IMPORTANT – PLEASE READ!
The Government has pledged to accelerate housebuilding and deliver 1.5 million homes over this Parliament and has ‘a presumption in favour of sustainable development’. Many communities, including ours, are under huge pressure to build more houses. This means that, no matter how hard we try, there is increasingly less certainty that our objections to any planning application will be successful.
However, over the last 5 years, the 2020 Neighbourhood Plan (NP) has been successful in stopping unwanted development in our parish and delivering improved amenities for Felsted people.
The Review Group is once again trying to produce a NP that will protect us. We must accept that we can’t stop all development, but with your help we can try to limit it, say where we would prefer it to be, and the kind of homes it delivers.
Two major developments have now come forward which will primarily impact people living in the village centre and at Watch House and Bannister Greens. Both will also add to traffic throughout the parish and change the nature of our communities.
We also face the development of huge solar farms that will cover 15% of the parish. The largest, the Hedgehog Solar Farm, is designated a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP); that means it’s government policy and we can’t stop it!
This leaflet explains a little more about the challenges we face and invites your engagement.
On Friday the 11th of July between 5pm and 8pm and on Saturday the 12th of July between 10am and 1pm at the URC Hall in Stebbing Road, we are holding informal consultation events to explain what’s happening and to offer you an opportunity to express your views. We need to know what you think, and we need your support. Please come along.
The Neighbourhood Plan Review Group
What is the ‘The 5-year Housing Supply’ and why should I care?
Local planning authorities in England have a statutory requirement to have an ability to demonstrate a 5-year housing land supply (5YHLS) to identify and update annually with a sufficient supply of deliverable sites to meet their housing needs for the next five years. This means councils must show they have enough land available and suitable for residential development to build the number of homes they are required by central government to deliver over the next five years.
Central government has allocated UDC 13,500 homes (which becomes 14,741 with the necessary “9% “buffer” added). Over the last few years UDC hasn’t granted enough planning applications, so now doesn’t have a 5YHLS to meet its allocation. (Last reported as around 4.12 years)
UDC has now distributed its new allocation across 60 parishes: Felsted must deliver around 104 additional new homes by 2041.
Uttlesford’s District Council’s Local Plan is also “out of date” (the new UDC Local plan is now subject to Inspection).
About the Neighbourhood Plan
Our 2020 Neighbourhood Plan stopped large developments in the parish for 5 years but it lost its greatest weight of influence in February this year. We have, for many months now been trying to produce a formal Review of the 2020 plan, which would again give the plan maximum weight in resisting unwanted development and might also achieve some further community gain.
In March 2024 we held open days at the Memorial Hall; we showed you 12 sites that had been submitted by landowners as potential development sites to UDC and asked where you would prefer to see development of around 80 new homes. We called it deciding ‘the least worst options’!
Some, but not enough, of you came along and we listened carefully to your views.
Some of you who didn’t come are now wishing you had!
We’re again giving up many hours of our time to ensure people know what’s happening and what power you have to influence the plan.
GIVE UP A LITTLE OF YOUR TIME TO ENGAGE WITH THE US
PLEASE BELIEVE US, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT
What Is a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)?
‘A SEA examines the potential impact of a plan on the neighbourhood area where it contains sensitive natural or heritage assets that may be affected by the proposals in the plan.’
Uttlesford DC have only recently decided that we need an SEA. This is delaying the progress of our NP. The irony is the regulations do not require potential developers to have a SEA for schemes submitted outside the plan!
Sunnybrook II
The Review Group favours a development of an additional 17 new homes at Sunnybrook Farm. This extension of the existing development also offers a generous site to be given to the community for the potential future relocation of our village shop and post office which, in the meantime, the parish will maintain as an open green space.
The Water Tower site in Garnetts Lane
This site was one of those presented in March 2024 by the Review Group at the consultation held in the Memorial Hall. It offers the capacity for around 70 homes. In addition to the statutory requirement of 35% affordable housing it also offers six social housing units (to be given to the Felsted Community Trust). However, it has negative impacts on the views of the residents in Garnetts Lane and the access to the site is restricted. Essex Highways have been consulted and, to help inform the planning application, have required a survey to determine traffic volumes and the usage of Garnetts Lane and Stebbing Road and an appraisal to consider the safety of pedestrians/cyclists and equestrian.
Both the building and the subsequent occupation of the homes will be initially disruptive and over time will increase traffic movements in the village centre. Following a presentation by the landowner’s agent Springfield Planning in April, residents from Garnetts Lane attended the Parish Council and expressed their strong objections to the plans.
The Watch House/Bannister Green Bloor Homes site
This site was also one of those presented in March 2024 by the Review Group but with an important change.
This amended site was also brought forward in April in a public consultation by Phase 2 Planning on behalf of Bloor Homes. (We refer to this as the Bloor Homes site.) Access to the site is much improved, and the proposed housing mix is welcome. But, largely coterminous with the original site, proposed development of around 100 homes would bring coalescence between Watch House and Bannister Green, effectively losing the distinct identity of those communities.
Hedgehog Solar Farm
Additionally, the impact of the Hedgehog Solar farm on these communities is significant and not to be discounted or underestimated.
What Can I do?
Come along on Friday the 11th July between 5pm and 8pm or on Saturday the 12th July between 10am and 1pm at the URC Hall in Stebbing Road.
We will display the material provided by the agents for both the Water Tower and Bloor Homes sites and our assessment criteria.
You will be asked to register your name and address and indicate your preferences for the Water Tower or the Bloor Homes site and to leave written comments.
This is NOT a planning by numbers event!
There may be other factors thrown up by the planning process that impact the final decision as to which sites are included in the Reviewed Felsted Neighbourhood Plan.
Developers may and are very likely to submit Planning Applications outside of the Neighbourhood Plan process before we can complete the plan and they could all be approved! That is the reality of the impact of the government’s housing policy.
So, a vote in favour of one site or the other doesn’t necessarily mean that only one will be developed: that is out of our control.
Once we have considered all the public comments and reviewed our site assessments, we aim to bring forward a draft NP for a formal consultation under Regulation 14 of the Neighbourhood Planning Regulations. You will once again have an opportunity to comment.
A draft plan, once approved by UDC will then be sent to a Planning Inspector who will ensure regulatory compliance and will say if it can be subject to a local referendum. Once again you get the chance to make your opinion count by voting.
If the final draft is adopted and ‘Made’ it will become part of the Local Plan and offer us some protection from future development. If it is not supported and the draft fails at referendum, the developers will have won.
We know this is all very complicated: it is also very important!
We’ll do our best to further explain the issues at the Drop-in Sessions:–
Come along on Friday the 11th of July between 5pm and 8pm or on Saturday the 12th July between 10am and1pm at the URC Hall in Stebbing Road.