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MEETING NOTICE: 7PM TONIGHT (25 JANUARY 2017), MAIN HALL, STOKE PARK JUNIOR SCHOOL, UNDERWOOD ROAD, BISHOPSTOKE SO50 6GR.  Eastleigh councillors from Bishopstoke, Fair Oak and Horton Heath will TONIGHT decide upon the hostile planning application from developer Drew Smith for 250 houses at Pembers Hill Farm on Mortimers Lane in Fair Oak.  We encourage all of you to attend this meeting to support friends and neighbours who will urging councillors to reject this application.  Councillors have received many letters and documents detailing powerful arguments why this application should be rejected, including from their own officers! A strong turnout tonight will leave them in no doubt about local residents’ disgust towards this calculating, irresponsible and unsustainable proposal.  We look forward to seeing you there. 

Upham Parish Council, 24 January 2017: In a strongly worded letter to Eastleigh borough councillors, David Ashe, chairman of Upham Parish Council, has today set out powerful arguments why they should reject Drew Smith’s hostile application for 250 houses at Pembers Hill Farm on Mortimers Lane in Fair Oak.  A Local Area Committee comprising of councillors from Bishopstoke, Fair Oak and Horton Heath will decide on the application at a meeting tomorrow evening.

Mr Ashe writes: “The arguments put forward for approval of this very opportunistic application, by both the applicant and your own officers’ report, rely heavily on the suggestion that a decision has already been taken to progress with B and C as the preferred option [of the council’s emerging Local Plan, namely for 6,000+ houses and a major new road north of Allbrook, Bishopstoke and Fair Oak].”

He continues: “You are being asked to approve a scheme for 250 houses for which your landscape officers recommend rejection on grounds of over dense development and visual impact. One of the country’s foremost experts on hydrology has condemned it, as it relies on obsolete methodology to justify the amount of attenuation proposed. Professor Sear’s clear concerns can only be met by more land being given over to attenuation, whilst the landscape officers call for more public open space. Something has to give, and it is the number of dwellings being applied for. An application for 250 houses on this site is therefore clearly unsustainable and threatens severe flooding to the centre of Fair Oak.

“The applicant suggests that to approve this application will be ‘held to the council’s credit’ by the inspector. What will really be ‘held to the council’s credit’ will be a sound local plan development process, one that establishes a clear evidence base before taking any decision on B and C.

“You have previously taken the very sensible view that this application should be deferred pending a decision on the Local Plan. Why should you change that opinion?”

To view Mr Ashe’s letter, click here.

To read planning consultant West Waddy’s supporting documentation, referred to in Mr Ashe’s letter, click here. (Please note this version corrects several typos in the original one sent to councillors.) As you will see, West Waddy’s opinion is that approving this application in the light of both the applicant’s and council officers’ concerns, would fly in the face of guidance in the National Planning Policy Framework.

Forum, January 2017: As a planning battle in the Hampshire borough of Eastleigh
rages, Mark Baylis looks at the challenges facing Eastleigh borough councillors, the two key options they are deliberating, the environment in which they are making decisions, and their motivation for choosing one option over another, despite evidence to the contrary.  The lesson for rural communities everywhere, Mark suggests, is to remain vigilant and take nothing for granted.

CPRE Hampshire, 20 January 2017: In a letter to Eastleigh Borough Council (EBC), the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) today warns councillors against approving the hostile application for 250 houses at Pembers Hill Farm at a key meeting this Wednesday.

CPRE writes that a decision on this site “is premature and would prejudice any objective assessment of the strategic options that are being considered as part of the Local Plan process,” giving tacit approval for options B and C, and therefore pre-empting “any possibility for interested parties to comment and challenge these options through the examination in public.”

CPRE also notes that EBC has not updated its housing needs to take account of the newest official projections, and is not therefore in accordance with current government guidance.

Mims Davies MP, 19 January 2017: In a strongly worded letter to Eastleigh Borough Council (EBC), Mims Davies, MP for Eastleigh, today urges councillors to “listen” to local residents and “resist” the hostile application for 250 new houses at Pembers Hill Farm.

She writes: “My primary reason for objecting to this application is that it constitutes a move towards options B and C in the emerging Local Plan… [EBC’s own report] recognises this.  If the Local Area Committee [which meets on Wednesday to discuss this issue] pass this application it will be clear that the council does take the Local Plan making process seriously.”

She concludes that if the application is approved, she will refer the matter to the Department for Communities and Local Government.

ADD OPEN LETTER TO BISHOPSTOKE, FAIR OAK AND HORTON HEATH LOCAL AREA COMMITTEE, 18 January 2017: As some of you will have seen, developer Drew Smith has submitted an application to build 250 houses at Pembers Hill Farm on Mortimers Lane, within option C of Eastleigh Borough Council (EBC)’s emerging Local Plan.  On the back of this application, which is recommended by EBC in its ‘report pack’ (see Item 7, pp 19-62), ADD has written the following open letter to the borough councillors for Bishopstoke, Fair Oak and Horton Heath requesting that they reject it at their Local Area Committee meeting next Wednesday, 25 January.   ADD urges all our supporters to come to this meeting at 7.00pm next Wednesday.  It will be in the Main Hall at Stoke Park Junior School, Underwood Road, Bishopstoke, SO50 6GR.  If this application is approved, it will be the first realisation of our fears…

OPEN LETTER

Dear Councillors Trevor Mignot (Chair), Rob Rushton (Vice Chair), Vickieye Parkinson-MacLachlan, Angela Roling, Desmond Scott, Anne Winstanley and Nicholas Couldrey,

We urge extreme caution with regards to the outline planning application for Pembers Hill Farm that you are due to determine at your 25 January Local Area Committee meeting.

What particularly concerns us is that much of the justification from Drew Smith for bringing this application forward (see page 1 and clause 6.1.4 in this document) and many of the comments in your officers’ report refer to the “strategic development area” north of Bishopstoke and the so-called North Bishopstoke Link Road – key elements of so-called options B and C in your emerging Local Plan – as if they had already been agreed.

For example, clause 150 on page 55 of your EBC ‘report pack’ states: “It is recognized that for the development to proceed it would need to assist in delivering substantial mitigation solutions which would be required of it as part of [a] strategic development area. This infrastructure includes a northern link road linking Fair Oak to the M3/north Eastleigh via Allbrook, and other major highway improvements.”

If you follow the recommendation from your officers and approve the application, you will be sending a clear message to your electorate that you have determined that option C should proceed in advance of the Local Plan – indeed even in advance of a draft version of the Local Plan.

And this will be despite claims from many EBC councillors, including some of you, that no decision on the Local Plan has yet been taken.

In short, if you approve this application, it will indicate that the Local Plan has been predetermined by yourselves.

With best wishes

The team at ADD

ADD UPDATE, 16 January 2017: As Eastleigh Borough Council (EBC) enters the final few months of its deliberations over its emerging Local Plan, councillors are weighing up the pros and cons of two strategic development areas: one in Allington Lane (an area previously earmarked by EBC for such a development, though no longer favoured) and the other in Allbook, Bishopstoke and Fair Oak (a new option currently favoured by the council).

In this update, we set out as clearly as we can why we believe the proposals in Allington Lane are the more sustainable, deliverable and affordable of the two. 

To do this, we have drawn from a wide variety of documents, including those prepared by EBC (until it unaccountably decided to change its mind); Bovis/Hallam Land, the developers now promoting Allington; and our own research, including from consultants West Waddy. 

Across a range of critical criteria, here’s how the two proposals stack up: 

LOCATION

Allington Lane: Well located relative to Eastleigh, Hedge End, West End and Southampton, which offer a range of major transport options, facilities, services and employment opportunities. 

Versus

Allbrook/Bishopstoke/Fair Oak: Not well connected to transport infrastructure, facilities, services and employment opportunities. 

GAP STRATEGY

Allington Lane: Site is relatively flat and existing features of the landscape limit intervisibility with surrounding area.  There is the opportunity to provide gaps which are clearly defined and well managed.  The gaps would be wholly within West End Parish Council and Eastleigh Borough Council.  Options D and E do not occupy either the Local or Strategic Gaps which the council identified in the Eastleigh Borough Local Plan 2001-2011.  PUSH policy on gaps states: “In defining the extent of a gap, no more land than is necessary to prevent the coalescence of settlements should be included, having regard to maintaining their physical and visual separation.” 

Versus

Allbrook/Bishopstoke/Fair Oak: Significant changes in levels across the areas, combined with large areas of open land, create significant intervisibility with areas some distance away from the sites.  Likely to be genuine difficulties in avoiding perception of coalescence of settlements.  Even if gaps are provided, they are likely to be reliant in part on land outside of control of parish councils within Eastleigh Borough, i.e. Winchester City Council.

TRANSPORT

Allington Lane: Genuine opportunity to promote high levels of self-containment and reduce reliance on car-based travel (minimising the impact on the local highway network) through promotion of public transport, cycle and pedestrian routes as an alternative means of travel.  Potential to facilitate new railway station/transport hub, to take advantage of spare capacity within public transport network as well as provide for new routes.  Improvements to highway network also proposed to address existing congestion issues.  Click here for more.

Versus

Allbrook/Bishopstoke/Fair Oak: Remote from rail network and very limited bus services with limited potential to improve either.  Topography of site and remoteness from facilities and services further limit potential for other non-car based travel as a realistic alternative.  Therefore development will be car dependent and reliant on the provision of a £30 million+ new road which will have ecological impacts and is of questionable benefit, not least because of the narrow Allbrook railway bridge under which it would have to pass. EBC’s own infrastructure report, published last December, reveals a multitude of problems with this option.  How the road would be paid for also remains unclear.  Talk of EBC adding to its alleged debts of £100 million+ by borrowing the money seems imprudent.

LANDSCAPE

Allington Lane:  Nondescript, urban fringe landscape most of which has no intrinsic quality worthy of protection for its own sake.  The site does not fall within or contain a rare landscape type and contains no landscape features or elements of especial rarity which could not be retained as part of the design response. EBC’s 2000 transport strategy recommends that “no greenfield sites be made available for housing development other than at Allington”. 

Versus

Allbrook/Bishopstoke/Fair Oak: High quality attractive landscape in sensitive location close to the South Downs National Park and visible from a significant distance.  EBC’s 2011 landscape character assessment designates large parts of the land as ‘Historic Park and Gardens’.

BIODIVERSITY

Allington Lane: Ecological interest within the site comparatively small compared to North Bishopstoke / Fair Oak. Indirect impacts due to additional traffic across River Itchen will need to be tested further in combination with other emerging proposals. 

Versus

Allbrook/Bishopstoke/Fair Oak: Much of land identified by EBC in 2002 as a priority biodiversity area.  Separately, a 2011 landscape character assessment supported by EBC, designated it as ‘Historic Park and Gardens’.  Accommodates the River Itchen Special Area of Conservation, a significant number of headwaters, a bow lake, chalk streams, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, two sites of Ancient Natural Woodland, numerous Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation, and contains protected species.  Potential for significant impact on sites, including through additional traffic across River Itchen.  The Woodland Trust has stated that it opposes the plans North of Bishopstoke. Concerns too over proximity to South Downs National Park.  

RECREATION

Allington Lane: Very close to Itchen Valley Country Park and other open spaces within the vicinity of the site through existing and new public rights of way.  Will also provide significant new recreational opportunities within the site.

Versus

Allbrook/Bishopstoke/Fair Oak: Site currently provides a network of public rights of way which are well used for circular walks to take advantage of landscape and countryside views.  However it is poorly related to existing open spaces.  Opportunities for good levels of new recreation open space limited and existing amenity value of views from rights of way network threatened.

EBC aims to publish its pre-submission draft plan this spring. We will therefore be re-doubling our efforts over the next few months to demonstrate to decision-makers why – if indeed we need all these houses at all – the better outcome, by far, for the borough will be development in Allington Lane rather than in Allbrook/Bishopstoke/Fair Oak.  As the above shows, the evidence so far firmly points to this conclusion.  As new evidence becomes available over the next few months, we will react to it fairly and objectively.  We urge councillors to do the same.

ADD UPDATE, 15 January 2017: Researchers helping ADD have done it again!  Two weeks ago we uncovered this document, supported by Eastleigh Borough Council (EBC) in 2011 at the time of its last Local Plan process, which designates land it now wishes to build on in Allbrook, Bishopstoke and Fair Oak (so-called options B and C for its emerging Local Plan) as ‘Historic Park and Gardens’.  (Read article here.)

This time we have gone one step further: believe it or not, our team has unearthed a 2000 Eastleigh transport strategy paper, supported by the then council leader, Keith House, the very same one who leads the council today, which recommends “that no greenfield sites be made available for housing development other than at Allington” (today referred to as options D and E for its Local Plan).

Councillors Anne Winstanley, David Airey and Rupert Kyrle, who – like House – remain on the council’s cabinet today, also put their names to this document.  And yet, for some unknown reason, EBC has done a full 180 degree turn and decided that Allington is no longer fit for development and, instead, the borough’s finest green fields in Allbrook, Bishopstoke and Fair Oak are the only place to take their newly devised scheme of 6,000+ new houses and a major new road.

EBC aims to publish its pre-submission draft plan this spring.  In the meantime, we will be re-doubling our efforts to demonstrate to decision-makers why – if indeed we need all these houses at all – the better outcome, by far, for the borough will be development in Allington Lane rather than in Allbrook/Bishopstoke/Fair Oak.  All the evidence, including that previously published by EBC, so far points to this conclusion.  As new evidence becomes available over the next few months, we will react to it fairly and objectively.  We urge councillors to do the same.

ADD UPDATE, 12 January 2017: Ahead of Eastleigh Borough Council (EBC)’s last full council meeting on 15 December 2016, Gin Tidridge, a spokesperson for ADD and independent parish councillor at Bishopstoke, gave an interview to BBC Radio Solent on EBC’s deliberations concerning its emerging Local Plan.  We now have a clip of that interview so that those who were unable to hear it can now do so. As you’ll hear, Gin focuses on the ecological and traffic obstacles to options B and C, north of Bishopstoke and Fair Oak, and urges EBC to think more carefully about the alternative options at Allington Lane.  She also hints at the reasons why EBC are currently preferring the Bishopstoke / Fair Oak option over the Allington Lane one.

To listen to the interview, click here.

Rob Byrne, 11 January 2017: Thanks to many local families sending in their photographs of our Stoke Park countryside, Rob Byrne has compiled a wonderful ‘picture show’ ‎depicting our love of these ancients woodlands and fields and the happiness and tranquility we gain from being in them.

As Eastleigh Borough Council enters the final few months of its Local Plan deliberations (we expect a decision in March/April), we urge councillors not to choose their proposals for 6,000+ new houses and a major new road north of Bishopstoke and Fair Oak (so-called options B and C), which would cut a swathe through this magnificent countryside.

Indeed, we should stress that whilst EBC claims its plans ‘save’ the woodlands per se, the proposed development on the inter-woodland fields would – as night follows day – seriously degrade them (eventually turning them into wildlife sterile areas ripe for later development).

As Rob Byrne says: “Councillors do not understand that they will destroy ancient woodland and the rare flora and fauna that live in the fields, hedgerows and water courses between the various woods and copses if these habitats are segmented by roads and housing… It is not enough to leave isolated areas of woodland to be cut off and strangled.  One wood isolated from another no more makes an ancient woodland than one councillor makes a council.”

In their messages to Rob, residents from across the borough and neighbouring areas variously described their time on the bridleways and footpaths of this countryside as “our escape”, “a link with our history”, “our time to relax with nature”, “our green lung”, and “our recreation space”.

Amazingly, it seems some people are still unaware of the council’s proposals on these inter-woodland fields, so – if you care for this part of the world – please do make everyone you know aware of EBC’s dastardly scheme.

We will only be able to fight these proposals successfully if we do so together.

To view Rob Byrne’s picture show, click here.