News: Parish Council agrees amendments to 75-home development response

At a briskly-run meeting today, Chilbolton Parish Council agreed amendments to their draft response to James Painter’s proposed 75-home development. As an Extraordinary Meeting of CPC, this was a “meeting held in public”, rather than a “public meeting”, nonetheless villagers were invited to have their say, after Councillors had made their decisions.

The first order of business was to appoint Cllr Neil Connor to chair the meeting. He then handed over to Cllr Martin Watson to take councillors through the covering letter and the nine annexes.

Cllr Watson explained that the document was the output from a small working group made up of councillors and volunteers. He then went through the response inviting his colleagues’ thoughts. There were a few amendments and upgrades suggested.

Amendments

• In the “harms” section it was agreed that more should be said about the potential damage to the work of Chilbolton Observatory
• The Highways and Traffic annex should point out the inconsistencies the application contains in respect of whether or not there would be a mini-roundabout at the entrance to the site
• Under Economic Impact, a reference should be made to the Observatory and the economic importance of its work
• Within the Flood Risk annex, it was agreed that the route run-off water would take down Cart Lane along Village Street, then down to the River Test should be clearly explained
• It was agreed that with the Harms annex that some repetitions would be removed and some harms would be more strongly emphasised

Public comments

Hydrology

After congratulating the working group for doing “a sterling job”, a resident commented that the analysis contained with the planning application needed more assessment, particularly hydrology.

She cited a town in the North of England, where a professional hydrologist had been engaged to challenge a planning application. He criticised the proposals for dealing with surface water as “unproven technology” which, if it failed, would form a “threat to life”. The application was refused as a result.

She suggested that it would make sense to commission a proper hydrological assessment, perhaps through crowd-funding.

It was agreed that the document would include a recommendation that TVBC seek more hydrology information. Alisdair Campbell said that a map would be included which showed changes in soil structure through the development site and the lower run-off area.

Other sites

A resident asked whether other potential development sites would be included within the response. Neil Connor said that the response was for the 75-home development but that it did say that CPC was speaking to all potential site owners.

Cllr Sue Larcombe said that the same objections would apply to all of the proposed sites.

A resident, who had recently arrived in the Village, said that his previous village had a Neighbourhood Development Plan. However when a planning application was lodged for a site outside the settlement boundary, it succeeded because the NDP had not specified any sites.

Cllr Connor said that councillors had met with TVBC planners, who were aware that CPC were considering four sites. Fiona Barrie added that although Chilbolton’s NDP didn’t specify any sites, it did show community support for 20 to 25 homes within the settlement boundary.

Drove Road traffic

A resident asked whether the Transport Assessment should be made more pointed about traffic volumes on Drove Road.

Alisdair Campbell said that he had reviewed the video footage from the traffic survey commissioned by CPC. As a result he had rewritten the Road Safety summary. It would highlight, that in a village with a lot of retired residents, there are road users at all times during the day. He had specific amendments to the predictions for traffic volumes and the potential harms.

It was agreed that the Road Safety rewrite would be incorporated in the final draft.

Cllr David Griffiths said that traffic in the Village during the Summer months was much greater, largely due to the attraction of Cow Common. Most visitors arrived by car. He suggested that the analysis give more emphasis to that point

Access

A resident suggested that a paragraph should be included in the Executive Summary about access to the site. This was agreed by councillors.

Cart Lane run-off

A resident said that run-off water should be a major point in the response. She had made videos of its effect on Drove Road. She was also concerned about Cart Lane and the proposed cycle/footway. If Cart Lane were put forward as an alternative to the cycle/footway it might be tarmacked over to be accessible to more users.

Summary

The meeting lasted one hour, during which councillors and the working group were applauded several times. The mood was supportive, and appreciative of the amount of work that had been put into the draft.

The final version will be put before the regular Parish Council meeting on Monday at 6pm in the Village Hall.