By David Feather
If anyone is wondering about the Wiltshire Housing Plan and its proposals for the area off Church Lane, it seems that you will have to keep on wondering for some time more. We have not forgotten about it and are watching “progress”. The wheels of bureaucracy grind on very slowly but hopefully this will be of advantage to those of us who love Southwick Country Park. We need to ensure that the planners get it right.
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The target date for Wiltshire Council’s planning department’s decision on RPS’s outline application (reference number 18/10035/OUT) to build 65 houses on the fields between Southwick Country Park and Church Lane (WHSAP site H2.4) has been moved yet again, this time to Monday December 2nd 2019.
Continue reading “A WHSAP update”
Inspector Stephen Lee, who oversaw April’s hearings into the Wiltshire Housing Site Allocation Plan, has submitted a preliminary report.
Continue reading “Inspector’s findings and advice”
Wiltshire Council has received the Inspector’s post hearing findings and advice from Stephen Lee and published it on the WHSAP DPD Examination page on their website.
Continue reading “WHSAP latest news”
The decision on RPS’s application to build 65 houses on the field south of Church Lane has been delayed again, until July 31st. We expect that this is, in part, to allow the Secretary of State’s Inspector, Stephen Lee, to make his decision and final report on Wiltshire’s Housing Site Allocation Plan.
Continue reading “The latest Church Lane update”
Wiltshire Housing Site Allocation Plan update.
Wiltshire’s Spatial Planning Department has said that Inspector Stephen Lee’s preliminary report on the WHSAP Examination, which was due on Thursday May 9th, is delayed but for only a matter of a few days. When it has been received, it will be published on the WHSAP webpage.
All our posts on this subject are tagged WHSAP.
Regular readers may have noticed the addition of grey boxes titled Conservation Status at the end of posts about our flora and fauna and beneath the pictures on the sidebar.
Continue reading “Conservation status”
Tuesday 16th April was the date of the final session of public hearings on the Wiltshire Housing Site Allocation Plan Examination; it was held at the Civic Centre in Trowbridge.
Continue reading “WHSAP hearings finished”
FoSCP’s response to Newland Homes’ proposal for the site at Upper Studley.
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The Wiltshire Housing Site Allocation Plan Examination is entering the second week of hearings. The Friends of Southwick Country Park spoke on Thursday (04/03/2019) of last week about the importance of the Church Lane site to the ecology of the Lambrok and the park. We tried to point out Wiltshire’s obligation under SEA Directive 2001/42/EC and the National Planning Policy Framework (2019) to properly assess the ecology of the Lambrok as it runs through the sites at Church Lane, Upper Studley and Southwick Court.
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Protection does work.
Protected areas, national parks, nature reserves, and local wildlife areas do conserve biodiversity. In 2014, research undertaken by the universities at Exeter, Monash and Stellenbosch found that protected areas have significantly improved biodiversity. Plant and animal populations are measurably larger and there are more species inside the protected areas than there are outside: a wonderfully straightforward conclusion that everybody should be using to direct conservation policy.
This morning we made our formal response to the disastrous proposals for Southwick Country Park in Section 9 of the otherwise excellent Trowbridge Bat Mitigation Strategy. This is a link to our representation documents.
At the beginning of 2014, FoSCP and the Countryside Team submitted a proposal to Natural England that Southwick Country Park be declared a Local Nature Reserve. We know this was done with Wiltshire Council’s permission because we couldn’t have done it without; they are the landowners. A management plan for Southwick Nature Reserve was drawn up.
Continue reading “Southwick Nature Reserve”
The WHSAP public hearings will begin on April 2nd. FoSCP have submitted additional written representation and have asked permission to speak at the hearing to be held on the morning of April 4th, when the biodiversity at sites at H2.4, H2.5 and H2.6 will be discussed.
Here is our second submission to the WHSAP Examination.
Our first submission can be found on the main menu under the heading WHSAP. All our posts about Wiltshire’s Housing Site Allocation Plan are tagged WHSAP and our posts about the planning application at Church Lane are tagged Church Lane.
The draft Trowbridge Bat Mitigation Strategy was published yesterday, February 21st. It contains information and proposals that will certainly be significant to both the WHSAP Examination and to RPS’s application to develop the Church Lane site.
Click here for the details
FoSCP’s Wednesday work party met half an hour early, in the car park, to discuss the latest developments in Wiltshire’s Housing Site Allocation Plan’s Examination.
Continue reading “WHSAP: the Friends plan the next move”1.Here is WHSAP Programme Officer Ian Kemp’s postal address for those who do not use or trust email:
Ian Kemp
Wiltshire HSAP Programme Officer
16 Cross Furlong
Wychbold
Droitwich Spa
Worcester WR9 7TA
2. Here is a webpage that has been set up to report on the progress of the WHSAP Examination.
3. The hearings in April will be held in public but only those who have applied to do so will be invited to speak; applications need to be made before 5pm Friday 8th March.
The Inspector’s Examination of the Wiltshire Housing Site Allocation Plan (WHSAP) has reached the public hearing stage. Hearings will begin on April 2nd at 9.30 am in The Civic Trowbridge, St Stephen’s Place, BA14 8AH.
Continue reading “WHSAP – the latest news”
RPS, acting for a named client, has submitted an outline planning application for the Church Lane site. The Wiltshire Council reference number for the application is 18/10035/OUT. This morning, searching with this reference produced this result:
Continue reading “Another Church Lane planning submission”
Today, FoSCP submitted the report of their objections to the Schedule of Changes to the Wiltshire Housing Site Allocation plan. The plan proposes that land at Church Lane, Upper Studley and Southwick Court should be made available for development; we believe that development at these sites will damage the ecology of Lambrok Stream and subsequently the ecology of the park.
Wiltshire Council has finally opened a consultation portal on the proposed changes to the draft Wiltshire Housing Site Allocation Plan. The consultation period will last for six weeks; it began on Thursday, 27th September and will end on Friday, 9th of November.
The latest update:
The Inspector has returned one of the documents of the WHSAP submission with the requirement that it be put forward for public consultation.
Let’s go back to the documents that were submitted to the Secretary of State on July 31st: in that list are Sustainability Appraisal Documents, among which is Annex 1 A9 Trowbridge.
The Wiltshire Housing Site Allocation Plan was submitted to the Secretary of State on July 31st 2018. The documents that were submitted can be accessed here.
Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 