TONG AND FULNECK VALLEY ASSOCIATION
Minutes of the meeting of the Trustees held at The Schoolroom, Tong Village on Thursday 3rd May 2012 at 7.00 pm
Present:
The Rev’d Canon Gordon Dey(in the Chair) / John Finnigan / Graham Inskip
Tony Wadsworth / Jackie Shepherd / Michelle Ward
In Attendance:
Daniel Bridgeman / John Harrison / Tina ClaytonPaul Inskip / AD Brook / SM Wood
Carol M Haley-Smith / Rev’d Steve Davie / John Denham
1. Welcome Canon Dey welcomed all those Trustees, members and other interested parties present and declared the meeting open. The Chairman particularly welcomed Mr John Denham from the Council for the Preservation of Rural England who had agreed to speak later in the meeting. He also expressed his thanks and appreciation to the Holiday Inn who had made the meeting room available to us at no cost and who had further generously provided refreshments.
2. Apologies Heather Watson, John Muddiman, Michelle Morgan, Helen Nightingale, Stuart Andrew MP
3. Minutes of Trustees Meeting The minutes of the meeting of the Trustees held on 8th March 2012 were received and noted by those present as being a correct record of that meeting. John Muddiman was thanked for producing them in the absence of the Secretary.
4. Matters arising from Minutes
Item 6(b) The petition was now standing at just short of 1100 signatures.
Item 7 (LDF) The correspondent for LDF matters with Bradford Council has been notified as being the Chairman, with copies to the Secretary. This is important as when the Cores Strategy is approved by the Council there will be a very short period in which to re-register objections.
Item 7.3 (SHLAA) The Chairman has met with John Harrison and Graham Inskip and they and Bob (?) have subdivided the area between them to consider whether the SHLAA represents and honest assessment of the available housing sites. Both John Denham and Steve Davie commented on the practical ways in which the SHLAAs were constructed. It was agreed that it was valuable to continue to look at the SHLAA and to identify sites which might not have been considered yet by the council.
Item 8.2 (Walk) The Chair expressed his thanks to Paul and all those who had helped with the leafleting that had taken place relating to the walk and the housing proposals. Over 2500 leaflets had been distributed. The walk would be reported on later in the meeting.
5. Communications The Secretary had received a letter of resignation from Heather Watson, who was moving from the district, which he read to the meeting. It was resolved to thank Heather for her hard work on behalf of the Association and for taking over the Treasurers role. John Harrison indicated his willingness to take over as Treasurer, and accordingly It was resolved to appoint John as an additional trustee, subject to his signing the appropriate declaration of eligibility
6. Chairman’s Report The Chair said that he felt that it would be advisable to place on the Agenda a spot for a Chairman’s Report. A copy of his report, which he read to the meeting, is annexed.
The Chair also took the opportunity of mentioning comments which had appeared in the Telegraph and Argus attributed to the MP for Bradford South, Gerry Sutcliffe, which suggested that the recent Protest Walk publicity had been associated with the activities of the Respect Party. The Chair pointed out that as a group the Association is non-political and certainly not allied to any political party, and that we have been working closely with all parties in the areas affected, lobbying and informing as appropriate. All the Association had said in its publicity material in relation to the local elections was that it encouraged voters to look carefully at what the candidates had said, to ask questions if they thought fit and to exercise their vote as they thought fit. Members were of course free to engage as individuals in political activity, but that did not indicate that the Association was allying itself with any political party, which it would not do.
A number of comments were raised from the floor. In particular Mr Wood spoke of the ecological project that he was involved in and suggested that the group should make a particular point of emphasising the effect on the conservation of flora and fauna of intensive housing development on the edge of the countryside. Mr Wood’s project focuses on mushrooms, but comment was also made about the Springfield Project which could be directly affected by urban expansion at Holme Wood. The Tong Valley could, Mr Wood argued, become a sustainable ecology and a conservation showpiece for Bradford. Steve Davie suggested that our case would be enhanced if as a group we could project an alternative vision for the area. The Chair said that we had some time and the space to think about becoming more pro-active.
It was agreed that John Harrison would convene a working group to be entitled the “Alternative Vision Group” with Michelle Ward and others who expressed an interest.
Steve Davie said that it would be helpful if we could ascertain what the agricultural value of the land affected by the proposed developments was. He assumed that there had been some scientific evaluation at some stage. If the soil is of poor value, then the case for development would be much stronger. Reference was made to the Landscape Assessment in 2008 which had indicated that the Tong Valley was the least appropriate of the sites assessed for development, but no information was to hand as to whether this was backed by a detailed soil report. John Denham said that he would check with his regional office to see whether they had anyone who could help us on the scientific front.
7. Treasurer’s report and Banking arrangements Heather Watson was not present, but had sent a written report indicating a balance in hand of £627.83. Discussion took place about fundraising possibilities Michelle Ward referred to a site easyfundraising.org.uk. She will look at this and report back.
8. Guest Speaker. John Denham Campaign to Protect of Rural England Mr Denham indicated that he was a volunteer with CPRE. Each region/district branch of CPRE is a separate charity and he is the Chair/Secretary of the local branch. There is no actual group in Bradford. He had been impressed with what we are doing and encouraged the group to persist.
He outlined the changes which had taken place in planning legislation and particularly with the new simplified planning guidelines which were more reasonable than CPRE had originally feared, but which left many open issues where the effect was uncertain.
In respect of the LDF he said that local authorities had been required to check that their LDF proposals fitted the new guidelines, and accordingly he expected that the Bradford LDF would be delayed a few months for such checks before a final proposal was put to Council. Once the authority had adopted a final proposal there would be a 6 week period in which objections could be lodged. The system of reference to an inspector seemed to be the same.
He said that the new guidelines give more protection to greenbelt land as greenbelt should not be considered for development unless there were good reasons. It was pointed out that Bradford argued that an urban extension at Holme Wood was needed in order to provide a sustainable base for the regeneration of the Holme Wood estate. Mr Denham said that it was arguable that that would be one of the grounds for saying that the green belt use was justified “Sustainability” was probably the most tricky issue in the new guidelines, and as yet it was impossible to say how this would be interpreted. Steve Davie said that it was important that the Association understood that there was an issue of urban sustainability as well as one of rural sustainability, and that clearly could result in some conflict in this area. This may be another issue to address in our visioning exercise.
Thanks were extended to John Denham for giving up his time to address us and for the most useful observations he had made.
9. Report on Protect Walk The Chairman extended his thanks to Graham and Sean for their work in bringing this event together and to all those who had distributed the leaflets. The day had not been as good as on previous walks, but the event had been well attended. Martin Bennet had e mailed and had already been in touch with Bradford Council on footpath issues raised. The Chairman said that Martin had a very good relationship with the Council and that Fiona Plane, the relevant officer, was very keen to ensure that issues were promptly dealt with.
A member said that we needed to ensure that we had a first aider on all future walks, as there had been some slips and bumps due to the very muddy conditions in parts of the footpaths.
10. Future activities
a. Michelle Ward reported that Fulneck Junior School had now agreed to engage in a summer project for Year 6 around Tong Village and the Tong Valley, and this would take in the Tong Church Bell Restoration also.
b. Suggestions for further consideration at our next meeting were a picnic at Mossdale, a rally and an open day in the Tong Schoolroom. It was important that people knew that the campaign continued and that the LDF was the next round.
11. Other business
No other matters reported.
12. Date of next meeting
It was agreed that the next meeting would arranged for 28 June at 7.00 pm
13. Close
There being no other business the meeting closed at 9.05 pm.
Chairman
ANNEX
Chairman’s Report to the Trustees – May 2012
Our Association will be celebrating its third full year of operation in September this year, having already been in existence in embryonic form for twelve months previously. However the past few months, and the months that lie ahead of us have been and will be critical to our task of ensuring that there is long term protection assured for land with green belt status in the Tong Valley and at Westgate Hill. Whilst the sustaining of this priority was the key factor that established our Association in the first place, for a lengthy period there was hope that Bradford Council could be dissuaded from the inclusion of this land in their Local Development Framework Plans. The Council’s implacable determination to use the Holme Wood Partnership Board and its Neighbourhood Development Plan as a means of including green belt release brought any such hopes to an end, and since then we have become more clearly focused on opposing such a plan, and objecting to proposals in both the NDP and LDF Core Strategy.
TWO KEY PRIORITIES
We have essentially attempted to do so in two ways:
Firstly we have sought to ensure that our opposition is made by careful reasoned argument that highlights the issues that we see as being pertinent to the proposals. We have been careful not to exaggerate or overstate issues, and we have always sought to bring our concerns to those who should be reviewing them. Three of our Trustees have been members of the Holme Wood Partnership Board, where we have been consistent and appropriate challenging the NDP proposals, and went to the lengths of producing a ‘Minority Report’ that highlighted the reasons for our inability to vote in favour of the Option Two housing expansion plans.
We have responded carefully and appropriately in the two main Consultation exercises that have been held in respect of both the NDP and LFD Core Strategy, and we have attended and responded positively to invitations to speak at Council meetings that have vetted or received the NDP proposals. We have urged bodies (e.g. CPRE) which have environmental concerns and responsibilities to similarly respond to such Consultation exercises.
The complex nature of the documentation that relates to the development of the LDF has been daunting, however we have tried to work with this, and our current determination to monitor Bradford Council’s Strategic Housing Land Assessment documentation is relationship to availability of sites in Tong Ward is an on-going process.
Secondly we have sought to gain as much support for our campaign as possible, both from local people who live in our communities, and more widely. We have used local media outlets to ensure that the Council’s plans are being fully appreciated, and the Telegraph and Argus’ ‘Save our Green Spaces’ campaign has been particularly beneficial. We have forged helpful relationships with a wide spectrum of voluntary and statutory groups, and this has been particularly helpful with regard to support and engagement with Bradford and Kirklees Councils, and we have met with local councillors who do not belong to the controlling Labour Group, and who are mostly in sympathy with our opposition to green belt release. Our website has been a key strategic resource for us, and our aspiration to make better use of Twitter and Face Book is a work in progress.
We have sought hard and consistently to have opportunity to meet with our own local councillors and Member of Parliament to enable us to reflect together on the Core Strategy, and explore whether there is any room for finding a common way forward, but all meetings, letters and e mails have been unsuccessful in achieving this.
Recently the opportunity to use the local election process as a further opportunity to encourage local people to express their support or opposition to the green belt release proposals has been a valuable one. Whilst we have delighted to note that at least two of the election candidates have included opposition to green belt release in their campaign, we have been careful not to align ourselves with any particular political party in a way that might compromise our charitable status. As we meet we await the result of this election.