Green Snow?

The beautiful but dangerous weather we have been enjoying (some of us) these last few days has made me think that snow is not so much white as green! We have been using our cars much less - only driving when we had to - and there are more pedestrians than cars on the local roads! And our neighbours have called in to see if we were all right - we were, but we appreciated the thought.
But the weather has made difficulties for LEGLAG. The Parish Council meeting referred to in my last blog was cancelled, and our next committee meeting has had to be moved because of the slippery conditions at the bottom of Brizen Road where Gerry Potter lives. And we are hoping that the weather will not disrupt our big event this month - the meeting on Jan 18th when Jonathon Porritt will talk on "Cheltenham under Attack" and (we expect) urge us all to defend Cheltenham from the Government's growth agenda and from the big builders' greedy clutches! At present both LEGLAG and Save the Countryside are working all out to co-ordinate plans for this meeting, as well as trudging through slippery streets to deliver our Flyers urging people to respond to the Joint Core Strategy consultation. At least, all this activity is keeping us warm!!

Leckhampton and Warden Hill Parish Council meets on Thursday January 7th. Among the things the Parish Council will have to discuss is the recent appeal by Newbridge Construction, who want build 350 houses at Brizen Farm. This will result in an Inquiry to determine their application to build there. LEGLAG committee members will attend the meeting and urge the PC to object strongly to this application. They will also be making sure that the PC responds to the Joint Core Strategy team's consultation on the future the Cheltenham/Tewkesbiry/Gloucester area before the end of January deadline. LEGLAG would like to work closely with the Parish Council in defending our area from the big developers!

3rd January 2010. Flyers and the RSS. The new Year has dawned bright and cold, but Leglaggers will be keeping warm by running aroud to deliver the 4oooo flyers we have printed urging the people of Leckhampton to respond to the Joint Core Strategy team's public consultation on the future shape of our part of Gloucestershire by the Jan 31 deadline! (Sorry, that should be 4000 flyers - I hope!)
Meanwhile, the RSS itself (which is supposed to be the top level plan within which the Joint Core Strategy team makes more local decisions) looks even less likely ever to be enforced. GOSW states that the latest revisions will not be presented to Govt Ministers until March, at which time they may have other matters on their minds ... So it is a racing certainty that no final RSS will appear before the General Election, and, in view of Conservative's annouced policy re the RSS, odds on that it will never be in force. That will make the current consultation even more important , as the JCS team will have a much freer hand in creating local planning frameworks. So LEGAG's New Year resolution should be "Be Resolute!"

Brizen Farm Appeal

December 16, 2009. I've just had an official letter telling me that the potential developers of 350 houses at Brizen Farm have appealed against non-determination by Tewkesbury, so the matter will now go to Public Planning Inquiry! Tewkesbury had, very sensibly in my view, told the developers, Newbridge Construction, that - given that the Inspector to the SD2 (Farm Lane) inquiry had said that application was premature - they ought to wait until the final RSS was published. But Newbridge have appealed anyway.
Does this mean that Newbridge think there never will be a final RSS, and are hoping that they can take advantage of a potential absence of overall planning framework if the Tories win the General Election? Who knows - but I hope that this cheeky application means they get landed with all the costs being awarded against them.! They must realise that this is a risk - but the potential for making money is so large they don't care. It shows what we are up against in fighting these big development companies!

Kit Braunholtz

County Council refuses to sell land

The big news today is that the ruling Conservative group on the County Council have pledged not to sell County Council land at Northwest Cheltenham to the prospective deevelopers, Bloor and Persimmon who want to build 4,500 homes there.  As the County Council owns a lot of the land there , this may block the proposed development, though the developers may still apply to build on land they own.

This story raises the question as whether an application to build in the Leckhampton#Shurdington area could be similarly blocked.  The County Council owns some land in  the Cheltenham part of the Leckhampton White Land, but probably not enough to stop development there.  A larger parcel of land belongs to the Church, and if they refused to sell it would certainly block development on the Cheltenham White Land, where Bovis would like to build.

The LEGLAG committee celebrates 16 successful years!

December 1st, 2009.   The LEGLAG committee met today to discuss our responses to the Joint Core Strategy consultation paper "Issues and Key Questions" about their approach to planning for the Cheltenham/Gloucester/Tewkesbury area.  

We had a very useful discussion - heated at times - about what we should say and ask others to say.  We are a very opinionated and stroppy lot, and the chairman (me) had a hard time keeping order!  But we need independently minded people on the Committee, and we all work hard and have done a lot this year at a very uncertain time for the future of planning in our area.

We finished our meeting very enjoyably, still good friends, and celebrated sixteen successful years since our beginnings in  1993 with mince pies and a bottle of bubbly!  We meet again in the New Year on January 12.