MOD Shoeburyness - Forthcoming Activity Alert: 18-21 June 2013

Detailed below is advance notification of activities which may be noticed in your neighbourhood. All of the limitations and stipulations outlined below apply.

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Date - Reason for Notification

18 June 2013 - Gunfire and Explosions may be noticed.

19-21 June 2013 - Explosions may be noticed.

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Note:

Local Gunfire = Gunfire that is likely to be noticed only by communities close to MOD Shoeburyness.

Gunfire = Gunfire that may be noticed by communities in the vicinity of the Thames Estuary.

Explosions = Explosions that may be noticed by communities in the vicinity of the Thames Estuary.

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MOD SHOEBURYNESS WEBSITE

This information was correct at the time of publishing. The most accurate and up to date information can be found on the MOD Shoeburyness website at www.shoeburyness.qinetiq.com, why not visit and save it to your favourites for quick access.**

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I hope that you find this information useful. Please feel free to pass it on to your neighbours.

Local Plan: letter

Plan fails with no funding for roads

The local development plan is flawed.

I have sent all members of Canterbury City Council (CCC), and their highly-paid consultants Amec, who produced coloured charts on the selected areas, "evidence-based" reasons of why they are fundamentally flawed.

In addition CCC has also ignored government guidelines on consultation. These government guidelines declare that the community, and stakeholders, must be involved at all stages of the process that ultimately will decide which sites go forward into any draft proposals for public consultation, as happened on May 30th 2013.

Members endorsed officers' recommendations for "their" choice of sites. You, the public, have been totally ignored.

Members suggest that you will now be consulted (the ten-week consultation period) but, and it is a big but, you the "public", will only be consulted about the proposed sites endorsed by the executive committee, not the many other sites that are "better" alternatives than the sites endorsed by officers, and later council members.

The secrecy behind all this is breathtakingly unbelievable.

Major - and I mean major - road construction and bypasses are necessary. Canterbury City Council has no responsibility for roads; Kent County Council (KCC) does. KCC has no money for major road construction - it cannot even fill the many potholes in the county. This Government has no money for major road construction; it is also broke.

Developers will not want to spend money on major road construction out of their profits. Of course if CCC officers or council members have guarantees or promissory notes, then let us the public see them.

In the meantime, there is no cash for the major roads changes that this draft plan to work requires.

Council members keep saying they are listening. Hear this: the whole plan put forward by you is bound to fail, on the sites, the pre-consultation, and funding of major roads and infrastructure.

The only council member to acknowledge our concerns and who has the professionalism to reply to me is Councillor  David Hirst. Well done to him, the other councillors and officers remain deafeningly silent.

Ken Little, Whitstable

HB Times 13th Jun 2013

Local Plan: Parish Council oppose Strode Farm plans

Parish councillors are set to outline their opposition to the Local Plan tonight (13th June 2013) as the public consultation on proposals for 3,000 homes in Herne Bay begins. Herne and Broomfield parish council is expected to focus its arguments against plans for 800 houses at Strode Farm.

Although it has expressed disapproval for a 400-home development at Herne Bay Golf Club, councillors are expected to say they will accept the scheme as a compromise. They are calling on residents to write to the city council in opposition to the inclusion of Strode Farm on the draft Local Plan.

The document outlines housing strategy for the Canterbury district until 2031, proposing 15,600 homes for the area overall. Parish council spokesperson
Monica Blyth said:

"The big thing for us is to get out the importance of people responding to the consultation. It carries more weight if several individuals respond rather than getting a petition together. We are going to have to accept some development and of the two proposed developments in the area, we do not want Strode Farm.

Residents want to keep that buffer and the lesser of the two evils is the golf club. It is not such a big development and will have less impact. A development at Strode Farm would have a tremendous impact on the parish."

The parish council is in discussion with the Campaign to Protect Rural England about putting together an environmental challenge to the plans.

Ms Blyth added:

"Canterbury City Council don't appreciate Herne and Broomfield are villages and not part of Herne Bay. Herne was here first and long-established before Herne Bay arrived. This amount of properties will be huge and add 50% to what we have already."

HB Gazette 13th Jun 2013

MOD Shoeburyness - Forthcoming Activity Alert: 10-13 June 2013

Dear Resident,

Detailed below is advance notification of activities which may be noticed in your neighbourhood. All of the limitations and stipulations outlined below apply.

Date: Reason for Notification

10, 11, 12 June 2013: Explosions may be noticed earlier than usual, 08:00.

13 June 2013: Gunfire and Explosions may be noticed earlier than usual, 08:00.

Note:

Local Gunfire = Gunfire that is likely to be noticed only by communities close to MOD Shoeburyness.

Gunfire = Gunfire that may be noticed by communities in the vicinity of the Thames Estuary.

Explosions = Explosions that may be noticed by communities in the vicinity of the Thames Estuary.

MOD SHOEBURYNESS WEBSITE

This information was correct at the time of publishing. The most accurate and up to date information can be found on the MOD Shoeburyness website at www.shoeburyness.qinetiq.com, why not visit and save it to your favourites for quick access.

I hope that you find this information useful. Please feel free to pass it on to your neighbours.

Local Plan: brilliant letter reveals Gilbey's NIMBYism

Council leader is a Nimby himself

As a footnote to a recent letter regarding the Canterbury draft Local Plan, this paper helpfully added "Nimby stands for not in my backyard". Readers can get a fuller understanding of this term by going online to the planning applications section of the councils website, searching for CA//07/01795 and then viewing the "Associated Documents".

This application was for a single, modest-sized bungalow in-filling on a garden in lieu of an existing structure. "Technical consultations" returned to the case officer, Nan Barton, showed no objections raised by the Highways Agency, the Environment Agency, Kent County Council Highways and even Kingston parish council had no issues.

There were, however, four "Written Representations" from local residents against the application. The one from the next door neighbour, council leader John Gilbey, and addressed not to the case officer but rather the department head, makes compelling reading. So Nimby can be seen to actually mean "not a single one in my backyard, but over 40,000 on greenfields in yours is OK by me".

Ray Sanders, Old Dover Road, (South) Canterbury

HB Gazette letter 6th Jun 2013

Local Plan: it may not happen

Alex Claridge, Gazette Senior Reporter

Here's a thought: Let's say the city council in its draft Local Plan has either deliberately or accidentally - overstated the number of homes which can be built in the district over the next 18 years.

The council will endure a year or so of sniping and criticism. Afterwards. it can produce a blueprint for the future with a reduced number of homes.

That will go before the independent planning inspector who may revise the figure still further before he produces his final document, scheduled to be ready by the end of next year.

It means that the majority Conservative group on the city council will have an extraordinary piece of ammunition when it goes into the election year of 2015. It will be able to say: "When you told us you wanted fewer homes, we listened and cut the number in the plan."

No doubt those creating the plan will regard this as a cynical conclusion but it seems a difficult one to ignore given the way politics at all levels has worked in this country for the last 20 years or so.

It seems there are just too many obstacles to the figure of 15,600 homes ever being   realised - schools, healthcare, transport and employment, to name a few. Meanwhile, the question of homes is proving easily the most contentious aspect of this document. It attracted more than 20 public speakers to last Thursday's meeting (30th May 2013).

But one method of guaranteeing that councillors are less receptive to your views is to rant at them. Unfortunately, several speakers adopted unedifying tones last Thursday. Councillors are not aliens bent on the destruction of the district. All of them are people who have chosen public office because they think they can make things better.

And just like anyone else they should not have to endure people yelling in their faces.

HB Gazette 6th Jun 2013

Local Plan: timetable

People will have all summer to comment on the draft after the executive agreed to increase the consultation period to 10 weeks - until the end of August.

Then the council will submit its plan for scrutiny by an independent government planning inspector. Comments made will also be passed to the inspector.

If the inspector needs any extra evidence or submissions, this will happen in summer next year. By the end of 2014, the planning inspector will have produced the final Local Plan for the Canterbury City Council area up to 2031.

Ian Brown, the council's head of planning and regeneration, said:

"That report will be binding. It will be the final part of the process.  We see south Canterbury as a way of extending the city and providing sustainable transport into the city. Such a development would also address the problem of affordable housing."

Mr Brown also suggested people to look beyond housing for other topics discussed in the plan, including history, environment and transport.

HB Gazette 6th Jun 2013

Local Plan: CPRE don't like it much

Proposals put builders first, not people

CPRE Protect Kent are extremely worried about the innumerable negative impacts that the current draft local plan may have. We are particularly concerned that the plan has no mechanism in place either to defend or to enhance what is left of Canterbury's cultural and historic character.

Instead, problems will inevitably arise from the proposals to build too many houses in and around the city, which will in turn increase the traffic and air pollution problems.

Barrie Gore, Canterbury district chairman of CPRE Protect Kent

CPRE Protect Kent does not see any local evidential need for such a large number of new houses, and the thrust for such development seems to be led by Government, the city council and large scale developers rather than local people's desires for the area. We are also extremely concerned that the plan shows a lack of emphasis on design of new property.

As an incredibly historic area, with major landmarks such as the Cathedral we find it very sad to think of Canterbury's heritage being diluted by these plans.

CPRE Protect Kent, together with many other local amenity bodies, was involved in the production of The Residents' Vision of Canterbury, published by the Canterbury Society. There is little or nothing in the Local Plan which picks up the themes and suggestions from the Vision.

CPRE Protect Kent is also extremely concerned that the plan does not deal adequately with the influence exerted upon the city by the universities and colleges. In at least one other city the local authority imposes a limit on student numbers, yet in Canterbury we have seen large, sometimes out of scale and unattractive, new student blocks built on prime residential sites originally designated for private and also affordable housing.

The CPRE Protect Kent Canterbury Committee will be making all these points, and more, in its discussions with the Council and in its response to the draft Plan.
 
HB Times 6th Jun 2013

Local Plan: Gilbey calls for logic not rhetoric

Yes, I laughed too.

Council leader John Gilbey has urged critics of the Local Plan to avoid rhetoric and "be logical and be practical". In a measured speech - frequently interrupted by a lone heckler - he said Canterbury was not alone in the UK in facing the prospect of building on greenfield land.

Cllr John Gilbey

"For the last 20 or 30 years, we have been using up brownfield sites and we don't have any of it left no matter what people tell you. This is a coherent plan, something we are legally obliged to do and something we  intend to look at rationally. We will take the consultation very seriously. Come and talk to us, not with rhetoric, but be logical and be practical."

Cllr Gilbey dismissed a claim by one public speaker who said that 70% of the land earmarked for development is owned by either the city council or KCC, telling the meeting it is all owned by other people or organisations.  He went on:

"You have got to come to us and talk to us and we have to tell you in great detail  about what we can and cannot do."

HB Gazette 6th Jun 2013

Local Plan: letters

MIsleading Maps

The local plan is about to go out to consultation and the council has tried to put their spin on it in their official mouthpiece District Life.

They have printed maps of some of the sites but just manipulated the scale to completely falsify the situation. The 4,000 homes proposed at South Canterbury appear to take up about the same amount of land as the 400 at Herne Bay Golf Club!

They don't, of course. The map has just been adjusted to half the scale!

I thought that when a council consulted people it was supposed to present the facts in a clear and balanced manner.

When we pointed out this deliberate attempt to mislead at the local plan steering group we were promised it would be rectified. Far from it. Now this cynical attempt to mislead has gone out to every house. Throw your District Life into the recycling (don't forget which bin). Look at the sites with a decent map and then tell the council what you think.

How shameful that the council destroyed any credibility in its own magazine in trying to peddle its latest doctrine.

Cllr Nick Eden-Green, Lib Dem - Wincheap ward, Dane John, Canterbury

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Use empty houses, not farmland

In respect of the draft Local Plan, which the city council proposes as a blueprint for the future of Canterbury, I would like to make the following observations. Canterbury district has about 4,000 empty dwellings. This  equates to a similar number proposed  for the sites in South Canterbury.

Why doesn't the council focus its  efforts on bringing these houses and  flats back into the housing stock? Yes this is difficult but a truly visionary council would look to make this effort rather than concrete over very fertile farmland. By 2050 the world population is set to increase by 30% to nine billion people. All these people need to be fed, including residents of the UK.

If we do not ensure that we are self- sufficient in food the true cost will be prohibitive for many of our children and grandchildren.

This is happening now if you take into account the rise in the number of food banks. I have raised this issue at a number of public forums and met with the glazed look of councillors who obviously do not consider it a real possibility. It is not properly addressed in the draft Local Plan and I question the very notion that such a plan can be "sustainable" when it proposes to remove such high grade land from the food supply.

Jon Linnane, Old Dover Road, Canterbury

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Student housing

I fear local planning authorities are being asked to cure the symptoms of a problem and not its causes.

We have just received our copy of District Life, which shows the now familiar Key Local Plan proposed sites. On Monday evening I heard Cllr Peter Lee telling the people of South Canterbury, that, effectively, it was time for the city itself to take its share of development. Or, as Cllr Gilbey was quoted, possibly out of context, in an earlier issue of the Kentish Gazette, they "should put up or shut up."

This must not be a matter for dividing communities in our district, and I am happy to be labelled a Nimby; however, if people like me do not speak up for our neighbourhood it seems no one else will. Perhaps more will be sympathetic if some other facts are explained.

The proposed development for South Canterbury is, by the scale of the city, massive. It may not look so at first glance of District Life, but the South Canterbury plan is at a scale of 1225000, the Sturry/Broad Oak plan at 1:20000, Hersden at 1217250, and Herne Bay Golf Course at 1215000. The Canterbury proposal is equivalent in size to the whole of Hales Place, St Stephens, Whitstable Road area and London Road Estate combined.

Cllr Gilbey, at last Monday's meeting, twice mentioned Brighton as a city having to plan to build on land hitherto regarded as sacrosanct. This was an attempt to explain that Canterbury is not alone in having to take tough decisions, but he chose an apt comparison. Brighton has two universities. For many years its Victorian and local authority suburbs have filled with students. It cannot extend south!

Many other university towns and cities have growing ghettos of students and it is becoming a national problem. Successive governments have allowed the expansion of the higher education sector without providing for student accommodation. The local plan gives the issue two paragraphs, concluding that it is not a problem, that consultation proved thus and that student HMOs could be controlled from now on.

This horse has of course well and truly bolted - ask students if they mind more students in the district and the answer is no! But where have the residents gone? Very many have moved to the estates which have already been built in Herne Bay and to a lesser extent Whitstable. They do not just disappear! Many old Whitstable residents have sold up their terraced houses to weekenders and they have also moved to the edge of town estates.

Here is my alternative; plan for high-density student apartments between Tyler Hill and Blean to serve UKC, with a direct bus/cycle link, and on the barracks to serve CCUC. No more expansion of university places until the accommodation for existing student numbers is provided. CCUC and local developers such as Pavilion have shown what can be done. Clever planning and design, different funding streams, including batch sales to existing landlords, backed by assured student rents will enable development to occur on a fraction of the land of the present plan.

Existing housing stock will return to the market either to rent or buy, and will yield council tax. This would, I assume, not yield the building bonus per new house from government, but if local authorities in similar difficulties and local campaigners against large developments unite nationally, central government might be inclined to help middle England out of a hole. Could our MP help too?

The city council might not get its second link to the A2, yet. Mr Gilbey might, but with careful planning would not, lose his seat in Blean, and if he took the lead on a bold alternative plan he might get the thanks of the people of South Canterbury, Sturry, Herne and beyond.

Clive Flisher, Old Dover Road, Canterbury

HB Gazette 6th Jun 2013

Local Plan: housing target criticised by residents in Council meeting

Critics of the city council's vision for the Canterbury district queued up to attack the  authority.

Each was given a three-minute platform in the chamber to voice their opinions on the draft Local Plan - with the issue of 15,600 new homes dominating the  agenda. Most came from south Canterbury, where up to 4,000 homes are planned for farmland and open space.

Speaker Malcolm Harris told councillors:

"Not since the American Declaration of Independence has a single document galvanised so many people in a common purpose. We have got to rid ourselves of this absurd plan. There is no justification for this  increase in house building.

Clive Church, of the South Canterbury Alliance, said:

"This plan is wrong in principle and will be resisted at every stage of the  process."

Michael Butler, of Old Dover Road, fears for the future of the road network in the city if the homes are developed. He said:

"These houses will create complete gridlock in the Old and New Dover Roads. They will funnel into the partial ring road we have. This may well mean more traffic, more gridlock and a potential traffic disaster. The city of Canterbury is in peril."

Another speaker with concerns over the roads was Richard Cook, who estimates 15,000 new homes will bring 20,000 more cars.

Dick Eburne, a tireless campaigner from Herne Bay, asked:

"Where is the infrastructure for all these new homes? Let's get the draft plan out there for consultation so we can pull it to pieces."

Prof Richard Norman, a philosophy lecturer from St Michael's Place, adopted a more balanced approach, saying:

"There are a lot of good things in this draft plan such as limiting houses in multi-occupancy and the draft masterplan for the universities.  But there will be deep concerns about the ambitious target of 15,600 dwellings, which will have an impact on the environment and erode the green gaps."

The main proposals

• 4,000 homes in south Canterbury
• 1,000 homes in Sturry and Broad Oak
• 800 homes behind the existing Hersden estate
• 1,000 homes in Hillborough, Herne Bay
• 800 homes at Strode Farm, Herne Bay and a new relief road for Herne
• 600 homes in Greenhill
• 400 homes in Herne Bay Golf Club
• 400 homes off the Thanet Way at Whitstable and an extension to the Duncan Down public space
• The closure of Sturry level crossing and the building of a new road re-routing traffic
• An extension of the University of Kent campus to the north of the site to allow future expansion
• A possible new relief road linking Sturry Road with Littlebourne Road through the Howe Barracks land

HB Gazette 6th Jun 2013

Local Plan: Tories and opposition split over proposals

Canterbury City Council's blueprint for the district has already created a split between the Tory majority and opposition members. Each Conservative on the ruling executive insists he or she will listen to public opinion and allow it to shape Canterbury's future.

Cllr Peter Lee

The council will use its forthcoming issue of its District Life magazine to outline the Local Plan and tell people how they can comment on it. Cllr Peter Lee, the council's finance supremo, says much of the proposed house-building is geared towards retaining talented and employable people. He said:

"We are not going to be able to do that  unless we build affordable homes for them to live in."

Cllr Terry Westgate

Cllr Terry Westgate, who represents St Stephen's ward, said:

"I've lived in Canterbury for 38 years and I'm passionate about the city. I want people to support what is good in this plan and tell us what they think is wrong with it."

Cllr Peter Vickery-Jones

Cllr Peter Vickery-Jones, the council's member for transport, warned objectors to the draft plan to be measured in their criticism:

"It's no good screaming and shouting and being abusive to councillors - that will not help. I am heartened to hear what people have to say. It's clear they are passionate about the district."

Cllr Alan Baldock

Northgate Labour councillor Alan Baldock urged the executive to act on the views put forward in the coming consultation. He said:

"It [the draft plan] lacks one vital ingredient - the wisdom of local people whose feet are firmly on the ground with a stake in their district, every day of every year. But the truth is that this executive no longer has the trust of the people of this district. They no longer believe that their comments will be listened to or answered."

Cllr Nick Eden-Green

Lib Dem Nick Eden-Green described the plan as "fatally flawed" adding:

"Suffice it to say that there is much in it that is excellent, but I disagree with its conclusions on housing numbers and their locations."

HB Gazette 6th Jun 2013