Phase 2 of Ceaser Court Development – Not in Our Name!
A great deal of controversy attaches to the proposed Phase 2 development of Ceaser Court in Green Street. For the avoidance of doubt regarding the Association’s position in relation to this proposal, the following state-ment was submitted by our Chairman to members of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee which met on 19th January by our Chairman:
“It has been brought to my attention that at an Overview & Scrutiny Committee meeting on 7th July, in response to questions relating to this development, and changes made since the original plans were produced, answers were given which stated that LoSRA (Lower Sun-bury Residents Association) were supportive of both Phase 1 and Phase 2 proposals; also that LoSRA were supportive of the consulta-tion exercise in May 2019.
“I wish to make it clear that LoSRA is not, and has never stated it is, supportive of this development. The fact that LoSRA has not thus far commented (and by inference not objected to it), cannot be construed as support.
“It is true to say that individual members of the LoSRA Committee attended the pre-application consultation in May 2019 in their private capacity but given that the Phase 2 development was very much an outline, and, at that stage, there was a possibility of space being allocated for Community use, it was felt that until a formal planning application was submitted, and the final design and use of the space in Phase 2 was determined, it was inappropriate to comment. Again, attendance cannot be construed as support.
“Now that the final design and disposition of the accommodation in Phase 2 has become clear, I am able to say that LoSRA does not support Phase 2 and endorses the many objec-tions to it, in particular those representations submitted by [named residents] which clearly identify issues which must be addressed”.
And whilst on the subject of housing….
The following is a press release from the Council:
“In October 2020, Spelthorne Council an-nounced that it intended to revise downward the housing needs figure for its new Local Plan, following heavy criticism of the Government’s original formula for calculating the number of new homes needed in local authority areas. This was derived from the Government’s plans to change the ‘standard methodology’ that resulted in a low-er figure for Spelthorne in a recent consulta-tion on changes to the current planning system. The Council learned on 16 December 2020 that the Government has now decided not to press ahead with the new methodology, which puts Spelthorne back to a higher hous-ing need again.
“The formula that was consulted on would have seen Spelthorne’s number drop from 606 homes per year to 489, a figure that would mean we could have delivered a better Local Plan with fewer or zero Green Belt sites need-ed for residential development. To revert to the higher figure takes away this opportunity and leaves the Council with an extremely onerous number to try and meet.
“The decision to scrap the revised methodology seems to have stemmed from pressure by other local authorities in the south-east who saw their numbers go up, detracting from the Government’s aim to ‘level up’ cities and districts in the north. Whilst other nearby authorities will welcome the news that their figure goes down again, Spelthorne is one of the areas that is back to where it started.
“Deputy Leader of the Council and Chair of the Local Plan Task Group, Cllr Jim McIlroy, said: “This announcement comes as a crushing disappointment after we made so much effort to lower our housing number, which we thought we achieved only to see it go up again. We are trying to prepare a Local Plan that our communities will endorse and whilst the 489 homes per year figure was still high we felt it was a significant improvement that meant we could take out many of the largest and most impactful sites that our residents don’t want to see developed for housing. We will fight the Government on this and push for what was promised – that housing delivery would be balanced across the country and not concentrated in areas like Spelthorne that are already heavily constrained by Green Belt, waterbodies and pressures on infrastructure. I have written to our MP, Kwasi Kwarteng, and will write to the Secretary of State at the Ministry for Homes, Communities and Local Government.”
As we said in the September 2020 edition, it’s easy to see how a Local Plan can end up taking several years to produce. The Government imposes dead-lines on local authorities to produce their plans yet it is the changes they introduce that often result in delays. We wholly endorse Cllr. Mcllroy’s sentiments and It can only be hoped that the intercession of our MP, Kwasi Kwarteng, succeeds in confronting this madness as one Secretary of State to another. Sanity really must be restored!
LoSRA Committtee