Local Plan: Letters

Infrastructure is under threat

South Canterbury infrastructure is already overloaded with the current rapid rise in house building, with many of these houses unsold. Gridlock on pot-holed roads, sewage overflows and power cuts.

Once again the city council is being charmed by builders to give them precious greenfield sites to cram in maximum high-priced houses for their own high profits.

The farmland opposite Langton Boys' Grammar was sold to a builder some time ago and because the land can only be used for educational use, the builder has offered to build a new school - in return for consent to build on the existing Girls' Grammar School site, which has recently had a lot of ratepayers' money spent on it.

Add to this all the other proposed houses to be built in South Canterbury, stretching to the Bridge bypass, and this will result in a complete infrastructure breakdown. What a surprise that this proposal was not published until after the local elections!

Listen to your ratepayers who fund your salaries for once and stop this crazy plan to move the school.

J.C. Rogerson, Nackinqton Road, Canterbury

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A sad dismissal of community

I was very interested to read Bob Britnell's response to my call for  the Local Plan to be community-led and for a pause to allow for proper community input. I have always much respected Mr Britnell's straightforwardness and I genuinely believe he means well, but his rather dismissive assessment of community involvement is very sad indeed.

The Canterbury Society's recent and excellent document The Future of our City clearly illustrates that a very positive contribution can be made by community groups.

Also, the National Planning Policy framework actually requires substantial public engagement in the plan-making exercise. It clearly stresses that 'early and meaningful engagement and collaboration with neighbourhoods, local organisations and business is essential. A wide section of the community should be proactively engaged, so that the Local Plan, as far as possible, reflects a collective vision...'

Moreover, I wonder if Mr Britnell has actually read the final report of the Mori poll of residents which he cites, as it is fully in tune with the intelligent community and amenity societies that he seems to admire and yet decry.

As the summary findings unequivocally state regarding more house-building and the comparison with present rates of construction: "the majority support building in principle but most prefer same/slower pace".

This is directly at odds with the Preferred Option Local Plan which is premised throughout on the basis of a much higher level of house building.

Finally, it is my strong conviction that the most robust Local Plan will be a truly community-forged one.

Rev Paul Wilson, Clare Road, Whitstable

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An additional 4,000 houses planned alongside New Dover Road is a major issue for Canterbury and not one to be regarded as just too big a ship to be turned or for members of the public to be intimidated by rhetoric. It is apparent that central government sees house building as a way to stimulate the economy and is putting pressure on local councils to comply.

House building provides employment for the building industry during the course of construction and some maintenance work thereafter.

However, one would have thought a much better strategy would be to concentrate on the creation of industries that will produce income, provide long-term employment and manufacture goods and services that  can either be exported or that will  reduce the amount of goods being imported into the country.

Employees need housing but there is limited benefit to having housing without the creation of businesses for the employees to work.

What I would like to see is an independent detailed and factual environmental study of the impact of this proposed housing development. We saw recently with the Westgate Towers trial that what appeared to be a small change in traffic flows gridlocked Canterbury for almost a year, and since the trial ceased it is like someone has waved a magic wand.

Building 4,000 houses on the edge of Canterbury is not a trial that can be reversed and I feel it will take a bit more than bypassing the Sturry Road level crossing and a fast bus service into Canterbury to prevent permanent gridlock of traffic in and around the city. What is interesting is that in his report to the planning committee on the proposed crematorium near the University of Kent, council officer Cullum Parker drew attention to the potential impact of the site on traffic. I would suggest that if traffic from this site will pose a problem it will be nothing compared with the impact on traffic of 4,000 additional houses.

John Morgan, Church Lane, Kingston

HB Gazette 30th May 2013

Local Plan: Letters

Local Plan must be community-devised

I am writing as a local minister who is interested in fostering good community relations and also as an ex-policy planner concerned to see good environmental outcomes.

I was very interested to receive notification of the Canterbury district preferred option local plan and I attended and spoke at the Council Overview Committee at the Guildhall on May 13.

In preparation, I read the draft local plan and all the supporting documents in my spare time. I confess I fell asleep during at least one of the very many technical reports! However, I was delighted to read early on: "As a council... we are ambitious and will do the best for our people".

Can I graciously suggest that in order to fulfil that promise, our elected representatives and our public servants might find it helpful to ask themselves if the draft Local Plan actually reflects the emphases in the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) on the need for the Local Plan exercise to be creative, collective and realistic?

I believe the local plan, which will run to 2030, should certainly be a "creative" production, as the NPPF puts it: "finding ways to enhance and improve the places in which we live our lives". It's good to embrace the future with hope and to be imaginative.

Let's allow the Canterbury City Council policy planners to dream dreams! But at the same time they and their political masters must not frame policies and proposals in a fashion that is remote from the populace they serve. The local plan process should definitely be a "collective" one! In terms of the NPPF again:

"Early and meaningful engagement and collaboration with neighbourhoods, local organisations and business is essential. A wide section of the community should be proactively engaged, so that the local plan. as far as possible, reflects a collective vision and a set of agreed priorities for the sustainable development of the area..."

Also, the local plan must be "realistic" if it is to succeed in terms of maintaining healthy communities in our district, promoting growth and ensuring sustainability. In his foreword to the NPPF, Greg Clark, the Minister for Planning, says "Local plans should be aspirational but also realistic". They should address opportunities for development and the environmental implications of planning choices. They should reflect genuine needs and local concerns.

At this stage, I have some concerns and misgivings. I'm concerned about the over-reliance on the ancillary reports produced and testing of possible scenarios carried out by private consultants. The local plan needs to be community-devised and community-led. Not simply informing us about what has been prepared for our benefit, but involving us in the framing of policies and proposals that will directly affect us.

As I read the draft local plan, I confess that I fail to even hear consistently the convincing voice of the professional planners offering coherent advice to us and deduce that they themselves may be struggling to reconcile the myriad consultant reports that have been commissioned to underpin the plan.

I'm concerned about the disconnect between the evidence gathered and the proposals contained in the draft local plan. The Mori poll of residents says "Don't use greenfield sites" and a commissioned study says "Protect and conserve" in south Canterbury yet the draft local plan says, in effect, "OK to use this grade 1 agricultural land for development". Supporting studies highlight congestion and the urgent need to surmount gridlock in Canterbury yet the draft local plan proposes a 4,000 home development that will inevitably add to traffic flows in and around Canterbury city centre!

Can I finish by suggesting that my fellow residents get ready for the forthcoming consultation exercise by looking at the draft local plan on the CCC website? Please look at the plan in the round, thinking about the various and some unique pressures on our district, as well as noting carefully how it will impact your own neighbourhood. Do participate fully when the consultation process begins in mid-June, so that the finished local plan document that goes before the Planning Inspector will be truly be the Community's Preferred Option Local Plan!

The Reverend Paul Wilson, Whitstable Baptist Church, Middle Wall, Whitstable

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Vision of 2031 is a nightmarish one

Canterbury City Councils' draft (surely daft?) local plan is a ill-thought out long-term project to make the district's over-population and congestion problem many times worse ("Visions of 2031: are we on right track?", Times, May 9).

If the Canterbury area is already suffering from a gridlock and pollution crisis, I dread to imagine what an extra 15,600 homes will add to this nightmare. Now, on a clear, warm day one can stand on the hillside at the University of Kent, look down over Canterbury and view the plainly visible omnipresent smog cloud which envelops our city.

As our population increases incrementally this current carcinogenic chemical fog will likewise be growing in size and toxicity every year. By 2031 air pollution is likely to be so catastrophic that respiratory/cardiovascular illnesses will have reached epidemic proportions whilst residents and visitors will be forced to wear particle filtration masks (commonly worn by people working around asbestos) as a matter of routine.

Canterbury City Council executives are systematically destroying the district by constantly approving the uprooting of what remains of our vegetation, house-building we don't need and the opening of countless small business-killing chain stores.

My vision of 2031: Paradise lost

Clive Wilkins-Oppler, Canterbury

HB Times 23rd May 2013

Local Plan: concerns need to be addressed

THE Rev Paul Wilson, of Whitstable Baptist Church, appealed to the council to "pause to get things right." He said:

Rev Paul Wilson

"Above all, the Local Plan needs to be community-led, community-devised and community-tested. We need a plan we can be sure is the community's preferred option - not telling people, but involving people. Community concerns need to be recognised and addressed, including the possible over-reliance on consultants’ reports and testing. The draft Local Plan represents an incredible balancing act but it needs more community assessment. I suggest a forum of community representatives from civic societies. community groups and chambers of commerce to test it first."

Christina Astin

Christina Astin, who is head of science at the King's School, was concerned about the size of the proposed development in south Canterbury and its effect on the setting of the city.

Janet Larkinson

Chairman of Harbledown and Rough Common Parish Council Janet Larkinson feared the plan could mean the resurrection of the Park and Ride site in Faulkner's Lane and urged the council to expand Wincheap first.

Dick Eburne, from Herne Bay, said new homes would generate more traffic and much more needed to be invested in public transport. He also ruled out Bullockstone Road as a relief road and said Herne needed a bypass whether the plan was approved or not.

HB Gazette 16th May 2013