From: Jonathan Bailey
Sent: 15 February 2011 12:31
To: Planning LDF
Subject: Re: Revised Core Strategy - Park Farm

Comments on the revised Core Strategy

Dear Sirs,

The process used for Thornbury was different from that used for the rest of South Gloucestershire (Thornbury was added at the Town Council’s request). The Sustainability Appraisal ostensibly used to support the selection of the site was not made available until some months AFTER the selection had been made in 2010, the Sustainability Appraisal for the rest of SGC’s Core Strategy being produced in 2008. The revised Sustainability Appraisal is still totally inadequate, biased, and should be started again from scratch

The population of Thornbury did not have an opportunity to debate the site options before the decision had been made, their views have been ignored at each stage of the process. ‘Improvements’ to the Core Strategy and Sustainability Appraisal have been made, but no notice has been paid to the actual concerns raised, SGC’s attitude to ‘community involvement’ is to follow their Statement of Community Involvement process - but totally ignoring all counter arguments - and then say they carried out public consultation.

The majority of the Core Strategy (excluding Thornbury) appears to have required only minor changes between August 2010 and December 2010, probably because the residents were able to share in the Sustainability Appraisal data at the Issues and Options stage. However, Thornbury - 500 houses out of 21,500 proposed for the area being less than 2.5% - elicited over 60% of all the representations. Of this total of 736, over 95% objected to the preferred location.

As a result of the points made in the representations by Save Thornbury’s Green Heritage and others, SGC has had to fundamentally rewrite the Sustainability Appraisal, and has belatedly included attempts to justify its decisions, but has still singularly failed to provide evidence that building 500 houses will improve the vibrancy of the town centre, address school roll issues, or the town’s alleged demographic issues.

The site at Park Farm is still the least appropriate in Thornbury because:

  1. it forms a logical edge between the town and the countryside of the Severn Vale
  2. it is too close to some of the main historic sites in Thornbury – the Castle, St Mary’s Church, the mediaeval fishponds, listed buildings –it would irrevocably destroy an ancient deer park, and it contains a wide selection of Biodiversity Action Plan priority protected species
  3. it contains mainly Grade 2 or 3a agricultural land, much of it organically farmed
  4. the flood risk pushes most possible development to the north of the site
  5. it is too far from the town centre to walk, and access via Butt Lane will exacerbate traffic problems, and more so if and when the new power station build commences
  6. transport connection on to Park Rd has not been properly thought out – there are serious safety and traffic issues, plus impact on the conservation area
  7. it would require major infrastructure development to make it viable at a time of national austerity
  8. the town doesn’t have the infrastructure to cope with that increase in the population. There are too many empty retail units, one supermarket (Aldi cannot be included as it isn’t suitable for this town), a minimal in-town bus service, car parking etc

The conclusion is that the choice of the Park Farm area as the preferred location for housing development should be deleted from the Core Strategy as it is not based on a sound foundation of evidence, and there has been minimal consultation with the residents of Thornbury.

Why can’t we have a proper analysis of the needs of the town, and a plan to meet them?

Jonathan Bailey