• 1500 houses between North Road, Stevenage and Graveley village (one change is that the houses have been pulled further away from the village, and additional planting added)
• 5000 houses to the North of Great Ashby, either side of the site of the proposed secondary school at Tilekiln
• Green space between the two - a Forster Country Park.
• Three gypsy and traveller sites,  (one at junction 8 of the A1(M), one at Friends Green and one just north east of Chesfield
• A link road running from the North Road junction to the new development, between Graveley and Chesfield.

Council officers are making some final changes and expect the plans to be put before North Herts Cabinet and Stevenage Executive in June and that there will be a public consultation after that.

Graveley, Weston and Great Ashby residents are fighting the proposals. Get in touch if you’d like to help.

I have written to him setting out the key reasons - you can see the letter I have written here.The application will only be called in if we can show that it is of more than local interest and that it would be in the public interest to call it in.

Since the proposal is contrary to Green Belt policy they now have to refer it to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. If he believes that the decision “is of more than local significance” he can “call it in”, in which case there will be a public enquiry held by a planning inspector.

We can increase the chances of this happening if people write to the Secretary of State, asking for the application to be called in.

Anybody can do this by writing to:

The Secretary of State
Department for Communities and Local Government
Eland House
Bressenden Place
London
SW1E 5DU

They should copy their letter to the government’s East of England Office (since this is where the decision is actually made) at:

Planning Casework Team
Government Office for the East of England
Eastbrook
Shaftsbury Road
Cambridge
CB2 8DF

email: PlanningCasework@goeast.gsi.gov.uk

We will be providing some suggestions on the points that you might make in your letters shortly, but it important that these relate to the ”more than local significance” of the proposals. These might include:

• That the proposed school prejudices the consideration of a review of the green belt boundary, required by the Regional Spatial Strategy, currently being considered by North Herts and Stevenage Councils.
• That the County Council failed to adopt a sequential approach in demonstrating that there would no sites that would cause less harm.

You should quote the County Council’s application refernce 1/1349-09 on any correspondence.

They have not submitted a planning application yet and, as the land is presently in the green belt, this would be very likely to refused if they did. However, the land they are intending to build on is within the area of the SNAP proposals for Stevenage expansion which so many people responded to last year. Council officers at Stevenage and North Herts are working on options for SNAP development and there will be another consultation later this year.

Do go to make your views known about the Croudace proposals if you can.

Do go to the consultation if you can.

• Alternative sites
• Traffic and car parking
• The impact on the woodland.

There were about 30 people from Great Ashby and Weston there to object to the application. Three people spoke against. The application will now come back to the next meeting on 2nd March.

I have copied below part of a County Council Press release, which sets out the government’s reasons for asking councils to restrict gritting.

“DfT asks authorities to reduce salt consumption – Reduced salting network contingency plan

As you will be aware, Hertfordshire Highways have now been gritting the roads almost continuously for past three and a half weeks, with a day or two’s easing over Christmas itself. The long-range forecast is for at least another fortnight of cold weather, making this the longest continuous cold spell for nearly 30 years.

The Department for Transport has therefore taken control of national salt supplies under their “Salt Cell” contingency plan. This means that national salt supply allocation is now being administered by the DfT, and salt supplies are being directed from suppliers to the areas of greatest need. In Hertfordshire, we currently have salt in stock and on order but are concerned that, with Salt Cell in action, the weather forecast staying so cold, and even more extreme conditions elsewhere in the UK, we may not get the deliveries that we need to keep our current effort going. With no apparent let up in the wintry weather for the near future, the Department for Transport on Friday evening also asked local authorities across the UK to reduce their grit and salt consumption by 25%. ”

Since this permission is only outline permission, developers will need to submit a detailed planning application and for this to be granted before they are allowed to start building.

Commenting on the short time available for objection she said that she would wait for a while after the 6th January deadline and include late submissions, but didn’t give a clear deadline for comments. The Parish Council have written to request an extension.

• The amount of land take, which almost joins up to Weston and Graveley. It is important both to preserve the ancient woods around Great Ashby and to maintain the villages as distinct settlements.
• The location of the link road, which currently either goes much to close to Graveley, or through the middle of Chesfield
• The location of the travellers sites
• The high number of ‘aspitational’ (i.e. large) houses, which take up a lot of space and are not required by the East of England plan

The application now goes to the County Council’s development control committee on 19th January. Given the lack of disrtict council support, there is a greater chance that the secretary of state will call in the application for a hearing.

North Herts Planning Committee will still consider the application this Thursday (17th) at 7.30 in the council offices in Gernon Road, Letchworth and will pass their views on to the County Council. North Herts District Councillors are recommending that the council does not object. We will have to wait and see what the councillors on the committee think.

• would be capable of handling 130,000 tonnes of waste per annum
• would take wood, electrical goods, plastic, glass, vehicles, construction waste and ‘a small volume of hazardous waste’
• would result in 100 lorry movements per day (coming from junction 9 of the A1(M)

The application has been put in to the County Council (who deal with waste planning) by Greener recycling Solutions. You can see the application at www.hertsdirect.org/planning on or objections to the application must be made by 6th Jnauary to Alice Carrington, Case Officer, Herts County Council, County Development Unit, County Hall, Hertford, SG13 8DN. If you want to make a presentation to the committee about the plans, call 01992 556252.

In my view, while we need a secondary school that Great Ashby children can get into, this application has too great an impact on nearby houses and the green belt.

The planning meeting is on 17th December, at 7.30 in the council offices, Gernon Road, Letchworth. It is open to the public, so come if you can to show the councillors that you do care.

You can get the details on the web - www.hertsdirect.org/wasteplanningconsultation 

 I also understand that an amendment to the plans means that another travellers’ site is proposed for the north east of the development.

Apparently the County Council arranged a special meeting of the Committee. This hardly inspires confidence that the decision to grant themselves planning permission is any more than a formality. Would they do this for any other applicant? Both the North Herts meeting and the County Council’s meeting will be open to the public.

In the light of the SNAP proposals to build 5,500 houses north and west of Stevenage, it seems to me that the school proposals have been rushed into without thinking about how the needs of children in the area will best be served.

• Sharing their ideas about what we should be campaigning on
• Delivering FOCUS in a road near them once every couple of months
• Getting involved in our campaigns

If any of these interest you, then email me - sal@sjarvis.cix.co.uk - or post a comment here, and I’ll be in touch!

Sal

• 5,500 houses to the north and east of Great Ashby
• 2,500 houses between Graveley and Stevenage, North Road
• A link road from Junction 8 of the A1(M), between Graveley and Stevenage, to north of Great Ashby
• Employment land (an ‘innovation park’ was discussed) at Junction 8 of the A1(M)
• A 23 pitch travellers’ site at Junction 8 of the A1(M)

One more positive proposal includes a plan to allocate land to an expansion of Lister Hospital, which should secure its future as a major health facility.

The impact on the countryside north of Stevenage could hardly be worse. When I suggested that the impact on residents was unreasonable, one Stevenage Labour councillor said, ‘We have representative, not participatory, democracy, so we have to make the decision on behalf of all the residents. People may jump up and down, but that’s just tough.’ It led me to wonder what the consultation was for, since our views have been ignored.

The plans will now be reviewed  and will come back to another briefing meeting on 24th November. They will then go to North Herts Cabinet and Stevenage Executive Committee in January. Whatever is agreed will go out to public consultation in February or March. Let’s hope they take a bit more notice next time.

The two councils are likely to publish proposals in the new year, when there will be more consultation.

• The part of the gardens of Fife House and Graveley House (between Milksey (Muddy) Lane and the High Street)

• Extension of  facilities at the golf club

• Extension of the mobile home park.

In Little Wymondley  and there are three sites http://www.north-herts.gov.uk/additional_suggested_sites_wymondley.pdf:

• The land between Little Wymondley and the bypass

• The and on either side of Stevenage Road just before the roundabout near the Travelodge (old Blakemore) Hotel

• In Todds Green there is a suggestion that the land to the west of the village should be included in the village boundary .

Nothing is suggested for Great Wymondley. Great Ashby and the land around it is not included in this consultation as development here is part of the SNAP plans. Go to NHDC’s website to respond online and to see maps, or write to LDF Team, NHDC, Gernon Rd, Letchworth, SG6 3JF. The deadline for the consultation is September 14th.

The site of the proposed school access road: play area and trim track!

County Council plans to re-locate Thomas Alleynes secondary school to the green belt north of Great Ashby are causing concern to residents nearby. The access road for the new school would be off Mendip Way (in front of Cromdale Walk) resulting in much increased traffic in the area. Its location in the green belt is against current North Herts planning policy. Floodlit pitches will result in increased light pollution.

The dilemma is that Great Ashby does need a good secondary school. At the moment pupils in the estate are not close enough to any school to get priority, and children often end up wherever there is space.

We say: a better site for the school would be at the top of Calder Way on land that has been a potential development site for years. In any case, it is too early to build the school, while Stevenage and North Herts are still discussing new development required by the government through the SNAP plan.

What do you think?