Local Plan 2011-2031 Proposed Submission Draft

I write, so far as they relate to the village of Barkway, with my representations in response to your letter of 17 October regarding your final consultation before the local plan is submitted to government for examination.

1. First, I (and I know others) would like to know what consultation you carried out during the Research Stage of the Plan Preparation leading to the draft so far as Barkway and its surrounding area are concerned, as to both whose views you sought and who approached you. Particularly is that so given (a) what your Statement of Community Involvement says about consultation prior to publication and (b) that Barkway Parish Council was not consulted by you when the effect of your draft plan if implemented would affect this village and its surrounding area to a very much greater extent than is proposed for any other village in the north Hertfordshire area. The Planning Inspectorate will also want to know this, especially when, I understand, the plan contravenes your own previous guidelines and recommendations.
2. Second, I am not clear what the position is about the Parish Council's Neighbourhood Plan. My understanding is that it has been rejected by you on more than one occasion on the basis that it is incomplete. The Parish Council has spent a great deal of time in the preparation of this document and you and the Inspectorate need to take account of it whether or not you think it is in acceptable form. It represents the views of a significant majority of those who live in or around this village.
3. Your plan envisages an increase of more than 60% in the number of houses in the village. That is clearly disproportionate given the proposed increases in other places within your area and is also, in my and many others' view, entirely inappropriate.
4. Barkway Parish Council will tell you that the village supports some housing development. That seems to me to be a very reasonable and co-operative response to the general need for more new housing and is a view I support.
5 Others will no doubt tell you about the problems such large scale development as proposed in your plan will create but for the record I list them here.
(a) Local roads are narrow and dangerous. You will have the statistics showing the history of serious and fatal accidents. Traffic consultants engaged by the Parish Council report that the increased traffic deriving from housing development such as proposed in your plan is not sustainable. The local bus service is minimal.
(b) So are local amenities minimal. The Parish Council will no doubt make the point that the neighbouring village of Barley has greater amenities (including a shop / Post Office and a doctors' surgery) with considerably less proposed housing development in your plan. Something else the Inspectorate will, I hope, question.
(c) No employment will be created so new inhabitants will need to travel to work, so further increasing the problem with local roads.
(d) I understand that the pressure to maintain the existing water supply to the village is only just adequate and will not be able to cope with considerably increased demand.
(e) Similarly, a new sewage treatment plant would be needed.
6. The single most significant driver of these problems is the inclusion of the site marked BK3 in your plan, the owners of the larger part of which have already outlined to the village their plans to apply for permission to build 100 plus houses on that part alone (to, I am told, considerable local hostility). The simplest way to deal with the problems referred to is to remove the BK3 site from your plan. Apart from the points already made I would add (a) that the site has previously been rejected for various reasons (so it is a surprise to many that it is proposed now to be included) and (b) that it is immediately adjacent to Newsells Park Stud.
7. The stud is locally (indeed nationally and internationally) important, employing as it does some 40 people, representing tens of millions of pounds of investment by its owners to the benefit of the local community in many different ways. Now to have the prospect of 150 houses built on its doorstep, ten or so years after granting it permission to expand its operations (and thus invest those millions), will not be welcome given what will follow in terms of, for example, much increased use of the bridle and footpaths that cross its (and our) land which is grazed by very valuable livestock. No doubt the stud will make its own representations to you but I support its objections.
8. Finally, your letter speaks of the Tests of Soundness. I can only say that the inclusion of BK3 in the plan when previously rejected, the apparent lack of prior consultation and the excessive housing allocation to this particular village with so few amenities by comparison with other places hardly gives confidence that the Justified test has been met.

I hope that, so far as Barkway is concerned, you will decide when you have considered all responses, that the plan needs amending before submitting it for examination to the Planning Inspectorate.

My wife will email you separately to say she agrees with what I say in this letter but which should be recorded as a separate response.