The result of the public vote in Bridge on whether to include in the Neighbourhood Plan the Cantley proposal to build 40 new homes on the site between the recreation ground and the A2 was announced within two hours of the poll closing on Saturday, 25 November. The decision is to include the proposal (with 215 villagers voting yes, and 113 voting against).
It is unusual for citizens to vote in favour of new build, especially in an area that lies adjacent to a major public recreation space. Three reasons help to explain the outcome. First, Cantley’s building proposal comes tied to a number of ‘sweeteners’, in particular the allocation of land for a village hall and the transfer of the recreation ground freehold to the village in perpetuity. Second, there is a recognition amongst many villagers that the A2 site is, if not the best site on which to build, then certainly the least worst. In particular, there was considerable disillusionment with earlier proposals to allocate housing on the Brickfields and in the Green Gap between Bridge and Canterbury. Some villagers voted ‘Yes’ on 25 November fearing a ‘No’ vote would reignite proposals to build elsewhere in the village on other, less suitable, sites. Third, there has been a general weariness with the Neighbourhood Plan process, and a desire to bring the process to a close.
This is not, however, the end of the matter. The vote requires only that the Cantley proposals be included in the Bridge Neighbourhood Plan; but the village will be given the opportunity to vote on the full Neighbourhood Plan, which could overturn the vote taken on 25 November.
Questions have been raised over the efforts made by Bridge Parish Council to lobby for a ‘Yes’ outcome (by a majority of 6 to 2 at its meeting of 9 November). Under Locality guidance for Neighbourhood Plans a parish council can only present factual evidence to citizens and cannot lobby for a ‘Yes’ vote using public money.1 Bridge Parish Council distributed around the village a leaflet recommending a ‘Yes’ vote (click here). It is not clear at this stage whether the costs of this leaflet were funded from public money or another source.
A leaflet circulated to dwellings in Bridge on the eve of the vote provided a useful balance to many of the points in the Council’s position (click here to see a scan of the leaflet). These included the haste with which the decision was being made, the creation of transport and other infrastructure that will leave the village vulnerable to other speculative housing proposals, and the negative impacts on our AONB. Bridge Primary school has voiced opposition on health and safety grounds to the access roads to the site, which would run along the private road past the nursing home and the school. And there is a significant question mark over Bridge Parish Council’s linkage of the building of 40 new homes with the ownership of recreation ground, the latter of which is not a valid planning consideration as identified by the independent planning consultant who advised the parish council.
Bridge villagers are entitled to answers on some important questions, including on access roads, traffic modelling and where the money will come from to build a new village hall and car park. Villagers will be seeking a guarantee that should the proposal go ahead it will be a limited ‘one off’; and not the first of a series of proposals that will transform the village. And there needs to be clarification that should this proposal finally go ahead there will be no further plans to build housing on other sites elsewhere in the village.
Of the approximately 1250 adults eligible to vote on 25 November only 328 elected to do so; a low turnout of just 26%. A much larger turnout can be expected for the vote for the full Neighbourhood Plan, which holds out the possibility of a very different outcome.
Notes
- Neighbourhood Plans Roadmap Guide, p.53. http://locality.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Neighbourhood-planning-roadmap-2016.pdf,