For those who don’t already know, Manydown is a large piece of land to the west of Basingstoke that was purchased jointly by the Borough and County Council (though the County haven’t paid their bit yet) back in 1996 so that future development of Basingstoke could be well planned and raise enough money to fund infrastructure.
Obviously this proved controversial and the local Tories have pushed down the agenda as they don’t want it built on, well not yet any way.
In trying to work out where to build homes for the next generation, the Council started by drawing up the SHLAA (see HERE) They then did a public consultation (which the Tories then selected the comments they agreed with to justify their argument). When the Planning and infrastructure Overview and scrutiny Committee met to discuss sites, we were presented with not a list of options, but sites that had already been selected. Manydown was not amongst the sites selected, when Councillors asked the Chairman of the committee, he said Manydown was not up for discussion as it was not on the paper. The committee started to look like a fawlty towers sketch – The Tories are here, don’t mention the Manydown.
The reason given for Manydown’s omission was that it was not available as the landowners were not promoting it for development. Of course the landowners are technically you and me. But as they’re the majorities on both the County and Borough Councils, the Tories act like they’re the owners.
There were three motions on Manydown. One disputed whether ‘not actively promoting Manydown was the same as it not being available and asking for a special meeting to discuss it. The second, a Lib Dem motion asked for it to be considered available and asking Manydown to be included in the public consultation. And finally a motion calling for scrutiny* of the whole process of how Manydown went from an investment to insure better planning of future developments to ‘off the agenda’ to leave Chineham taking the bulk of future housing.
Well the mist of common sense that arrived earlier was blown out of the Council chamber with a quick blast of Tory hot air to be featured in part 3.
* Plain English – if you are not sure how a decision was made, you can ask a question. Where they’re are lots of questions from many people and each answer will lead to another question you need to set up a panel who can access all the facts, all the paperwork and quiz the decision makers to confirm everything was done fairly, this process is called scrutiny.
Gavin, I wonder why you continue to call for unrestrained development on Manydown - is it just a vanity project for you? I shudder when I read these pages and calling for a dual carriageway to be built across the land down to the M3 - does environmental protection mean nothing to you? Why will you not engage with the fact that this is prime agricultural land and government planning policy - from the time of the LAST government - now seeks to preserve prime agricultural land (that has changed since the purchase of the site in 1996 so you cannot pretend circumstances are the same). i wonder where you think our food supply will come from in the future when we can no longer afford to import everything?
ReplyDeleteAnd i also wonder why you steadfastly ignore the public consultation which found that 59% of the public wanted homes built ACROSS the borough and fewer than one in four wanted a major development in one site? Why will you not listen to the clearly expressed views of the people?
Manydown WAS discussed and it was dismissed by the Planning Inspector - what is the point of going back through all these arguments again? The Inspector made it quite clear that any development over 1800 homes was not sustainable. Time to move on and accept that we cannot have massive development in just one part of the borough - the residents don't want it. The politicians should listen.
I also think it is hypocritical for a politican in the borough to be demanding massive development in other parts of the borough - why are you not calling for more housing in your own ward if the housing shortage is as acute as you claim?
I would suggest reading the speech on Full Council part 3 to see what I actually said and called for.
ReplyDeleteKempshott resident
I feel it is appropriate to respond to some of your comments and questions.
I have never called for 'unrestrained development' and would oppose it anywhere. The reason for considering Manydown now is so development can be properly planned.
I also want to defend these 'politicians'. You refer to councillors. We are real people. We have a responsibility to listen to residents but also have a responsibility to future generations. Our schools are full of children who are relying on us to provide them with the homes they will need in the future, just as our predecessors did for us. Councillors have to listen to both residents and research.
The needs of the next generation will only be met by using some greenfields. The planning inspectors report concluded that west offer less landscape damage and better prospects of delivering infrastructure that land to the East, so we should at least consider it. If you read the alternative LDF strategy prepared by the Save Manydown group it said that Manydown was not needed until after 2016, so it now needs inclusion on their own analysis. Indeed the planning inspector reduced the length of the local plan to 2011 so infrastructure could be looked at, he didn't say it couldn't be done.
I can't stop the population growing, the population needs housing. However as you can see from the rivers motion and my calls for renewable energy in the past, I am keen to protect our environment. We have to live in harmony with our environment
Building on Manydown will have a negligible impact on food supply, as mentioned elsewhere on this blog, some 30% of food produced is wasted, reducing that figure to 29% would allow us to return 100s of Manydowns to the woodland it once was.
People keep using the public consultation so say people didn't want all the development all in one place. Strange that if you suggest building 1800 homes on Manydown is 'all in one place'. Build 1800 in Chineham and it's dispersal?
Eastrop (my ward) has provided much of the housing growth in recent years, some 900 homes, not a single house with a garden! We have run out of space to build out and have built up. No other wards have residents living on the 19th floor. Planning consent has been granted for more apartments on the former Brook House site and Greytown House but developers are reluctant to start these now as the need is for houses, not apartments.
I opposed a planning application on the former Webbers site, I wasn't opposed to housing, just the design and whether the top of town is the best place for a home for the most elderly and frail residents (it was granted on appeal as the borough did not have a sufficient housing supply). I also opposed building apartments on car parks as they are much needed, not so much by my residents who can easily walk to town, but by people further away, such as Kempshott residents.
My ward also supports the wider town economy with Festival Place, the 'new' Malls and the re-generation of Basing View, which I have supported. All that leaves is green public open spaces. These are more important than ever in Eastrop, when some 1 in 4 residents don't have a garden. However I have consistently opposed development of urban green open spaces any where in the town including Down Grange in Kempshott.
My motion was simply suggesting giving the public the chance to look all at the options and have a sensible debate.
Even when I don't agree with it, I respect others their right to hold a different view. On reflection you may re-consider your view that I am a hypocrite and don't listen, though you have every right to think I'm wrong!
Gavin, I do appreciate your very full and frank response: it's nice when politicians are so open and willing to engage with ordinary members of the public. Thank you.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I could respond to a couple of your points? Firstly, dispersal. I do agree that, ultimately, Manydown will have some development and I’m not defending its total exclusion from the SHLA - in that sense I don’t have a problem with 1800 homes on Manydown. But, here’s the rub – let’s build 1800 homes on Manydown provided that other parts of the borough meet their fair share too (and yes, that means building in Chineham and East of town as well – that is what dispersal means). However, it's absolutely clear that many councillors - especially for Chineham and Basing and for Whitchurch - want NO development at all in their areas and see massive development on Manydown as the panacea. What I, and clearly a majority of the town's residents, object to is any revival of the "vision" of a mini-town, with 8000+ homes (and that was just the start) that was thrown out by the Inspector, and with good cause. You've vocally supported this scheme in the past, and when you start calling for things like dual carriageways across open countryside, it rather suggests you are still banging this drum. Do you now rule out a major development area in Manydown or do you still support it? What level of development would you like to see there? 8000? 16000 homes?
Secondly, it comes down to numbers. I'm afraid we HAVE had unrestrained development in Basingstoke over the past two decades - 1300 new homes a year recently; the largest number of new homes in ANY borough in the UK over the past decade and a half apart from Milton keynes. This level of housing isn’t about meeting the demands of residents or of our children. This is OVERdevelopment and OVERsupply, and it was to meet these unsustainable (and, frankly, mad) targets that we developed projects like an MDA on Manydown. For that, our local politicians – as well as the last national government with its centrally imposed targets that were often changed at the stroke of a minister’s pen– need to take a lot of the blame. And why do you think Hampshire County Council has been so desperate to build on Manydown – it’s so that they don’t have to build in the more prosperous areas of the county, like Winchester and Romsey. So your argument that Manydown needs to be developed now doesn’t stack up because it’s built on a completely false and unrealistic set of numbers that used to govern our local plans. We also need to accept that the economic situation has changed, possibly permanently, with regard to housing – the days of a housing boom based on cheap credit are over, and this will deflate demand as people put off buying a home until they are older, whilst governments accept they can no longer to subsidise ‘affordable homes’ in the same way. THAT's why your developers no longer ewant to start schemes.
Thirdly, the food supply issue is going to become more, not less, important as global prices and imports rise– imagine if all boroughs and councils took your view and just sacrificed prime agricultural land!
One final point – I would counter your arguments and say that we need to be wiser about how we use our existing urban space. Yes, we absolutely SHOULD be building flats and homes on open air car park sites in town centres – car parking can be more sensibly provided through multistoreys. It’s ridiculously wasteful to have open air carparks. And as a ‘Kempshott resident’ I’d rather not have to drive in at all and park in the centre – I’d rather my borough and county councils provided a decent bus service, rather than cutting it back as has happened in each of the past three years, and I’d rather be able to catch a bus after 6.15 at night, which I cannot do at the moment.
Thanks for reading - and thanks for replying.
Dispersal is a bit of a fluffy term. Over what period? Since 1996 we have seen massive growth to the South with Beggarwood, to the North with Rooksdown, Merton Rise and Popley fields and to perhaps a bigger extent, to the east with Chineham and Taylors Farm and Bramley and pretty much nothing to the west. So to be consistent with dispersal, it could be argued the west of town should now take its share, which points to Manydown!
ReplyDeleteFrom a rural point of view, Whitchurch has lead the way. They looked at how many children there were locally and how many were on the needs register and argued for that to be their allocation. Cllr Watts has never said 'no' development in Whitchurch but didn't want it used as Basingstoke overspill. He also feels that those who have grown up in Basingstoke, probably wouldn't want to be forced to Whitchurch either. Other small towns and villages are, quite rightly, being encouraged to do the same. Oakley are the only village to argue they shouldn't have to provide housing, not sure where they think their children should live, though Manydown would be closest!
As far as how many we build on Manydown. We have to make it a great place to live and bring benefits to existing communities (Country park etc). The inspector ruled out 1800 as he felt that would not provide the needed infrastructure. However, I am not going to fight against 'cramming' and protect public urban spaces in the existing town, just to build a crammed development somewhere else with no open spaces. There is every chance my children will live on Manydown one day, if we can't do it well, we can't do it.
I accept your view on the economy impacting on house building. Last year the boroughs target was 945, yet 800 were built which proves the point we agree on that the last governments targets were silly. However they were based on what they felt the needs of the area were, we thought they were too high, the new targets are going to be lower. None of the political groups will over supply (developers won't build want they can't sell anyway). The FACT is there are some 4500 families in this borough without a proper home. Hundreds of children sharing bedroom with there parents or parents sleeping on sofas because the homes simply aren't there. Single people unable to look for work as they have no address and don't know where they're sleeping tomorrow. Of all those new homes built in recent years, they're full, lived in - that is not oversupply.
It would easy (and electorally beneficial) for me to say no more garden grabbing, no more flats, no building on greenfield sites, no more building on parks and allotments, but it would be wholly dishonest, that's the old politics I hate. I am being honest, some greenfields are needed to house our children, I think it is only right and fair we warn the public rather pretend there is an alternative and then break the promise a few years down the line.
In terms of the car parks, they would provide a very small number of very small flats and semi detached to a multi storey car park, they won't be great places to live either. The number of flats provided, if every site was used, would be less than 100. They would not prevent greenfields being used, just delay it by a month or two! Of course bigger surface level car parks exist at Sainsbury's near where you live, would you support building 18 storey flats there?
As for food supply, Are you seriously arguing that the next generation should live rough/cramped and never have a home of their own just so their increasingly obese parents can continue throw a third of all the food grown into the bin! If you are, you may find that side of the argument a lonely place!
I agree with you totally on buses though!