Category: Housing

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Alresford Housing LDF Littleton Planning Winchester

Finally… LDF consultation moved to a more suitable venue

After all our previous efforts, the council has finally moved the Winchester consultation meeting for the Local Development Framework to the Guildhall.

This means that there now spaces available on January 17th.

As mentioned previously, this is a hugely important paper for the future of the Winchester area setting out the strategy for major change across the District over the next twenty years – particularly in terms of planning and housing. It’s essential that anyone who is interested should be able to get a place in one of the consultation meetings.

There’s been an incredible level of interest. The meetings in Alresford, Winchester and Wickham have had to be moved to larger buildings and a new meeting has been set up in Littleton.

You can book a place at any of the remaining meetings via this online form.

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Alresford Housing LDF Littleton Planning Winchester

One step forward – two steps back

After all our pressure back in December, the good news is that there is now going to be an extra consultation workshop for the City Council’s Local Development Framework in Littleton Village Hall.

But the two other consultations in the new Winchester Constituency – in Alresford and Winchester’s Discovery Centre are already fully booked out – with 9 or more days to go before the meeting itself.

We still need at least one more consultation in the City itself. The Local Development Framework, while sounding boring, has huge implications for our city over the next 20 years.

As I said back in December:

The proposals on the table (including an effective assumption in favour of developing on Barton Farm, Abbots Barton and Pitt Manor, and including possible further expansion north and east of the current Barton Farm site, on Teg Down, on Bushfield Camp and further into Pitt Manor Farm) are going to be hugely controversial across the city and also have a potentially huge impact in areas outside the city, such as Oliver’s Battery, Badger Farm, Kings Worthy and Compton.

We urgently need more consultation meetings to ensure that local people’s voices are properly heard.

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Environment Housing Micheldever Micheldever Station Eco-Town

Micheldever Eco-Town: not eco at all

The Dever Society has launched an online petition against the proposed Micheldever Station Eco-Town.

Despite the Town’s supposed environmental credentials, I’m also opposed and have signed the petition, primarily because the Town’s environmental credentials are a sham: the proposal is not environmental at all. By creating a new transport node equidistant between Basingstoke, Andover and Winchester, the new town will create a huge amount of extra journeys. As and when we require further housing, our priority needs to supporting sustainable lifestyles in our existing town centres – this plan does the exact opposite.

One element that takes a while to sink in is how completely enormous the proposed town is. Eagle Star (the owner) are proposing to have 12,500 new houses and close to 30,000 residents.

When I hear the word ‘market town’ in this part of the world, I tend to think of Alresford, Whitchurch or Wickham – but this proposal is bigger than Alresford, Whitchurch and Wickham added together! Compared to the 12,500 houses proposed for Micheldever Station, there are 2,300 houses in the town of New Alresford – around the same number in the town of Whitchurch, slightly fewer in Wickham and only 14,500 in the town wards of the city of Winchester. This is an absolutely huge development.

It’s important that as many people as possible sign up to back the petition. Anyone can sign up – details are at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Micheldever/.

If you need to know more, the Dever Society has a very useful briefing, and extracts from the speech I made at their public meeting in Micheldever Station are below.

Continue reading “Micheldever Eco-Town: not eco at all”
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Alresford Housing LDF Planning Winchester

Consultation. What consultation?

The City Council has announced their consultation plans for Winchester City Council’s Local Development Framework.

This is a hugely important paper for the future of the Winchester area. To quote the paper itself, it covers:

what need(s) to change across the District over the next twenty years

and covers:

  • The broad location and balance of development across the authority’s area,
  • Management of the housing supply,
  • The balance between employment and housing
  • The delivery of affordable housing

Despite the critical importance of this strategy, it is currently proposed to have only two consultation meetings in the new Winchester constituency – one in Alresford and one in the new Discovery Centre. And the one in the Discovery Centre is in a room that contains fewer than 180 people (or 120 people if it’s organised for a workshop as planned).

The proposed consultation in Alresford makes sense, but the proposed consultation for the rest of the area around the city of Winchester is completely inadequate.

For perspective, over 450 people turned up to discuss the Tower Arts Centre in the Guildhall and over 200 people turned up to Littleton Village Hall to discuss the closure of their post office. Over 100 people turned up to discuss the Oliver’s Battery village design statement!

The proposals on the table (including an effective assumption in favour of developing on Barton Farm, Abbots Barton and Pitt Manor, and including possible further expansion north and east of the current Barton Farm site, on Teg Down, on Bushfield Camp and further into Pitt Manor Farm) are going to be hugely controversial across the city and also have a potentially huge impact in areas outside the city, such as Oliver’s Battery, Badger Farm, Kings Worthy and Compton.

There’s also a problem that not every option has been properly examined. Some villages are asking for faster expansion than proposed in the paper so that they can continue to support their local school. And important issues such as the Micheldever ‘eco-town’ are not being given the scrutiny they deserve.

In light of this, the proposal to have a single meeting in the Winchester area, in a room that holds 120 people, to discuss the future of the Winchester area over the next 20 years, is a total joke.

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Housing Planning

Déjà vu

I was going along Bodycoats Road in Chandler’s Ford today when I had a sudden attack of déjà vu. I was sure I had been there before.

Bodycoats Road

It couldn’t have been from the 2005 election, since most of our work in Romsey during the 2005 General Election was in Palestine, up in the north of the constituency, and in Romsey itself.

It then struck me that it must have been from the by-election in 2000, since on one Sunday a team I’d brought from Ealing Acton & Shepherds Bush was sent out to Chandler’s Ford. This was confirmed when I visited someone who I remembered canvassing!

My main memory of the Romsey by-election (aside from the result) was being so infuriated by William Hague’s speech about asylum speakers shortly before the election that the next morning, I called my boss, booked a day’s holiday for election day and then, on election day, went and pounded the streets until the polls closed.

As in Winchester, several of the people I met in Chandler’s Ford mentioned planning as an issue. On the one hand, young families who were born and grew up in the area are forced out by high house prices. Many couples who now live outside the area bring their children back to be christened in St Boniface because they still feel that Chandler’s Ford is home. On the other, no-one wants to see over-development and too much stress put on local services and infrastructure. As is so often the case, Government centralisation has a lot to do with the frustration that people feel in this area. Councillors are too often forced to act as an arm of government, rather than advocates of their local area. Everyone locally, including local councillors, ends up feeling that no-one is listening. Pushing true and full decision-making down to a more local level has to be the way forward to help release this tension.

Finally to the US elections. It all seems very much as the Democrats were predicting when I went to meet them back in June. My brother has just taken American citizenship and lives in the marginal state of Virginia, where they appear to be having the closest senate race. If the Democrats win Virginia by one vote, I will be very proud.