Letter to Test Valley Planning Department

Mr SP Lees TVBC Planning Service Council Offices Duttons Road Romsey Hants SO51 8XG	Cherry Tree Cottage Forton Andover Hampshire SP11 6NN
	11 th August 2003

Dear Mr Lees

I write on behalf of the Longparish Parish Plan Steering Group in response to the Test Valley Borough Council discussion paper concerning the Local Plan Review. My comments are a reflection of the views of the Steering Group and were arrived at after discussion of the contents of your discussion paper at our meeting on 7 August.

First can we say how pleased we are that your Council is planning to encourage and enable local communities to be involved in, and play a positive part in, the decision making process regarding planning decisions in the future.   We feel that local input into the planning process will help guide decisions in a way that will provide real benefits for the local community and we would therefore like to formally thank the TVBC for offering us, and other local communities, the opportunity to have a say in the way our village and parish might develop.

We do however have one area of concern with your proposals. This relates to the overall implication of the paper, more specifically spelt out in paragraph 4.9, that the only new development that would be allowed outside current planning restrictions would be so called “low cost housing”. While we accept that the provision of such housing might be the essential trigger for any exception to current policy, it is our view that in some circumstances the only practical way of providing such low cost housing would be to allow concomitant commercial based building as well. Any mixed housing proposal would clearly need to be in sympathy with local needs but also reflect the commercial realities in acquiring land within villages such as ours for development.

In view of this we would like to request that the Local Plan be given some flexibility to allow imaginative schemes to proceed. We are concerned that if this flexibility is not incorporated within the plan then, in spite of the best intentions of the TVBC, the practical consequences will be that potential local development required to maintain the vitality of rural communities, even if agreed as desirable by both the TVBC and the local community, will remain an unachievable aspiration.

We are at the moment in the early stages of formulating our Parish Plan but we appreciate that for our Plan to be considered valid by your Council then it must adhere to your conditions as outlined in your paper, particularly paragraphs 4.16, 4.17 and 6.3.34d. We consider these conditions to be fair and sensible and will in due course be seeking your further guidance as to how best achieve them.

Can I finish by saying once again how much we appreciate the overall thrust of your discussion paper. We very much look forward to constructive dialogue and consultation between ourselves and your Council in the future.

 

Fiona Gould

Chair Longparish Parish Plan Steering group