Wendover Parish Council Responds to the Buckinghamshire Local Plan Consultation

At the October Parish Council we agreed our response to the first consultation on the Buckinghamshire Local Plan which sets out where new development will happen and how Buckinghamshire Council will meet the national housing targets. There are two documents out for consultation at the moment and it is not an exciting bedtime read but is an important one. They can be found at https://yourvoicebucks.citizenspace.com/planning/local-plan/

The Parish Council believes that whilst there may be some development in Wendover this will be limited but of greater concern is the development around Wendover that will add pressure to already failing infrastructure and may ultimately mean that Wendover becomes the gateway to the Aylesbury urban sprawl and not just the Chilterns.

Our response in full is available here:

Summary 

Wendover Parish Council are sympathetic to the national building targets and the need for more development in Buckinghamshire. We also recognise that practicalities mean that much of the development will happen outside the Wendover Parish. Our key concerns for the plan are:

• The Process

  • The consultation seems to be skewed so that the bulk of the engagement happens after the final draft plan (pre submission) has been produced.

  • The plans reference a lot of external reports and documentation as the evidence base. Those documents are in various stages of completion. It is not initially obvious where these reports are available and they are so numerous that we feel that this will necessitate an extension to the current deadline. 

  • The Local Plan should specifically consider headline learnings from other development that has occurred. In Wendover this would mean the management of the development of Princess Mary Gate, the creation of hostels, the creation and loss of older people’s accommodation. This should be a separate “evidence” report (see above)

• The Proposal

  • Neighbourhood plans are glaringly absent from the drafts and the consultation

  • Wendover is probably not being developed to an extent other areas are. However, we do not want the “knock on” infrastructure needs from development around Wendover to be ignored. The Local Plan needs to identify how Wendover’s infrastructure can be supportive of developments in the local area..

  • The “Aylesbury urban sprawl” risks completely removing the identity and character of Wendover and parishes local to us and we would like to see safeguards in the Local Plan 

Process

Primarily we are concerned that after this consultation the next we will see of the plan is when a pre submission final draft has been produced. It would be very easy to feel that the plan is not the result of genuine community engagement.

We are aware that scrutiny of the plan will come at a County wide level and then at a very local level – the Parish Council. As we no longer have District Councils to review from a mid/local area level we believe that Community Boards may be employed to fill in that gap and/or funding be made available to clusters of parish councils wanting to undertake such a review and feedback process.  

It is significant and deeply concerning that there is no reference to how neighbourhood plans have/will shape the final spatial strategy. There is huge concern that the consultation with town and parish councils will not result in as robust scrutiny as a detailed consideration of the neighbourhood plans. In many cases these plans took years to craft and were the result of detailed consideration by the community.

In the spatial strategy there seems to be a glaring omission; there is no cross reference between the table on Page 38 (summary of approaches to Potential Housing Supply).and the Call for Sites map. We accept there are additions to make to that call for sites map and that will be the focus of the next consultation - but potentially the housing supply may mean that the decision on land use is fait accompli and this should be indicated here.

Feedback on the Spatial Strategy (Document A)

Objective 1      

There should be explicit mention of HS2 and restoration of the construction sites and land returned to the community. This consultation should contain more information about the green belt impacts of what is being considered for release. What will the new development look like if none of the green belt was used? We have to assume that if Green Belt is respected then development elsewhere will be more dense.

Objective 2

Sustainability must have meaningful objectives but not ignore the realities of modern life. Princes Mary Gate is a relatively new estate that has become a parking nightmare despite there being green transport links, local shop and recreational spaces. Further, EVs make consumers believe it is possible to own multiple vehicles and drive to the local school run and be sustainable. There needs to be adequate parking for current and future use on any development, and the local plan needs to cover this and consider some of the problems that may arise with developments under construction or recently completed.

Objective 3

This seems a sensible option

Objective 4

We support the need to create great places to live and the creation of neighbourhoods. Preventing coalescence may not be a priority in the current national planning. However, there is a concern that if you start to fill in the land between those developments already approved that Wendover would become nothing more than the fringes of an Aylesbury urban sprawl; with no neighbourhoods and little to differentiate villages such as Stoke Mandeville, Halton, Weston Turville and Aston Clinton as well as Wendover. It is recognised that because of Wendover being protected by the National Landscape it may not be an area with a lot of development. That does not mean that it does not need significant investment, so it maintains its character within Buckinghamshire’s distinctiveness.

Objective 5

(as above) Wendover will still need investment even without development in our parish. The Health Centre seems to be at capacity with some Wendover residents having been transferred to their other surgeries in Bedgrove and Aston Clinton increasing impact on traffic infrastructure. Within Wendover many of the shops are not easily accessible and the local recreational spaces still need investment to increase accessibility and cope with any increase in demand from surrounding developments. 

Objective 6

Wendover Parish Council firmly believe that the current infrastructure is not designed to support the current communities. Any infrastructure must therefore designed for the future and implemented before development occurs. For example, we believe that SEALR is only going to have the capacity to support the current communities, including Wendover. Hampden Fields will place additional demands, and we are not sure it is designed to cope with any additional development beyond that. 

Currently there are a number of concerns from the HS2 construction regarding flood and drainage and the local plan should have a contingency for any issues. We also note that HS2 are not currently going to provide an extension to the greenway running on top of the tunnel. There is much spoken about primary schools in developments but the Local Plan needs to explicitly cover secondary provision. Any increase in capacity to the John Colet secondary school needs to come with infrastructure expenditure (such as access to the school and a drop off/pick up point directly from the B4009 by the Beeches). Again just because Wendover will not have extensive development does not mean that our transport infrastructure doesn’t need additional development just to stand still.

Objective 7

It could be argued that Wendover has more businesses operating from the side roads (people’s houses) than it does from the high street and business units. Whilst there are limited opportunities for new business development in Wendover, any part of the plan that invests in the potential of these existing businesses (working from home or in small, isolated offices) is welcome. A business hub in central Wendover would be very welcome and would also support other local developments. Areas such as the old cricket ground currently on HS2 land would be a perfect opportunity for communal workspaces and/or a hub. Any further support for our high street in Wendover as a part of the local plan would also be welcome.

Objective 8

Maximising connectivity, in particular transport, is also discussed elsewhere in the feedback. The key concern is that we feel we are starting from behind the ideal baseline and cannot cope with existing demands (road and rail). Therefore, we believe that there is an opportunity in the Local Plan to ensure any new development should be used to close that gap as well as building the future. For example, any development that relies on the Wendover Schools for its catchment should fund infrastructure works around the campus to deal with the traffic, congestion, parking and safety issues now and for the future schools users.

Feedback on the management policies (Document B)

• We would like to know if Rural Exception Sites are being considered for Wendover and how they would work

• What is the development strategy until the Local Plan is adopted? Are developers going to be able to take advantage of this transitional period?

• Will the Local Plan also prevent High Streets from a move to increased residential use? – there is reference to Wendover being a District Centre – what protections does that afford?

• Loss of local agricultural land and viability of local farmers – As a part agricultural economy Wendover is keen to see protections for local agricultural land and land rented to farmers. We are aware of a number of local speculative land purchases that places farmers at risk of losing land which will ultimately impact on their farm viability.

• We would like to see protections of agricultural land from solar farms and data centres

• HS2 may have significant impact on the water courses (both planned for and not planned for) will the Local Plan have strategies in place for dealing with these issues.

• The Local Plan references the Local Nature Recovery Strategy – assuming it is likely to be adopted will a cross check be done between both plans after all the details has been worked out. How will Areas that Could Become important to diversity be treated in the Local Plan?

• Would it not make sense to ensure the Buckinghamshire Green Infrastructure Study is published before the Local Plan so it can be taken into account by the Local Plan

• Could the recommendations around Night Lighting (ALAN) in the Local Plan also be used to support greater rollouts of PNL or streetlight switch offs county wide

• We would welcome any tourism support from developers in the Local Plan and feel there is a need to celebrate the uniqueness of the area – this would include tourist facilities and embracing local history such as a recreation of woodhenge (see also Heritage Assets)

• The policy statement (blue box) for 2.44 is missing or is actually not required as box TR1 appears later in the section. Whilst sustainable transport links are essential, the Local Plan must provide for the reality that each new house will come with two cars and they will need to park and move around the county for work, school and leisure. 

• We believe the Local Plan should start from the assumption that we are behind the ideal baseline (unsure as to what the infrastructure study says on transport) and any development must be above and beyond to compensate for that current shortfall, this feels implicit in 2.45 but may be worth stating explicitly.

• Local developers have the habit of selecting a telecommunications provider to have “preinstalled” on any new development. This removal of competition may hinder investment by major companies and slow down any roll out to other areas of the County. We would like to see the Local Plan address this.

We firmly believe that, despite all the modelling, the flood risk is changing and will change further over the period of the construction and bringing into service of HS2. We feel the Local Plan should at the least recognise this as well as any future change of climate.