Our Local Plan Comments:

 

The new Swindon Local Plan is an important and necessary document to guide growth and economic development in the plan period.

 

With the consented development at NEV, Kingsdown and Wichelstowe the Borough was already in a good place before the consultation started and in terms of employment land even better with the Panattoni Park site a significant driver of growth.

 

We are disappointed that greater thought hasn’t been given to older employment areas which have clearly stalled. There will be housing opportunities in those sites.

 

We are concerned that the plan lacks provision for high quality, high value executive homes to attract the business owners, Chief Executives and directors of the new businesses we are hoping to attract.

 

Swindon’s past included developments like Broome Manor and pockets such as Ham Road in Wanborough where £1m+ homes attract those individuals who we hope will drive our economy.

 

Regarding the Town Centre we would hope that the public will be informed that this regeneration and high density housing is going to start long into the plan period and therefore our 5-year housing land supply will be under pressure.

 

We would not comment on strategic proposals in other members wards as I know they will comment themselves on behalf of their residents.

 

Our comments below relate primarily to the Ward I represent although some comments necessarily will carry across into other wards.

 

Residents will only welcome new development when infrastructure is put in place at the earliest opportunity to mitigate the effects of development.

                                                                                   

 

Ward related comments/concerns:

 

 

SGL -02: The New Eastern Villages.

 

This development will only succeed if the required infrastructure to build a community is funded and delivered in a timely manner.

 

The pause for the last year by the new Labour government of the ‘Free Schools programme’ means that around £100m has disappeared and there are insufficient S.106 developer contributions to build the schools.

 

This immediately affected Redlands Grove as the first village under construction. A two form of entry primary school is planned for this site and at the time of making this comment some residents have lived there for 2 years. They have to drive their children to other primary schools.

 

Once these patterns of behaviour are embedded it is difficult to change. Children become settled in their new schools and additional traffic (beyond what was modelled) is then using the local highway network.

 

The other schools in the paused programme are the 3,000-pupil secondary school at Great Stall East and the first primary school at Lotmead.

 

With show-homes being opened next summer at Lotmead and Foxbridge it is critical that this is addressed. Without schools ‘walkable neighbourhoods’ are a pipe dream, sustainable living is impossible, and communities are not built – just houses.

 

 

 CSE7: Landscape and Areas of Non Coalescence.

 

The areas within this policy should be genuinely protected from incursions by any development proposals, save those of a rural nature.

 

We currently have applications in for a 150 acre solar farm which would visually write off the ‘green’ element of the landscape when viewed from the AONB. Similarly another current application for ‘Land North of Redlands Grove’ encroaches into both GI and Non Coalescence areas.

 

** we would suggest that the CSE7 should include the land at Inlands Farm and above to protect the hilltop setting of Upper Wanborough. This was brought into focus in the Inlands Farm refusal at appeal which referenced the NWD AONB, the setting of the village of Upper Wanborough including it’s historic church and buildings and the Area of Non Coalescence.

 

The new community at Redlands Grove very much value their village outlook with the Area of Non Coalescence protecting them to the South and East and the area to the North both a GI corridor and area of flood risk as a water course.

 

We request greater protection for the North Wessex Downs National Landscape area (which was recently breached by allowing an industrial HGV Bio Gas Refuelling station on Purley Road, Liddington).

 

Quoting the relevant section on Pg99 of the Reg 18 plan:

 

National Landscape: Proposals which are within or affect the setting of North Wessex Downs National Landscape must complement the special qualities and the character of the landscape.

 

We would oppose any further incursion on the edges of our villages including land at New Road in Chiseldon, Inlands Farm in Wanborough and the farm estates around Bishopstone. 

 

CSE8: Biodiversity.

 

We note that in terms of tree cover, the Ridgeway Ward is the second lowest in the Borough, ahead only of the Town Centre.

 

We request that greater emphasis is placed on working collaboratively with stakeholders to enhance and protect the GI corridors within the NEV rather than the small-scale token tree planting which occurs within the developments.

 

CSE9: Flood risk

 

It should be made clear to residents where significant attenuation is required to mitigate flood risk what the cost may be over an extended 25–30-year period.

 

There are river corridors within the NEV which have no management plan to assess whether landowners are complying with their riparian responsibilities.

 

SP7: Healthy Living.

 

The plan and the council should ensure that when granting consents that residents and their children have access to open spaces and places to play and exercise early in the development’s construction. Residents at Redlands Grove have in some cases been living there for two years without a single play space, leaving children to play in the streets within an active construction route. This contributes to obesity and does not create a fairer or healthier Swindon.

 

HL2 (Point 4):

 

If Parish Council’s are to be offered a first opportunity to take on play areas and open spaces, then there needs to be transparency to show that estate service charges are reduced appropriately and residents do not experience ‘double charging’ where they pay a Parish Precent (when the Parish provides nothing) and an estate service charge.

 

Policy HL4 – Play spaces.

 

As in HL2 above – there is no reference in this policy as to timing. Residents are ‘sold the dream’ of their new development, but when they have lived for years without these facilities (the costs of which were agreed and funded at the outset) then there are being treated unequally.

 

Policy D1: Developer Contributions and Viability.

 

If a developer cannot show that they can provide the necessary infrastructure required to facilitate their development, then the application should be refused. A policy should show the expected costs of development (IDP) and failure to comply should mean the site is undeveloped – the Borough cannot afford to subsidise development because a housebuilder overpaid for a site or the landowner took an excessive amount, not taking this into account.

 

Appendix 5: NEV Infrastructure Prioritisation Matrix.

 

Approved by planning committee 2017 – this document includes items which will never be delivered nor required. This includes a Great Stall Bridge, District Heating networks??

 

To be relevant, this document should be updated.

 

Kind regards,

 

Cllr Gary Sumner

Ridgeway Ward Councillor

 

 

Matt Hinton

Parish Councillor at

Chiseldon Parish Council

 

Recycling days:

 

You can look up your recycling days using the following weblink which will tell you what to put out and when:

 

https://www.swindon.gov.uk/info/20122/rubbish_and_recycling_collection_days