The formal deadline for you to respond to the four revised planning applications made by Places for People is only three days away at 5pm on Monday, December 21, 2020.
The Neighbourhood Plan Group have challenged this short timescale, especially as we have commissioned professional advice on the community’s behalf that will not be ready until early in the New Year.
We have been granted a short extension to get this NPG response in, but have not been able to get the council to shift the formal deadline for residents.
We encourage you to make a response to the consultation by the December 21 deadline using the following four links:
1. Outline planning application for 8,500 new homes plus infrastructure
2. Detailed planning application for new bridges and changes to existing bridges and other roads at Fifth Avenue
3. Detailed planning application for new bridges and changes to existing bridges and other roads at River Way
4. Detailed planning application for new bridges and changes to existing bridges at River Way (Listed Building Planning Application)
Remember to fill in all the necessary fields on all four forms, including the tick-box for whether you Object, Support or are Neutral towards the planning applications, as below.
We suggest that a possible response by you might include the following points:
“Unfortunately, despite the revisions made following the previous consultation period, the revised planning applications for villages 1-6 and two river crossings have not fully addressed the concerns raised by the community with regards to:
– the delivery of a development of six individual villages of exceptional quality with landscape buffers between each village in a way that protects landscape, heritage and the essential quality of living within the countryside
– timely and fully-costed infrastructure delivery, including schools
– adequate and costed provision of truly sustainable transport within and across villages, and with proper links beyond the village boundaries and to key connections outside the applicant’s landholding
– the absence of an agreed structure to achieve the GA1 policy requirement for a timely delivery of agreed assets to a properly funded community organisation
We therefore maintain our OBJECTION to the applications pending improvements that fully address the concerns of the community.
We also endorse the work of our Neighbourhood Plan Group in putting together a detailed response based on professional advice which will not be ready before you have required us to respond to this consultation.
The December 21 deadline has deprived us of the right to make representations informed by the independent advice of the professionals advising the community. This feels like an abuse of the consultative process.”
Should you be unable to comment on the application before the December 21 deadline, we would recommend that you still submit it, as the council may still take your comments into account, even though they do not have to.
You can also send your comments to the NPG so we can include your thoughts in our response.
We’re aware that the sheer volume of unsorted documents in the revised planning applications has proved difficult to contend with for many.
After we discussed the matter with the developers’ consultants Quod, they have provided us with a smaller set of key documents, and a guide on how to navigate them.
Tap here for access to the key documents – and you can follow their guide to these documents here.