Highland sting! Developers unveil ambitious plans to build on Highland Court Farm

Bridge will soon be encircled by a pincer movement from north and south, if the developers have their way. With the start of September seeing the unsuccessful High Court challenge against Mountfield, the end of the month saw Quinn Estates unveil their plans for the proposed Highland Court Farm development.1

Highland Court was designated a conservation area by Canterbury City Council in January 1995 and includes Higham Park and the Highland Court model farm.2 The plans, drawn up by Quinn Estates and HICO Group, would see the building of a business park and office space within the existing Highland Court Conservation Area, as well as extensive new build to the south. The overall complex would include 300 holiday homes, a 150 unit retirement village, a food and drink hub, and pitches for Canterbury Rugby Club and Canterbury Football Club. The plans are astonishing not only in their scale but in their insensitivity to the local landscape.

The design has emerged using the long-discredited UK rural development model under which plans are drawn up behind closed doors by a small select group, then presented - along with strong claims about economic benefits and “enhancing” the natural environment - to the public. Under this model developers operate as predators, roaming the countryside in search of green spaces where they can make a fast buck, trying to persuade the unfortunate communities they descend upon that there are advantages to accepting their designs. This is the polar opposite of genuine participatory, community-driven development under which communities themselves would be the sole arbitrators of what they wished, with developers then working to implement community visions and plans. In this case the communities in question are the villages of Bridge, Patrixbourne and Bishopsbourne.

A number of claims have been made by Quinn Estates and HICO Group about the proposed Highland Court development that simply do not stand up to scrutiny. One is that the existing farmland is “of poor ecological value and species poor”. There is no evidence that this is the case, but even if it were true – and the land under questions boasts extensive habitat for wildlife, including trees and hedgerows – then the solution would be ecological restoration through conventional farmland management techniques, not new buildings. It is claimed that the development would “enhance and improve the landscape and biodiversity of the immediate area”, including through “wildlife corridors”. Again, tried and trusted ecosystem techniques would suffice. It is preposterous to claim that extensive new build will improve biodiversity. Wildlife can already move freely through the site: “wildlife corridors” are only ever necessary when humans create barriers and obstacles to free movement, such as buildings.

Then there is the claim of economic benefits, such as the creation of “up to 1545 jobs”. The implication is that jobs will accrue for the local community, but they won’t. Under equal opportunities legislation employers are prohibited from favouring job applicants based on their post code.  Jobs must go to the best applicants, and in the vast majority of cases these will be outside the community. The economic benefits of this scheme for Bridge, Patrixbourne and Bishopsbourne will be slim to negligible, although the development will certainly lead to rich pickings for the real winners: the builders and owners of the proposed retirement and holiday homes, industrial estates and so on. Villages such as Bridge will be left to pick up the costs, including a spoilt natural environment and increased traffic.

As well as degrading a designated conservation area, the proposal will also despoil the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). But this does not appear to be a problem for the developers. The Kentish Gazette has quoted a representative of the Highland Investment Company as saying “Just because it’s an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty shouldn’t mean you can’t do anything with it”.3

There is a power asymmetry in UK planning, with the scales tilted heavily in favour of developers. Quinn Estates and HICO have spent time assembling an array of partner organisations with whom they are working. They include Canterbury College, Canterbury Christ Church University, Visit Kent, Pegasus Life and Kent Wildlife Trust. It is an impressive list, designed to give the impression that there is already a groundswell of support for the proposal from influential “stakeholders”. So is further resistance futile? We believe not. So far the general public has not given its consent. The Canterbury District Green Party and the Campaign to Protect Rural England have both voiced their opposition. 

ConserveBridge believes that the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) should lead to the complete rejection of the plans. Paragraph 115 of the NPPF makes clear that “great weight should be given to conserving landscape and scenic beauty” in national parks and AONBs. Paragraph 116 indicates that planning permission should be refused for major developments in such areas, except in exceptional circumstances and where it can be demonstrated that they are in the public interest.

That is clearly not the case with this proposal, which does not feature in the Canterbury District Local Plan. We therefore call upon Canterbury City Council to reject it. If you agree with us please make your views known to the Planning Department of the city council.

Notes

  1. Click here to see the displays from the consultations in Bridge village hall on Thursday, 28 September.
  2. Canterbury City Council (2005) Highland Court Conservation Area Appraisal, June. To see the document click here.
  3. Warren, Gerry (2017) “Quinn Estates reveal masterplan for huge leisure plan for protected countryside site near Canterbury”, Kent Online, 3 October. http://www.kentonline.co.uk/canterbury/news/masterplan-revealed-for-250m-scheme-133012/

A bad news week for the environment and citizens’ rights

This has been an eventful week for environmental issues at four levels - international, national, city and parish - of relevance to Canterbury and Bridge. And unfortunately none of it is good news. In different ways all the developments illustrate the problems that can arise when those with power act to exclude the public and their rights. Let’s start with the international news story, and then scale down to parish level.

International: At the start of the week it was reported that Britain is flouting its international obligations on air quality. In a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council, special rapporteur Baskut Tuncak slammed the UK’s record on air pollution, which causes an estimated 40,000 premature deaths in the UK every year. Tuncak stated that “Air pollution continues to plague the UK. I am alarmed that despite repeated judicial instruction, the UK government continues to flout its duty to ensure adequate air quality and protect the rights to life and health of its citizens. It has violated its obligations”.1

National: It might have been hoped that international censure on the country’s abysmal pollution record from the United Nations would guide Mr Justice Dove as he finished his judgement on the case brought against the Mountfield development. The case - Shirley & Rundell vs. Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government - challenged the proposed development on air pollution grounds. However, today ConserveBridge has learned the disappointing news that judgement has been handed down in favour of the government. Mr Dove’s reasons for judging as legal a housing development that the evidence indicates will lead to illegal levels of air pollution are not clear. Many thanks to Emily Shirley of Bridge for her hard work in bringing this case.

City: Plans have been unveiled for development on the Kingsmead recreation ground. A group of concerned citizens campaigned to save this open space from development by trying to register the land as a village green in 2013 under the Commons Act, 2006. The attempt failed, in part due to amendments to the Commons Act made by the Growth and Infrastructure Act, 2013. This includes a list of “trigger events” that can be used to prevent land being granted village green status, one of which is an application for planning permission.2 So the moment a developer applies for planning permission on an area of land it becomes too late for communities to claim the land as a common. Some might argue that the plans for Kingsmead - which include restaurants, homes and a cinema - will enhance the life of Canterbury. But who would disagree that the Growth and Infrastructure Act is a cynical piece of legislation expressly designed to load the planning system in favour of developers and against communities?

Parish: Deliberations on the Bridge Neighbourhood Plan took an alarming turn at the Bridge Parish Council meeting held on 16 September. Members of the public were asked to leave the meeting on the basis that the planning matter to be discussed related to confidentiality. A parish council is within its rights to withhold from the public information on the grounds of confidentiality unless there is “set against this, a very strong reason in the public interest why it should nevertheless be disclosed”.3

Here ConserveBridge would like to make the following points. We accept that there may be grounds for keeping discussions confidential, but only for a limited period of time and on an exceptional basis. The Bridge Neighbourhood Plan is a process in which all members of the community have an interest. Acting in secret did not serve this community well earlier in the neighbourhood plan process, as became clear earlier this year when an unauthorised approach for an amendment to the Green Gap was made to Canterbury City Council. There is a clear public interest in ensuring that all deliberations are transparent and open. We therefore call upon the Parish Council to make all information available to the public as soon as possible.

References

  1. Carrington, Damian (2017) “UN: Britain is flouting duty on pollution”, Guardian, 11 September, p.1 & 4. Also available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/10/uk-flouting-duty-to-cut-air-pollution-deaths-says-un-human-rights-report
  2. Growth and Infrastructure Act, 2013, 16(1)(6) http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/27/section/16/enacted
  3. See: National Audit Office (2017) Local authority accounts: A guide to your rights, p.8. https://www.nao.org.uk/code-audit-practice/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2015/03/Council-accounts-a-guide-to-your-rights.pdf This guide relates to accounts, but gives a good indication of when the claim to commercial confidentiality can be invoked.

Clearing the air: Mountfield's day in court

The judicial review of the Mountfield development took place this week at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. The case – Shirley & Rundell v. Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government – was heard before Mr Justice Dove. It was brought by Emily Shirley of Bridge and Michael Rundell, ably represented by Mr Robert McCracken QC, a leading environmental lawyer.

The case was brought after unsuccessful lobbying from several citizens for the Secretary of State to call in the Mountfield development on the grounds that Canterbury City Council had failed properly to consider the detrimental impact that the development would have on air quality. Last December the Secretary of State announced that he would not call in the proposal, leaving campaigners with no option other than a judicial review.

In court, Mr Robert McCracken noted that Canterbury City Council had referred to air quality mitigation in its report, but that the case was not about mitigation or amelioration of air quality but compliance, with the council failing to ensure compliance with existing legislation by producing an effective and up to date Air Quality Action Plan. Mr McCracken stressed that when refusing to call in the proposal the Secretary of State had specifically left environmental compliance to the council when, in fact, he was legally obliged to consider compliance with air quality legislation as a call in consideration.

 The feeling of those who attended the High Court this week was that Mr Justice Dove gave both sides a fair hearing. The decision will be announced at the latest by September. It is not possible to predict what the judgement will be.

Canterbury is not the only city in the news this week on air quality grounds. As the Mountfield case was being heard at the High Court a new policy on air quality was released by the Secretary of State for the Environment (Michael Gove).1 The policy was published after a 2016 court ruling that the government needed to improve measures to tackle illegal levels of air pollution. But for the city leaders of some of the UK’s most heavily polluted cities - including Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and Southampton - the policy does not go far enough; they have called for stronger measures and urgent legislation if they are to meet legal pollution levels.2

The leaders of these cities will be awaiting Mr Justice Dove’s judgement with interest; for if Mountfield is rejected on air quality grounds it could provide an important legal precedent for the rest of the UK.

References

  1. The government air quality policy, published on 26 July 2017, can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/air-quality-plan-for-nitrogen-dioxide-no2-in-uk-2017
  2. For comment and analysis of the new policy see: ‘Does the UK plan to tackle air pollution stack up?’, Financial Times, 27 July 2017 https://www.ft.com/content/09b589d8-71e8-11e7-aca6-c6bd07df1a3c ; ‘UK’s new air pollution plan condemned as “weak” and “woefully inadequate”’, Guardian, 27 July 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/05/government-fails-to-commit-to-diesel-scrappage-scheme-in-uk-clean-air-plan; ‘Diesel and petrol car ban: clean air strategy “not enough”’, BBC News, 27 July 2017 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40731164 

This is likely to be our last posting before the summer holiday season. Thank you for the all messages of support we have received. We wish our readers a good summer break.

Facebook face off: What are the limits of free speech on social media?

On 12 July British aristocrat Rhodri Philipps was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison for posting a threatening and racially-aggravated message on Facebook against the anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller. Philipps had offered £5000 to “the first person to ‘accidentally’ run over this bloody troublesome first generation immigrant”, referring to Ms Miller as a “boat jumper”.
 
Thankfully we don’t have this sort of problem in Bridge. The Bridge village Facebook site is an asset to the village. It was set up by two parish councillors and plays a valued role in the social and cultural life of the community. But two days after Philipps started his sentence a thread appeared on the site that some in Bridge have found unsettling.
 
The thread – now closed – appeared on 14 July. It was started by a villager noting that Canterbury City Council had ratified the local plan which includes a Green Gap between Bridge and the planned Mountfield development. It was suggested that the Green Gap is under threat from the Bridge Neighbourhood Plan. There was an attempt to open a debate, with the post finishing “What do you think?”
 
All very democratic; and had the thread been allowed to run a range of views could have been garnered to help the village’s decision makers. But after 6 likes and 2 agrees, two lengthy posts were made by the Parish Council chairman; some other villagers then posted that these contributions were inappropriate in terms of content and tone. Some further postings were made before a second member of the Parish Council intervened, after which the thread was closed.
 
You can see the thread on Facebook here. (If you cannot access Facebook please click here.) Our readers will make up their own minds on which postings were inappropriate. No one from ConserveBridge posted to the thread.
 Parish councillors are people with strong views; and they are fully entitled to hold and express these views. And, as we have made clear before in previous postings on this page, councillors are entitled to the appreciation of the community for serving the village. We are happy to repeat that here. One of the councillors who posted to the thread made clear he did so because he “wanted to give something back,” a motive that deserves respect.
 
But there is something else that is important too: councillors serve the community. They thus have to grapple with the dilemma of expressing both their own views, as well as the mood of the community. We accept that this cannot always be easy; but it is the nature of public office. Councillors cannot fend off criticisms and opinions they do not agree with by responding that they are “volunteers” who “do their best”. Like any public representative – such as city councillors, county councillors and MPs – they need to accept alternative views and, sometimes, criticism, alongside the plaudits and the praise. It should not be otherwise in a healthy democracy. The issues at stake – housing, preserving the shrinking Green Gap between Bridge and Canterbury, and our status as a rural community – are simply too important.
 
The disagreement on the Bridge Facebook site is trivial in comparison to the dark unpleasantness of the Philipps-Miller case. However, in very different ways both cases raise important questions on how social media should be used, the opinions that can legitimately be expressed, and the sanctions that should be taken against those whose views transgress what is socially acceptable. We note that this morning a new administrator’s message has appeared on the Bridge site: “Posts should be polite, no mockery or scorn - else you may be banned.”
 
We welcome this. We are confident that no one will be banned simply for expressing views that differ with those of community leaders; and we trust that the warning applies to everyone without fear or favour, members of the public and parish councillors alike.
 

GENERAL ELECTION 2017: Full house? Examining the need for more housing in the UK

 
When broadsheets from different parts of the political spectrum agree then politicians often sit up and take notice. One of the most recent such examples was back in 2010 when the coalition government announced plans to sell off the UK’s publicly-owned forests. Both the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian mobilised, running campaigns against the plans.1 The result: a hasty government U-turn. Today, thankfully, the British public can continue to roam freely in our public forests.

So when the Guardian and the Times found common cause last month it was noteworthy. The Guardian, left of centre and liberal, tends to interpret political issues very differently to the more right wing, and Murdoch-owned, Times, with the two rarely agreeing on anything.

The issue in question was housing building policy. On 7 April the Times ran a series of articles protesting against the increasing ownership of British homes for speculative investment, rather than as places to live. London and the southeast are the prime targets, but investors also have their sights set on other parts of the country. The newspaper reported that of the 282 flats in Manchester’s new Cambridge Street development, only two are being lived in by British owners.2 Most of the remainder have been bought up by overseas investors. Many are empty, as the costs and risks of renting the property are often not worth it for owners. The Times editorial leader of 7 April makes clear where it believes responsibility lies for fixing this problem: central government should levy taxes on overseas investors buying property for investment; and local councils need to take action against those who buy flats and leave them empty.3

The Guardian ran a similar series of articles some two years ago, including evidence that many luxurious flats in London are unoccupied, with the middle classes being squeezed out of central London to the increasingly more expensive suburbs. Last month the Guardian was quick to agree with the Times, citing a study from conservative think tank The Bow Group,4 which concluded in 2015 that a ‘global elite’ of investors is fuelling housing demand in the UK, leading to rampant house price inflation. The Bow Group conclude that ‘building more houses, despite being the solution most widely touted, is not the answer to the UK’s housing crisis'.5 The answer instead is tight regulation of entry to the UK housing market for financial investors, with owner-occupier demand treated separately to investment demand.

In Canterbury and surrounding villages we have been told constantly by many of our elected representatives that we ‘have no choice’ but to build more houses. Yet a key conservative think tank with open lines of communication to the government makes it clear that there is no evidence for this. Should the Mountfield development go ahead one has to wonder how many of the houses will be snapped up and left empty by overseas investors, rather than going to those with a social or economic stake in our community.

So just over a week ago we wrote to the four candidates for the Canterbury and Whitstable constituency, which covers the Mountfield area. They are Julian Brazier (Conservative), Rosie Duffield (Labour), James Flanagan (Liberal Democrats) and Henry Stanton (Green). We asked them three questions:

  1. Would you support measures from either central or local government to restrict home ownership by investors who then leave the homes empty?
  2. Specifically, what measures would you support? (One option is higher taxation of overseas investors buying property, similar to the 15% tax imposed by Canada and Singapore.)
  3. Do you support the proposed judicial review of the Mountfield housing development?

So far none of the candidates have replied. But watch this space; because if they do we will let you know.

UPDATE: On 1st June 2017 we did receive a reply from Sir Julian Brazier. You can read that reply here

References

  1. See for example or example: Daily Telegraph 29 October 2010; Daily Telegraph 22 January 2011; Guardian 5 November 2010.
  2. ConserveBridge cannot provide the hyperlinks for these articles, which are available behind pay walls. The articles in question are: Andrew Ellson and Gabriella Swerling, ‘Nearly 300 flats – and just two are occupied by British owners’, Times, 7 April 2017, p.9. In the same edition of the Times: Andrew Ellson, Gabriella Swerling and Alastair Benn, ‘Foreigners dominate market for new homes’, p.1.
  3. Times leading article, ‘Empty promises: councils have to stop foreigners buying up new-build flats and leaving them empty. They are being put out of the reach of first time buyers’, 7 April 2017, p.29.
  4. Deborah Orr, ‘It’s no longer just London: Now Britain is encircled by the property sharks, Guardian, 8 April 2017, p.37.
  5. Daniel Rossall Valentine and The Bow Group, Solving the UK housing Crisis: An analysis of the investment demand behind the UK’s housing affordability crisis, November 2015, p.4.

 

Adults in the room: Bridge Parish Council responds to the Annual Parish Meeting

Amongst the new books to appear in Waterstones’ Canterbury branch this week is the latest offering from Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister who opposed the imposition of harsh austerity measures on his country, much to the annoyance of the international financial elite. Eventually in Washington Varoufakis was asked point blank by Larry Summers, one of the high priests of the global economy; do you want to be on the inside or the outside? Summers said that outsiders prioritise their right to speak freely, but doing so loses support from the ‘insiders’. The insiders will shut out those who do not subscribe to the pre-existing consensus, defending their right (as they see it) to make the important decisions. “The key to such power networks is exclusivity and opacity”, writes Varoufakis in his book Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe’s Deep Establishment (Bodley Head Publishing, £20.00).

We will return to Varoufakis below; but first here is an overview of the main outcomes from this week’s Parish Council meeting (Thursday. 11 May).

Chairmanship: The incumbent Chair, Alan Atkinson, was re-elected. He continues to enjoy the confidence of a sizable majority of the council, with 7 of 9 councillors voting for him. However, he no longer enjoys unanimous support, with Councillor Paul Ferguson, standing as a “stalking horse” candidate, attracting two votes. It remains to be seen what, if anything, this small shift in the barometer of support will signify.

Green Gap: The Chair announced that he had written to the Housing Inspector regarding his unauthorised letter of 20 March requesting an amendment of the Green Gap between Bridge and Canterbury. He made an assurance to make public his latest letter which, he said, dealt with ‘the facts’ (although it is not clear at this stage what this means).

Neighbourhood Plan: The current draft contains plans to build in the two areas confirmed by the Inspector as conservation areas: the Brickfields and the Green Gap. The Council debated the motion passed at the Annual Parish Meeting of 27 April: that the Neighbourhood Plan be suspended pending adoption of the Canterbury District Local Plan. Councillors Paul Davies, Paldeep Dhillon and Paul Ferguson voted to respect this publicly-approved motion. With four votes against and two abstentions the result was a decision to overturn the APM motion. The Chair stated that the intention was for the Neighbourhood Plan to be completed around about September.

Cantley: Two matters of interest arose. First, it is now apparent that on 30 June 2015 Cantley proposed two possible sites for house building in the village: in the Green Gap; and land to the east of Conyngham Lane. Yet only the Green Gap site, favoured by some councillors, was presented to the village during the consultations of autumn 2015. Why was this? Second, Cantley wrote to the Parish Council on 20 April 2017 stating it wishes to sell land between the recreation ground and the A2 with planning permission for housing. Should this proposal not go ahead, Cantley wishes to build near Great Pett Farm.

Mountfield: The Council made the welcome decision to donate £1000 to the fund for a judicial review of the proposed Mountfield development.

Neighbourhood Plan Group Membership: With half the members of the NPG having resigned in recent weeks the suggestion was made to expand the membership. Councillor Paul Ferguson volunteered to serve on the group, noting his wide experience as a lawyer in dealing with planning regulation and his commitment to Bridge as a village. With the Parish Council evenly divided on his offer (4 votes for, 4 against, 1 abstention) the rules gave the casting vote to the Chair, who blocked the offer. It was pointed out that Councillor Ferguson could attend the Neighbourhood Plan Group meetings, but not participate in discussions. Adults in the room?

This was Mr Ferguson’s second meeting as a parish councillor, and he will have felt welcome by many of his colleagues. But on two or three occasions he faced hostility, with heckling and some openly disrespectful comments.  Councillor Ferguson was treated in a similar way to Mr Varoufakis in Washington: as an interloper. His is a voice that some clearly wish to silence. Is there room for insider-outsider distinctions on a council of nine? All councillors should have the right to speak without fear or favour, and offers of help should be welcomed.

As things stand, it seems likely that the Neighbourhood Plan will be completed as soon as possible (with the draft commitments to build on the Brickfields and on the Green Gap remaining) before consideration can be given to the Cantley proposals made public this week.

ConserveBridge notes again that the city is not looking to Bridge for new housing allocations and we reiterate our opposition to all new housing in our Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. We thank all those who serve the village, and call upon all members of the Parish Council to find a way to collaborative productively for the common good of the community and to preserve the integrity of Bridge as a rural village.

Democracy in Motions: The Annual Parish Meeting of 27 April 2017

The Annual Parish Meeting provided a valuable opportunity for Bridge Parish Council to report to the community on the good work it had done over the previous year. There were also reports on the Scout group, the Horticultural Society, the Women’s Institute, the recreation ground and the Mill Centre. There were generous rounds of applause for presentations on the CHEK campaign against the downgrading of Kent and Canterbury Hospital (thank you Martin Vye and Peggy Pryer) and the Kent Environment and Community Network’s campaign for a judicial review of the Mountfield development (thank you Emily Shirley). 

Two motions were presented. Parish Clerk, Philip Wicker, explained that if the motions were passed they would be advisory only to the Parish Council, not binding.

Motion 1: That no further work should proceed on the Bridge Neighbourhood Plan until the Canterbury District Local Plan has been adopted (proposed: David Humphreys; seconded: Kevin Jenner)

The debate on this motion reflected two main lines of argument. First, that the excellent work of the Neighbourhood Plan Committee should not be lost. Second, that the community is very fortunate in that the Housing Inspector has struck out further development on the Brickfields and confirmed the Green Gap between Bridge and Canterbury. With the Neighbourhood Plan proposing new housing both on the Brickfields and in the Green Gap the mood of the meeting was that at the present time a pause made sense. It was also noted that Canterbury City Council is not looking to the village for new housing. The motion was carried by an absolute majority of those present:  26 for, 15 against (with 9 abstentions).

Motion 2: That the Chair of Bridge Parish Council write to the Inspector withdrawing his letter of 24 March (amended version of a motion proposed by Councillor Paul Ferguson; seconded Fiona Ferguson)

As ConserveBridge reported earlier, the Chair of the Parish Council wrote to the government-appointed Housing Inspector on 24 March stating “I would be grateful therefore, if you would consider a slight amendment” to the Green Gap between Bridge and Canterbury (click here for the letter). Councillor Alan Atkinson opposed the motion by explaining conversations within the Neighbourhood Plan committee, and between this committee and the planning policy manager at the city council, that preceded him sending his letter.

It was noted in debate that an officer of Canterbury City Council had suggested that the neighbourhood plan committee could “highlight as part of their representations” that a site under allocation lies within the Green Gap, but that the Parish Chairman had gone further than this by requesting an amendment to the Green Gap without Parish Council authorisation.

The debate that followed included the need to demonstrate due process and integrity in decision making. It was suggested that the meeting was wasting its time debating the motion, as the Inspector was not prepared to accept further representations. In response it was noted that the motion under debate was not for a new representation, but to withdraw one already made so that it did not lie uncorrected on the record.

No vote was taken on the second motion after the Chairman agreed to write to the Inspector withdrawing his letter of 24 March.

The annual meeting is the main occasion when members of the public can question the Parish Council and, where necessary, hold councillors to account. It is an example of a mature democracy in action. The first motion will be debated by the next meeting of Bridge Parish Council. Once again it should be emphasised that councillors and others who serve the village do so voluntarily and in their spare time; they deserve the thanks and appreciation of the community.

 

Pause for thought: An air of resignation in the Neighbourhood Plan process:

19 April 2017

Some good work has gone into the Bridge Neighbourhood Plan in recent years. The idea of a Neighbourhood Plan for Bridge is based on sound reasoning: it gives the village a strong voice in its own future and prevents us from being entirely at the mercy of Canterbury City Council.

The decision of Canterbury City Council to proceed with the Mountfield development to the south of Canterbury will bring the city to the edge of Bridge village. It is a “game changer” for the village – and if the development goes ahead it will be essential that the Green Gap between Mountfield and Bridge is preserved. Not surprisingly, this has been reflected in discussions within the Bridge Neighbourhood Plan Committee.

For reasons that are not clear, five members of the Bridge Neighbourhood Plan Committee have resigned since mid-March.  They include the long standing chair of the committee, Professor Joe Connor. Members of that committee have given up their free time to work for the good of the village, and they deserve the thanks of all villagers for doing so.

It is important that the excellent work of the committee in recent years is not lost. But clearly the committee is in no position to continue with its deliberations at the present time. There are four reasons why now is a good moment for the committee to pause in its deliberations.

First, under UK planning law a neighbourhood plan must conform to the district local plan. So the Bridge Neighbourhood Plan must conform to the Canterbury District Local Plan (CDLP), which is due to be finalised later this year. At present the draft CDLP presents two features that we should welcome: the district is not looking to Bridge to build new houses; and the Green Gap between Canterbury and Bridge is likely to be confirmed. Once the CDLP has been adopted, the village will have a better idea of what we can, and cannot, include in the Neighbourhood Plan.

Second, movements are afoot to raise money for a judicial review to challenge the Mountfield Development. If the judicial review goes ahead it will focus on air quality. Hopefully it will succeed, and the Mountfield development can be halted. Either way, it makes sense to await the outcome of this review before finalising the Neighbourhood Plan.

Third, the resignation of five experienced members from the Neighbourhood Plan Committee deprives that body of some vital expertise and experience at a crucial time in its deliberations. Some of those who have stood down have given lengthy service, and their resignations represent a loss of institutional memory that will not easily be replaced. A pause will give the village time to recruit people of the calibre the committee needs.

Finally, it is no secret that feelings are running high in the village at the present time on housing issues. A reading of some recent postings on the Bridge Village Facebook page reveals an unusually high number of postings expressing dissatisfaction with recent developments on housing. A pause in the Neighbourhood Plan process will give an opportunity for the situation to calm down.

For all these reasons, it makes sense that no further work be carried out on the Neighbourhood Plan process until the Canterbury Local District Plan has been adopted.

The following motion (proposed: David Humphreys; seconded: Kevin Jenner) will be discussed at the Annual Parish Meeting in the Bridge Village Hall, Thursday, 27 April at 7:00 pm: “That no further work should proceed on the Bridge neighbourhood Plan until the Canterbury District Local Plan has been adopted”. Please come and make your views known.

 

Village consultation: dispelling the myths

22 January 2017

These comments have dispelled a myth that has been circulating within parts of the village: that a ‘majority’ of the village favour new housing development either on the Brickfields or to the north of Conyngham Lane between the village and Mountfield. On the contrary, it is now clear that the expressed opinion is strongly against new building, and that villagers are keen for the remaining Green Gap between the village and south Canterbury to be preserved.

This is good news – and here we can dispel a second myth, namely that if the Neighbourhood Plan Committee does not allocate sites for housing then Canterbury City Council will do this – and this may be on sites that the village does not want. We can understand where this view comes from: this is indeed the case when a city council makes clear that it intends to build houses within a particular neighbourhood.

Fortunately, however, Canterbury City Council is not looking to Bridge for housing sites. The village should welcome this, and not look this gift horse in the mouth. As we reported earlier, Bridge has escaped allocation in the city council’s local plan, the council wish to maintain the Green Gap between the village and Canterbury, and the Green Gap has the support of the government-appointed housing inspector.

Where does this leave us? We call upon the Neighbourhood Plan Committee to strike from the plan all housing allocations in the village. Canterbury City Council does not expect this from us, the government-appointed housing inspector does not support this, and the village does not want it.

 

Bridge’s status as a unique rural village now at risk

9 January 2017

This week’s decision by the Bridge Neighbourhood Planning Group to support housing developments on the Brickfields and to the north of Conyngham Lane in the neighbourhood plan was an unwelcome start to the New Year.

The decision flies in the face of advice from a number of quarters: when the Mountfield development was approved last month there was an agreement to maintain open space “in perpetuity”. And the government-appointed inspector confirmed the Green Gap to the south of Canterbury - while regrettably striking out that to the north (Mountfield: The good, the bad and the ugly ). Furthermore, an independent report  on the Bridge Neighbourhood Plan received before the meeting “strongly recommended” that Bridge Parish Council leave housing site allocations to the city council. And at present Canterbury City Council are not recommending any new housing for Bridge.

The Bridge Neighbourhood Planning Group gave no reason for this week’s decision, which leaves Bridge at serious risk of coalition with south Canterbury. There is no need to build either to the north of Conyngham Lane or on the Brickfields, both of which will erode our Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and extend the village envelope.

The same month (December 2016) that Canterbury City Council voted to approve Mountfield the Sunday Times reported that Inkberrow - the rural Worcestershire village that is the model for Ambridge, the fictional home to BBC Radio’s ‘The Archers’ - could be reclassified as a small town after developers won the right to convert a greenfield site on the outskirts of the village.

This is not just an amusing anecdote. The Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) has backed up research by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that 1,300 villages vanished under urban sprawl between 2001 and 2011. The head of planning at CPRE, Matt Thomson, was quoted by the Sunday Times as saying that the planning system is “tilted” in favour of urban developers, “guaranteeing that many more villages will be swallowed up.”

Could Bridge suffer the fate of Inkberrow and become a town? As things stand that could well be the best we can hope for. If building to the north of Conyngham Lane is approved, and when Mountfield is completed, Bridge will effectively be a suburb of Canterbury.

Read CPRE’s Green Belt Under Siege report which warns of the threat that urban development poses to green belts and village life.

Mountfield: The good, the bad and the ugly

15 December 2016