CASE Notice Board 2000

20th December 2000

NHDC Local Plan Withdrawn

Yesterday evening NHDC voted to withdraw their Local Plan which contains the controversial proposal to build 10,000 dwellings in the green belt to the west of Stevenage. The reason for the decision was to enable NHDC to bring their local plan into conformity with the Governments planning guidance "PPG3". This guidance requires that brownfield sites should be utilised for development before any greenfield sites. It also requires all local authorities to carry out detailed urban capacity studies It is unlikely that the NHDC plan will now be finalised within the next four to five years.

This decision will , by no means, be the end of the attempts by Stevenage Borough Council and the developers to proceed with this proposal. However, this is a major set back for them and their task is now much more difficult. There are now real prospects that the entire development can be stopped.

CASE met with SBC's planning department today. We were informed that SBC would be proceeding with their own local plan (which covers about 1000 dwellings to the west of Stevenage). It is also likely that, notwithstanding this decision, within the next few months the developers will put in a application for planning permission to build the first 5,000 dwellings. There are, accordingly, many more battles to win before we can say for certainty that this large amount of green belt has been saved from development. Yesterday's decision was, however, an important first step and represents a welcome Christmas present to CASE and its many supporters.

1st December 2000

Date set for crucial NHDC meeting

The important meeting in which NHDC will decide on whether or not to withdraw the Local Plan containing the proposals for a development West of Stevenage has now been set for 7.30pm on 19th December 2000 at the Council Offices, Gernon Road, Letchworth. .

CASE would like as many of its supporters as possible to come to this meeting so that Councillors are made fully aware of the continuing strength of opposition. If anyone would like to come, but needs help with transport please contact us.

11th November 2000

Still no date for NHDC meeting

NHDC have still not set a date for the meeting during which they will decide whether or not to withdraw the local plan containing the proposal for a development of up to 10,000 houses West of Stevenage. CASE understand that the meeting will not take place until, at the earliest 12 December 2000 and possibly later than this date. We will provide details of the meeting as soon as its date has been confirmed.

The delay is good news. The County Council are due to complete their Urban Capacity Study sometime next Spring. CASE believe that this study will definitively establish that there are more than sufficient brownfield and urban sites available in Hertfordshire to make any development West of Stevenage unnecessary. In the light of the fact that this Study is due relatively soon, the sensible decision for NHDC appears to be to withdraw the plan (or those parts relating to West of Stevenage) pending the outcome of this Study.

7th October 2000

Crucial NHDC meeting postponed

CASE learned yesterday evening that the important NHDC meeting that was to take place on 17th October 2000 has been postponed until a date to be set sometime in November. This meeting of the NHDC Executive Committee was to decide whether to withdraw the local plan containing the West of Stevenage proposals.

The reasons given to CASE for this decision is that NHDC need further time to consider this vital decision and to have an opportunity to have further consultations and take further legal advice. Stevenage Borough Council have recently decided that they wish to proceed with the West of Stevenage development even though it is contrary to the latest Government planning guidelines and have recently written to NHDC instructing them that they must make the same decision.

The position in practice is that both NHDC and SBC have both got to be in agreement for the development to proceed. Stevenage cannot "go it alone". It is therefore even more important that NHDC stand up for the rights of their residents who are totally opposed to this unnecessary and environmentally destructive development. As soon as we know the date of the meeting in which the decision will be made by NHDC we will make it public.

16th September 2000

Stevenage Strikes Back

Stevenage have now obtained their own legal advice from Gregory Stone QC. Mr Stone's advice states that Stevenage Borough Council can proceed with the draft plan and there is no need to withdraw it. He further advises that the Borough Council should undertake an Urban Capacity Study in accordance with the guidelines set out it PPG3, but that the allocation of West of Stevenage is not dependent on the results of the Urban Capacity Study.

This is, of course, in stark contrast with the advice of Mr Lockheart-Mummery QC given to North Herts District Council that the NHDC plan should be withdrawn.

Stevenage have decided to continue with their district plan, including West of Stevenage, although there will be a short delay whilst the Urban Capacity Study is completed.

North Herts have yet to make up their minds as to what to do. This will be decided at the meeting on 17th October 2000 (see notice from 2nd August below).

CASE is continuing to put as much pressure a possible on North Herts to stick to their guns and comply with the advice they obtained from Mr Lockheart-Mummery. If North Herts decide to withdraw their plan, it is difficult to see how Stevenage can continue on their own, in isolation.

Plonkerville

Some months ago, John Urwin wrote to the Commet suggesting that those who opposed the West of Stevenage Development should come up with a suitable ridiculous name for this obscene development.He suggested "Plonkerville". If if you have other ideas, please contact us with them. There will be a suitable prize for the person who comes up with the best name.

Here is John's letter and a cartoon of the proposed site. Both files are saved in a Word document.

12th August 2000

We have now added a new page dedicated to the wonderful photos we received as a result of the CASE photo competition.

2nd August 2000

IMPORTANT DATE FOR YOUR DIARY

NHDC's Executive Committee will be meeting on October 17th 2000 at 7.30pm to decide what action to take with regard to the proposed West of Stevenage development in the light of the Advice of Mr. Lockhart Mummery Q.C. The meeting will take place at the Council Offices, Gernon Road, Letchworth. CASE would like as many of its supporters to attend this important meeting as possible. It is important that Councillors are not allowed to forget the depth of local opinion when debating this issue. Please come if you can do.. Further details of this meeting will be posted on this page near the time.

1st August 2000

Those you who drove along the B656 last Saturday may well have seen a group of CASE members dismantling the three large protest signs. They come down so that the farmers who kindly allowed us to erect them on their land can get in the harvest.

We hope to have them up again in the Autumn. In the meantime we will be renovating them and will be preparing new slogans. If you have any suggestions as to what they should have written on them please contact us and let us have your ideas!

28th July 2000

The 3000 or so people who filled in the CASE version of the NHDC Objections Form will have this week received a letter from David Bell, the Planning Policy Manager for NHDC. In this letter David Bell has invited comments on the Advice of Mr. Lockhart-Mummery Q.C. that the NHDC local plan containing the proposals for a development West of Stevenage be withdrawn. CASE have responded in detail to this invitation on behalf of all CASE supporters. Not surprisingly we have urged the Council to accept Mr. Lockhart-Mummery Q.C.'s Advice and to withdraw the NHDC local plan forthwith.

There is no need for individual CASE supporters to respond. However, if you do wish to reply, please do so. You are welcome to use the CASE submissions as an aid to drafting any response you wish to make.

Click here to see CASE's submissions to NHDC

23rd July 2000

Help CASE by writing to Persimmon Shareholders
(this document is in Word)

23rd July 2000

Yesterday's event at Hitchin Town Square was very successful. Many hundred's of supporters visited our site to discuss the recent good news and to sign letters to their own local councillors. These letters ask that NHDC and Stevenage Borough Council comply with the QC's recent advice that the Local Plans containing the proposals for West of Stevenage be withdrawn. Over 500 such letters were signed.

Paul's Hebridean sheep and Annie's hen with day old chicks were great crowd pullers!

Many thanks to all who helped make this such a successful day.

Tim

20th July 2000

Many people give up their time to help CASE. We have not been very good at acknowledging their contributions. This week I would like to thank Caroline Akeroyd for redesigning our web site and for her patience in teaching me how to edit and add items. I would also like to thank Alex, my long suffering secretary, for all her help in the past and in particular for her help in reproducing and placing on the web site the lengthy QC's opinion.

Tim

Dramatic Development - 14th July 2000

A top planning QC has advised North Herts District Council that the objections lodged by CASE on behalf of the 2600 local residents who completed the objection forms are clearly correct. He has advised the council in respect of the hugely controversial proposals that CASE are right in their contentions that the content of the local plan is contrary to Government guidelines. He has also advised that the local plan containing the proposal to develop West of Stevenage should be withdrawn forthwith.

The effect of the advice is that the entire planning process will have to start afresh and a decision on whether or not the development West of Stevenage should proceed must be considered anew in the light of new government guidelines.

Tim Akeroyd, chairman of CASE, comments as follows:

"This is wonderful news. The position of CASE and its supporters has been fully vindicated and there is now a very good chance that this obscene and unnecessary development can be stopped. We must continue ceaselessly campaigning to ensure that we win this battle. Victory is in sight!"

Click here for the QC's Advice to NHDC.

See also North Herts District Council press release

If you would like to see CASE's response to the North Herts Plan, click here

5th June 2000

The message from CASE this month can best be conveyed by letters to local papers

"Herts on Sunday" 4 June

"Those who were under the impression that by voting for a Conservative candidate in the recent local elections they were voting for a Councillor who would do something to stop the lunacy which is West of Stevenage would have been profoundly disappointed by the performance of those same Councillors at the Joint Members Group meeting in Letchworth last evening.

NHDC Councillors who are supposed to represent the views and concerns of their constituents allowed themselves to be browbeaten by their full-time officers to the extent that almost without dissent they accepted a set of guidelines for the proposed new development (the Masterplanning Principles) without any evidence being produced about the likely impact the development will have on the rest of North Herts.

A crucial and obvious question. These people, our elected representratives, last night opened the door to the developeršs next move by accepting a set of so-called principles against which a planning application can be tested. This without any evidence being presented about the likely effect this will have on the environment of the area or, for example, the already severe traffic situation.

Major housing development West of Stevenage has been on the cards for over 3 years, promoted by a clutch of fat-cat house builders and supported by a local bureaucratic machine directed from the Government Office for the Eastern Region in Bedford. In all this time no detailed or verifiable information has been forthcoming about the likely implications for our roads, for our water supplies and water courses, for local wildlife and ecology or for any other factors having an impact on the present inhabitants of North Herts.

Lip service is paid to public consultation but opposition, which is the majority view, is ignored. Councillors are briefed by concerned residents and, as last evening, fail to attend crucial meetings or if they do attend, observe some political pecking-order and fail to speak up. It is time for local people to contact their Councillors before it is too late to stop this relentless alien process.

They must see that real questions are pressed home about the way these secretive planners propose to integrate this massive scheme into North Hertfordshire without permanent, irreversible, damage. These questions have so far been side-stepped by Council Officers with an ulterior motive for promoting West of Stevenage. Weasel words are no longer enough, we need to see some answers".

Ellie Clarke

"Herts on Sunday" 11 June

"My friend Ellie Clarke is bitter at what she saw as Conservative Councillors' poor performance over the planning principles recently accepted. It is not given to all to be forceful in public but she will surely admit that there was some spirited opposition to the proposals. North Herts officers certainly had browbeaten their members and it is to be hoped that my colleagues in North Herts will read the speech before Agincourt and stiffen sinew etc.

The will of the people is clear on this issue and members opposing the West of Stevenage development need only remember that they have been voted into power to do what they can to stop or contain the proposals and that officers are there to do the will of members; to do as they are told!

Ellie and her friends may be disappointed that there is not enough public growling but she also has to remember that only the Conservatives can be relied upon to oppose the scheme. We may not be what they would like but we are all that they have got and our oppostion to the West of Stevenage proposals remains as absolute as ever".

Robert Ellis, Leader, Herts County Council

"Herts on Sunday" 18 June

"Councillor Ellis makes reference to North Herts officers "browbeating" their Councillors. It has emerged that North Herts Councillors had been "instructed" (not "advised" but "instructed") by their officers immediately before the meeting that on no account should they meet with campaigners against West of Stevenage unless a council officer is present. They were told that if they did so, they opened themselves to legal action by the developers on the grounds that they might not be considered impartial when it comes to determining a planning application.

Is it any wonder that they sat silently rather than supporting Cllr Ellis who, with the support of campaigners, questioned the validity of these so-called principles? If councillors cannot, in privacy and confidentiality, meet and talk with campaigners on this major issue, then the people of North Herts are being improperly denied access to their elected representatives".

Ellie Clarke

In the same issue

"Anybody who attends council meetings may quickly conclude that, on this important issue, representative democracy is bankrupt. Councillors ask a few inane questions and then nod through what their officers want.

This development will, of course, look good on their officer's CV's. Councillors appear surplus to requirements and could be replaced with a large rubber stamp. So, here is a challenge to Robert Ellis.

North Herts councillors are currently considering the most important document relating to this development - the Master Planning Principles. As it stands, the supporting work to the document is incomplete and its contents derisory when compared to similar documents relating to sustainable development elsewhere. Councillors can reasonably reject the Master Planning Principles and set up a proper advisory panel of competent people as has been done elsewhere. This will prevent officers sneaking the document through piecemeal and by stealth.

Let us see if the Tories can pass this test".

John Urwin

This eventful month leaves two fundamental questions unanswered about the behaviour of the North Herts District Council in its handling of the controversial issues surrounding the proposed development West of Stevenage.

Firstly, why the unseemly haste in pushing through, against all previous undertakings, a set of planning principles which will be totally inadequate in delivering a sustainable development here or anywhere else?

Secondly, why become so intolerant of criticism by councillors, who are already on the record from their election statements as being totally opposed to the development, as to incautiously try to deny CASE discreet access to them? This blatant attempt to bend the rules on which local democracy is based is being vigourously challenged by CASE. Watch this space.

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