Following the welcome decision of Bridge Parish Council to donate £1000 to the fund for a judicial review of the Mountfield development the fund now stands at £8400. To contribute to the fund, or to learn more about the judicial review which will focus on air quality, please contact Emily Shirley on climaterecovery1@gmail.com

Canterbury City Council have launched a review of community governance, including the role of parish councils and how citizens can influence decisions. You can find out more about the review and how to contribute to it here: https://www.canterbury.gov.uk/your-council/have-your-say/consultations/community-governance-review/

The Bridge Neighbourhood Plan Committee has hired AECOM, a construction and management consultancy firm, to carry out a Strategic Environmental Assessment scoping report. The purpose of this exercise is to identify the extent, and level of detail, of information to be included in the environmental report that will be used to consider the sustainability of the Bridge Neighbourhood Plan. This includes biodiversity, heritage and landscape issues. The draft report can be found here. This has been sent to the statutory consultees, namely the Environment Agency, Natural England and Historic England. Please make your views known. If you have comments please address them in writing to the Clerk to the Parish Council by 16 June 2017. The Clerk can be contacted by email at clerk@bridgevillage.org.uk or by letter to 47 High St, Bridge CT4 5JZ.

ConserveBridge has received a copy of the letter sent by the Bridge Parish Council Chair to Canterbury City Council for the housing inspector, as called for by the public at the Annual Parish Meeting in April. The letter (attached here with email addresses deleted) makes clear that the Chair’s earlier letter of 24 April requesting a reduction of the Green Gap between Bridge and Canterbury was not sent with the approval of Bridge Parish Council. You can find the original letter here. We thank the Parish Chair for clarifying this, and are pleased that the record has finally been set straight on this important matter for the village.

Cantley has contacted the Parish Council stating that it wishes to build houses between the village and the A2, opposite the recreation ground. If this proposal does not go ahead, Cantley wishes to build near Great Pett Farm. It is understood that this message was sent on 20 April, but not announced publicly until the Parish Council meeting of 11 May. At a busy Parish Council meeting it was also announced that Chairman Alan Atkinson has written to the local Housing Inspector regarding his letter requesting an amendment of the Green Gap. For a full report on the Parish Council meeting of 11 May see Adults in the room: Bridge Parish Council responds to the Annual Parish Meeting.

At a crowded Annual Parish Meeting in the village hall on Thursday, the Chairman of Bridge Parish Council agreed to write to the government-appointed Housing Inspector withdrawing his emailed letter of 24 March requesting an amendment of the Green Gap between Bridge and Canterbury. The meeting also voted to suspend the current Bridge Neighbourhood Plan process, pending the adoption of the Canterbury District Local Plan. See “Democracy in Motions: The Annual Parish Meeting of 27 April 2017”.

ConserveBridge understands that half of the Bridge Neighbourhood Plan Committee has resigned in recent weeks. The reasons for these resignations are not clear. However, recent meetings of the committee have seen committee members express some very different views on new house building in Bridge, and the sites (if any) where new houses should be built. Related to this is the issue of the Green Gap between Canterbury and Bridge. See “Pause for thought: An air of resignation in the Neighbourhood Plan process”

On 24 March Alan Atkinson, the Chair of Bridge Parish Council, sent an email to Mr Moore, the government-appointed housing inspector, asking that the Green Gap be amended to accommodate building to the north of Conyngham Lane. Cllr Atkinson’s letter stated that “The Bridge  Neighbourhood Plan has allocated a site, one which is just within, but at the edge of, the proposed green gap between Bridge and the City”. 

Villagers will have received a hand delivered leaflet today from the Kent Environment and Community Network with the welcome news that judicial review proceedings against the Mountfield development were lodged in the High Court on 8 February by Emily Shirley and Michael Rundell. The challenge is against the failure of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to call in the application on air pollution grounds. Some 100 people die annually from air pollution in Canterbury. The aim is to raise £25,000 for the costs of the legal challenge. The leaflet posted through letter boxes asks that anyone who would like to contribute or support the campaign contact Emily Shirley at climaterecovery1@gmail.com

Bridge Neighbourhood Plan Committee considered development schemes for Great Pett Farm.  Drawings showing 1) a 10 unit private scheme (4 and 5 beds); and 2) a 30 unit private and affordable scheme (2, 3, 4 & 5 bed houses) were considered with the expressed view that these created a new option that might be more acceptable to the village than others proposed to date. The Neighbourhood Plan Committee decided that the development schemes for Great Pett Farm should be considered by AECOM, a technical services firm, together with other identified development sites in the village, as part of a strategic environmental report, similar to one that AECOM had done in respect of Faversham Creek (http://archive.swale.gov.uk/assets/Planning-General/Planning-Policy/Faversham-Creek/Faversham-Creek-Env-Report.pdf).