Housing development powers for villages

[kevin wooldridge]

There is an interesting twist however in the potential vote on such developments. My understanding is that such plans could go ahead provided that not more than 10% vote against such development...... rather than a straight majority in favour. If only such logic were applied to the General Election - sorry Messrs Cameron and Clegg you are unfit for office because more than 10% of folk voted against you....

As Vulpes suggests there is nothing in this proposal that goes against current planning rules.... other than the presumption that such development would be deemed acceptable if all other conditions are met. I wish sometimes people would read the fine detail rather than just comment on the headline....a discussion on Britarch on the same subject has got all kinds of folk flustered, none of whom seem to know what they are actually discussing!!

[Unitof1]

Vulpes I agree that these not much in this that will affect the current status quo. Its an extra bit of fluff requiring a trust and we know all about them in archaeology.

On the eia stuff I see it as European agreement treaty stuff that is quite hard for governments to get out of. EIA mostly get ignored on size grounds but I have never found that there was a definitive size criteria. Its noticeable that lots of eia scooping options are undertaken for district authorities and an incredible number of screening exercises (basically ask the council if you need an eia) are undertaken but always leading to un required decisions which always makes me wonder why they went through the motion in the first place and to my mind there in lies the uncertaintys.

I feel that if there were any objectors that at some point they would call for an eia requirement and the bureaucrats in development control would agree and will find they have a part to justify their existence.

Does any body know what the smallest area that an eia has been produced for? Whats it for semi permanent grassland for example

[kevin wooldridge]

I believe that EIA can also be required if the cost of a development exceeds a certain cost (or 'magnitude' as it is described in the legislation) - so maybe size in your hand isn't everything...

But here are the definitive lists (see schedules 1 and 2)

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/uksi_20092263_en_1

Abstraction of water can be reason for an EIA and one presumes the size of the surface impact in such a scheme could be minimal, but its wider effects (i.e on the water table etc) could be enormous....

Oh and by the way (and before the Daily Mail readers get onto this) Environmental Impact Assessments are a requirement under UK law...not as a requirement of EU regulation....

[drpeterwardle]

The Invisible man said,
to protect their own pseudo-rural lifestyle and property values, but how many have the faintest idea how to go about a development, or what might constitute good or bad, over (or under) development, architecture, road layout, infrastructure, security, effects on roads, schools etc. and so on?
Vulpes said
"But will please those who wish to see no development in their twee commuter belt villages (Tory voters)."
As I write this from my twee commuter village where I enjoy a pseudo-rural lifestyle - it is the most desirable village in the south of England. I would like to point out I do not vote Tory.
I must say that I think that excluding tree hugging town dwellers from the process is potentially a good thing. The issues of rural social housing are complex. The current system is unsatisfactory especially how the housing targets are set. The basic issue is who should have the right to a massive subsidy in their accommodation to allow them to live somewhere nice, with good schools, low crime and a higher life expectancy (we also have good shops, restaurants, pubs, a thriving live music scene excellent public transport links)?
There are already social housing schemes built on green belt land- these are called rural exception sites so there is no change in this. What this policy does is allow us to decide what happens in our own village not by people who live elsewhere. I live in where nine villages are represented by two councillors. Our two district councillors are not from our village they live in other villages and how the boundaries have been set works against the democratic wishes of the people of the village.
In terms of the expertise required to do a small housing scheme yes we as a village damn well do have these skills. With a professor of architecture (and a dozen others), a professor of Town and Country Planning (former Head of planning with a LPA), dozens of property developers, engineers, site managers, project managers, builders, ecologists, transport surveys and land surveyors there are very few skills we lack as a village to do this kind of project.
As for the annoying oiks whinging about their precious badgers or ancient bones yes that exactly how you are perceived. Realistically how many village sites are there where there are major archaeological difficulties (mine is one of these) which can't be sorted out by a bit of mitigation?
As to which way our community would decide to go that remains to be seen and will depend upon the detail of the proposal, the design and who can live in these houses.
Peter

[Unitof1]

yes kev schedule 1,2 etc they say that geographical size should be taken into consideration but never if there is a cut off size. As a result is it 85,000 places for broilers or 60,000 places for hens per: farm, landowner, field or 10 square metres. Which is why we need an authorising authority to decide, lucky for them hay.


and hello to the good doctor-doesn?t really sound like you live in the countryside which is one of the problems with the ?countryside?. The concept seems to be relying or trying to reintroduce the parish as some meaningful political entity? I can see issues about second homes and who gets to vote but whats interesting about my parish is that it has been amalgamated with another parish and that means we are up to the grand total of 62 people according to the last census.

[Sparky]

Kevin,

Each member country of the European Union is required by a directive (85/337/EEC and followed later by others) to have in place legislation for the provision of the assessment of environmental impacts. So yes, the legislation is ours but only because we have to. Now, who has taken my Mirror and replaced it with the Mail....?

[Dinosaur]

We've still got a wapentake up here in amongst all the boring parishes, would that be covered the same?

The village I'm most familiar with, in rural Worcestershire, has around 400 voters but can only field 1 small local family builder off Dr Pete's tick list, despite a floating population of around a dozon or so millionaires living in the place (including in the past a major rock star, an earl and various self-made Brummy businessmen).....funnily enough there's a critical need for affordable housing for the 'real locals', half of whom these days have to live in a caravan park 4 miles away, but not the expertise to get anything built under the new proposals despite all the money sloshing about......but these days I'm one of those know-nothing urban types living in central Newcastle, handy walking distance for a top 10 world party city (oh how we laughed!) so maybe disqualified to comment....

[drpeterwardle]

Yes our village can boast a few major rock stars past and present as well but there are limited various self-made Brummy businessmen - I can only think of 3. Yes it is the countryside it is also in an outstanding part of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. In our village there is a net commute into it and a minority of people work.

Different villages have different needs and this varies in different parts of the countryside. Yes many villages will not have the expertise but I can think of many villages in Worcestershire that will have. Dinosaur makes my point when he says "who are the real locals"? Is it my wife whose family have lived in Oxfordshire for many generations. Is it the children of people who moved here in the nineteen sixties? Is it families who have been here a 100 years/200 years or since the village was founded in the C8? Are incomers from the nearby villages allowed?

As for people with second homes, that people do not rent out, making the problems worse this is simply not an issue there are only two properties which are second homes and both worth well in excess of five million.

What does unite people is the desire to preserve and protect the area. The population will simply not wish to damage the historic or natural environment. The question is how can this be reconciled with a perceived need to build affordable houses.

Peter

[Dinosaur]

Affordable housing would be better than mobile homes! (I forgot to mention the site's been known to flood occasionally)

As it happens my example is somewhere where rich people actually go to live and commute to Birmingham etc, can only think of a couple of second homes and they're mostly overpriced barn conversions outside the village anyway - would second home owners get a vote? That would skew things badly, they're the people most likely to object to development, one would suspect.....it's getting ridiculous when all the people who actually make the place work (someone has to serve all the beers and food in that oh-so-nice village pub) have to commute in from somewhere else - no problem here though, anyone need some students?

[kevin wooldridge]

I think I will wait until Brian Aldridge gets this one going in Ambridge before I comment any further.....