Jefferies Land Conservation Trust) offer to buy their large field that hugs the eastern edge of Coate Water Country Park and extends to Day House lane. The Trust want to put the field to conservation use – a wildflower meadow – and Richard Jefferies’ fans will be aware that this field included names such as “Green Fern” and “The Plain” which featured in Greene Ferne Farm and Bevis. Redrow Homes has an option to buy this field from the Hortons if planning permission is granted for development. Okay, so this field might not be included in the new proposals, but development east of Day House lane will set a precedent for more development across the road. This field is not protected from development apart from small areas of it that are of significant archaeological interest. Swindon Borough Council would like this field to be included in Coate Water Country Park, but neither the Hortons nor the developers are going to hand it over!

The emerging Swindon Core Strategy (that includes a draft land-use policy for the proposed development area for 750 houses etc) is on hold. Local Planning Authorities throughout the country are not sure how to progress their forward planning programmes as the new Government has vowed to get rid of the regional tiers for planning. The so-called Regional Spatial Strategy that was setting house-building targets to 2025 is also frozen which means that developers are likely to submit a flurry of planning applications in the hope that they can force through their particular building programmes.

Swindon is likely to be hit badly by this as different developers are targeting greenfield sites all around the town as you may have read in the papers.

It is vital that everyone objects again to the new planning application for Coate – previous objections will not count. The Save Coate petition with its 52,000 signatures will still add weight as it was worded to take account of future building programmes for the area.

Watch this space for more news.

Tell Redrow Homes & Persimmon Homes what you think about their new proposals

Redrow Homes & Persimmon Homes new proposals for development at Coate/Badbury Wick/Commonhead - January 2010
The national house-builders revealed their new proposals for development at an exhibition in Swindon on 22nd January. They have asked for your comment! The closing date for your thoughts is 29th January but as this is not an official consultation, it is still worth writing to them at FREEPOST RLUC-EZKA-BHS, CONSENSUS, 93 Walton Road, Clevedon, BS21 6AW or e-mail consensus@hotmail.co.uk.

Points you might make:

The development would set a precedent for further development west of Day House Lane – the developers still have options to buy this land and appear to have no intention to relinquish this legal right. As such, you would object to any development of the land.

The southern end of Day House Lane is proposed for widening to feed a large employment area. This would remove the rural tranquillity of the country lane much used for recreational purposes – cycling, jogging, horse-riding, walking, rambling and it is the first rural leg of the yearly half-marathon.

The main badger route from Day House Copse to Coate Water will be blocked by a school. The otter stream runs through the employment zone. The impact on wild-life in general is not acceptable.

There is insufficient space to allow for hospital growth – 5.5 ha is clearly insufficient for Swindon’s projected growth to accommodate another 46,000 new homes by 2025.

The proximity of the development area to the M4 motorway and A419 trunk road is likely to result in high levels of out-commuting – this can only be overcome by linking the housing to the hospital.

The topography of the land is undulating and very visible from the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (particularly from Liddington Hill) as well as from Coate Water (the hospital is extremely visible from both view-points). Any development will detract from the natural beauty of the area and there should be no buildings higher than two storeys.

The Marlborough Road is already running to capacity, it is a very busy dual-carriageway with few crossing places – any further traffic would compromise safety and environmental credentials.

The local facilities proposed will not deter out-commuting. The nearest secondary school is at Dorcan and the closest existing primary school/ shops/ community centre etc are not within a comfortable walking distance. The development area is ‘remote’ from the rest of Swindon and is not a sustainable location.

This is an ancient area, crammed full of features from pre-history – any development would be unsympathetic to the surroundings – a modern development, in particular, would not be acceptable.

This is Jefferies Land – associated with the writings of the Victorian author, Richard Jefferies. His former birthplace and home is on the edge of the development, whilst his wife grew up at Day House Farm. The landscape features heavily in the majority of his works and is of immense literary, environmental and educational value.