THREE RIVERS DISTRICT COUNCIL

CONFIDENTIAL – NOT FOR PUBLICATION

At a meeting of the Local Development Framework Core Strategy Member Working Group held in the Penn Chamber, Three Rivers House, Rickmansworth, on Monday 16August 2010 from 11.30am to 2pm.

Present:-Councillors Martin Trevett (Chairman), Phil Brading, Geoffrey Dunne, Stephen Giles-Medhurst, Chris Hayward, Amrit Mediratta, Ann Shaw OBE and Ron Spellen.

Officers:-Renato Messere, Head of Development Plans

Joanna Bowyer, Senior Planning Officer

Janet Ide, Committee Manager.

Also in attendance: Nicola Morris, Stomor Ltd

Sue Swain, Hertfordshire County Council

Ruth Gray, Vincent and Gorbing

County Councillor Terry Douris, HertfordshireCounty Councillor

Kate Maguire, Hertfordshire County Council

Dick Bowler, Hertfordshire County Council

LDF06/10LOCAL DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK SITE ALLOCATIONS - SECONDARY SCHOOL SITES

The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting and asked them to introduce themselves.

Ruth Gray from Vincent and Gorbing, Planning Urban Design Development Consultants gave a presentation on future secondary education requirements.

The Cabinet report to Herts County Council in December 2009 (meeting demand for school places) presented a deficit by 2012-2013. Demand for education had increased and was set to increase further as a result of birth rates. In Rickmansworth Secondary Education area – Year7 places, the existing number was 603 and by 2021 this would increase to 681. Watford Secondary Education area Year7 places, the existing number was 1,134 and by 2021 this would increase to 1,315.

In Bushey 72 places were available. It was estimated that 12 Forms of entry (FE) 360 places would be required up to 2021 across Rickmansworth and Watford. Two x 6 FE expansions of existing schools or new sites are to be provided.

Preferred Education Model

Councillor Phil Brading noted the forecast of children already born and children that would be born as a result of known new housing development such as the Durrants site. If anything, these numbers were on the low side and there would be additional requirements going forward to 2021 and beyond.

Kate Maguire stated the ChildrenSchools and Families (CSF) had more detailed work on using house projections received from the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) numbers. This considered existing housing and, if more housing was provided, that would be taken into account. The forecast was as robust as it could be.

Mr Dick Bowler stated a significant thing for District Council in response to MrPickles’ letters and guidance from Chief Planner was whether you were going to stick with or lower your increase in housing numbers. Although it was noted that there would be an increase in demand simply through increased birth rates of existing population, which was most influential in terms of projections. The first discussion was about total numbers of children coming through and the second was about distribution of those children. This needed to be looked at Ward by Ward and should consider children from existing houses where demand was coming from and from proposed new housing.

Councillor Chris Hayward asked at what point would you start to break down that distribution Ward by Ward. If demand was heavy in certain Wards he thought this must have a bearing on site location.

Site Area Requirements

Ruth Gray on behalf of Vincent and Gorbing stated as follows:-

Building Bulletin 98 requires 9.72 to 11.04 hectares for a secondary school, 12-13 hectares including parking. This was likely to increase because of access, public rights of way, topography, all weather pictures etc. There was an option to look at split sites where you might have a building zone of 4 hectares and supporting playing fields elsewhere.

Split Sites – In terms of education delivery sub-optimal. 400m was the maximum distance between school and its playing fields and this must be along a proper public footpath.

The Council was obliged to look at brownfield sites and greenfield sites within urban areas. There were a lot of sites within urban areas as well as adjacent urban areas.

Site Search criteria excluded any areas that were within floodplains, woodland, golf courses, established parkland and archaeological areas. The preference would be to achieve pedestrian and vehicular access satisfactorily, with no undue impact on the highways network and reasonably good public transport links. Sites where there was a need to link into primary roads and country lanes would be unacceptable according to highways.

The assessment needed to look at the whole Watford and Rickmansworth area and undertook studies in five separate areas. The areas excluded were beyond the M25 as not as accessible to the population of Rickmansworth and Watford. Efforts had to be concentrated exactly where sites could be achieved which would be close and accessible. Mapping of Secondary Schools in Rickmansworth, Watford, Abbots Langley, Bushey, and South Oxhey was undertaken to look at the potential of those schools to provide expansion before looking at potential land to provide new sites.

The assessment of potential for expansion of existing schools looked at operating school size and capacity to accommodate 8 FE on its current site or potential to acquire adjoining land or deliver within 400m distance. At each of the school sites a site appraisal and site visit was carried out. Working in parallel, another piece of mapping work was undertaken to search for potential new sites.

The whole of the five study areas were mapped and included in the report to identify Green Belt, various other constraints, overhead power lines and flooding. This exercise produced a long list of 30 potential sites which was circulated at the meeting. Some of the sites were rejected at a fairly early stage and were marked in black on the list. These sites had constraints that would preclude any secondary school provision.

There were still a number of significant sites worthy of further investigation. Stomor Ltd was appointed to undertake highway appraisals of the remaining sites so we were clear of any overriding access issues. Quite a few of the sites were rejected. The shortlist of potential and preferred sites was highlighted in blue on the list.

Conclusions

In relation to existing schools, in the Rickmansworth area StClement Danes was identified as having potential for one additional form of entry. StJoan of Arc had no potential for expansion because parts of the site are located within flood plain, there would be significant distance between school buildings and playing fields, conservation area and listed buildings also create a constraint. RickmansworthSchool had no potential for expansion because of highways issues and because it would involve acquiring third party land.

Councillor Phil Brading questioned the ruling out of the expansion of RickmansworthSchool on the basis of highway constraints, as there was the possibility of limited highway improvements. There was a significant amount of land in front of the fence line in the ownership of RickmansworthSchool and the County Council and there was room to improve the currently nasty bottle bank which was planned to be removed to make some highway improvements.

Volume of Traffic

Nicola Morris stated that there was no room for a drop-off facility but even if a drop–off facility could be provided it was doubtful that it would accommodate a sufficient volume of traffic to help with the bottleneck, particularly at the intersection. They could look at different arrangements with traffic lights but whether the site itself could accommodate the accumulation of traffic and coaches and whether it would be safe for people to walk to school was a concern. The broad aspects had been looked at but there were lots of problems in terms of volumes of traffic.

Nicola Morris stated that all the sites would require a full transport assessment.

Of the three schools in the Abbots Langley area it was felt that Parmiter’s was the only school with potential for expansion by up to 1.8FE. StMichaels and Francis Coombe could not be expanded. The capacity of High Elms Lane and the potential impact on A405 was a significant issue.

Ruth Gray stated there were two potential areas within the curtilage of Parmiter’s, to the east and west of existing buildings. The land to the west in between the woodland and main building was perhaps better than land to the east which was between Crematorium and school buildings. It formed a visual link to land beyond. A moderate building expansion in that area was possible if there was a sufficiently robust strategy and landscaping was acceptable.

There were no Secondary Schools in South Oxhey. Of the three schools in Watford, both Watford Grammar Schools were highly constrained sites and had reached their potential in terms of highways. WestfieldSchool had recently been extended and it was thought there was no potential to expand that site further as it would need to take in extra land.

Schools in Bushey and Radlett secondary planning area were not in an area of deficit. Having looked to see if there was any potential for expansion, it was considered that Bushey Mead and Queens did have potential but BusheyAcademy would need further highway appraisal.

The Education Authority should be planning for at least one new Secondary School site and one reserve school site to make up the shortfall in Rickmansworth and Watford areas to ensure that there was sufficient potential for future expansion.

Councillor Chris Hayward asked whether Coalition Government education plans had been considered and how and when could this be factored in for consideration.. These could have some impact upon this whole issue.

Kate Maguire responded that it would be difficult to be able to factor in what kind of impact a free school agenda would have. Some parents were coming to us and asking for our views. We needed to take a responsible view in terms of maintaining education. If the agenda moved forward for parents to open educational establishments, this would have to be taken into account as and when it happened in line with the forecast for the future.

Mr Dick Bowler suggested that it was clear from planning guidance that nobody could just change the use of existing buildings to school use as there were highway and safety issues, quite apart from neighbour issues. As a Planning Authority you might need to consider whether such proposals were likely to come to fruition in this area and which buildings could be turned into schools, assuming continuance of the current national standards.

CountyCouncillor Terry Douris said there was a responsibility to ensure there were sufficient places in the wider maintained sector and what effect they might have on planning and what the schools’ admission codes might be.

. The capacity analysis of the existing schools ran in parallel with the analysis of potential sites. Potential new sites not ruled out by the site search criteria had highway assessments undertaken. The summary analysis summarises the results of the different considerations. Red indicates a severe constraint on development, amber further technical investigations would be required and the green dots where it was considered that there was no real constraint. This enabled unsuitable sites to be flagged up instantly.

Other sites were looked at where there was potential for a split option. There was potential at Mill End Recreation Ground (Site 4) for a school building with playing fields adjoining. The existing uses would need to be relocated. Nicola Morris stated there was access off Shepherds Lane and Mill Way, 7.3m wide. The possibility of some dispersion of traffic was considered.

Site 7 – Baldwins Lane Recreation Ground could be a split site. It was large enough to accommodate school buildings and provide playing fields but would involve the relocation of the recreation ground. Could look at land to the north, Site8C former Durrants site, and Site17 north of Killingdown Farm to provide playing fields and relocate playing fields. This would not be tenable as the buildings were further than the 400m minimum approved distance.

Site10 – OMT – presented an opportunity in terms of walking distance of the building zone and detached playing fields which could be located on Site11 which had planning consent for residential development. This was another split site from the CSF viewpoint and was sub-optimal in terms of education delivery. There were good reasons to eliminate split sites 4, 7 and 10.

Councillor Ann Shaw deplored the suggested use of the land east of A405 (Site2). This was Grade2 agricultural land, a viable farm and a good landscaped area which this Council had fought hard to protect. The access into Long Lane was appalling. The Police regarded it as one of the most dangerous pieces of road in Three Rivers. The corner of this site has the site of an historical farm building and it was in the Green Belt. It belongs to Wallis Family Trust and there was an agricultural tenancy on it. She considered the Froghall Farm site was preferable.

Ruth Gray recognised that using Site 2 would result in the loss of agricultural land. There were noise and air quality issues on this site and it was not in Herts County Council ownership. It was adjacent to urban areas of Rickmansworth which meant accessibility to population. The site was flat and large enough and there could be a robust landscape mitigation strategy.

Nicola Morris had looked at possible points of access on surrounding road network and general safety. Each of the sites had been considered and a short review had been included in the Vincent & Gorbing report. This had been discussed with the Highways Authority for their initial views. Key brief assessments had been made and everything would be subject to full transport assessment including looking at traffic generation, public transport links, cycle routes, pedestrian routes and how they would work together.

For each site there were problems and possible solutions and scope for improvements. The assessment considered where there was an existing access, how an access would impact on the highway network and any detrimental impacts.

There would be an intensification of use on the access in Long Lane. A new access would not be created on to an ‘A’ road. The process would be to look at highways safety speeds improving visibility at bell mouth. If it were physically possible to achieve this access, this would be the chosen route. In each of the sites there were pros and cons for providing an access. You could improve it without going into Long Lane. A footpath and cycleway could be provided. Visibility could be improved and speed reductions could be imposed coming off the roundabout. There was scope for improving the right turn facility. A 30mph restriction could be imposed along the frontage. The site was on the side of the main bulk of the catchment area. Pupils could walk from the residential area and it had a direct pedestrian route into the site.

It was asked why the matrix score was not amber instead of green.

Highway policy was not to allow access on to an ‘A’ road. Whether or not there was scope technically to provide access, this went against major policies. A school site with an access on a residential street had a big impact on that residential street.

Sites had been ranked according to where people could get good access without too many problems and without jeopardising highway issues.

Councillor Chris Hayward stated he was not against this area geographically within the district but was opposed to this site for reasons Councillor Shaw had explained. He thought it was impossible from our local knowledge of that site.

Mr Dick Bowler stated that through various public processes there would be some discussion about need and sequential testing of sites. The process around LDF and site allocation may propose a number of sites for testing. If more than one site came out of that then there would be the test of planning application and planning permission and whether in Green Belt or not. There would be a huge testing of these sites. These particular sites were in the Green Belt and the impact of new building would be very significant. After the issue of planning permission there was the issue of acquiring a site with such a large requirement and need to improve highway to the site and other access and these may be reasons to acquire more land. The County Council faced compulsory purchase processes. The general position was that we had done some work which indicated the sites which ruled out straightaway and sites that were marginal and some that were achievable.

Councillor Chris Hayward stated he was very nervous of going out to public consultation on any sites which we felt we could not support.

Councillor Stephen Giles-Medhurst stated there were strategy issues as to who LDF consultation was with and who was going to manage this consultation. If Three Rivers did not support consultation it left us in a quandary.

Site11 – Land North of Little Green Lane, Croxley Green