Advice re Objecting to new housing Estate

withabix

So are you saying that the houses aren't needed in your village?
(needed and wanted are not the same!)

Are there numerous empty houses in the village?
Are houses usually up for sale for ages (excluding current situation)?
Is the village population declining ? (would result in the answers to the above two being 'yes').
Is the housing stock old or unsuitable for today's requirements?
Is the population in the local area (towns/county) growing or contracting?

I'm sure you don't want to name the village, how about the county or the nearest town? It would become clearer if there was a need or not.

Hugbubble

The_Old_Bag wrote: »

Hugbubble......
Post 42 as you requested !!


I would never say they should move - the whole point of the arguement was exactly that.

The point is, people move into Cornwall and then complain about any more houses being built on their doorstep.

The_Old_Bag wrote: »

If people in Cornwall need more houses to be built, what is the point building them somewhere else ???

Absolutely no point building houses near you for the good people of Cornwall whatsoever. They should build affordable houses in Cornwall. Oh hang on, Mr "Complaining Outsider who priced the locals out of the market in the first place" says no to the planning application, therefore it doesn't go ahead.

The_Old_Bag wrote: »

Cknocker says he lives in one of the biggest Towns in Cornwall - and he implies they have a serious housing shortage.

If the people in the biggest town in Cornwall

...Actually Cknocker didn't say the biggest town in Cornwall

The_Old_Bag wrote: »

...needs houses, and the Gov are planning to build thousands of houses in the smallest villages around the country......how in heavens name does that help anyone ????????

Even one of the biggest towns in Cornwall is tiny and much of its outskirts is made up of small villages. Which locals can't afford to buy a house in.

I don't think Cknocker's point was that houses in your village were a solution to the housing problem in Cornwall- that would be crazy and I can't believe you really thought that is what CK was suggesting but on the off chance you really thought that- I believe the point was more that local people in rural settings can't afford to buy houses in their locale- a problem made worse by the fact that people who have bought into the "Escape to the Country" mentality don't want some muddy locals disturbing their views

The_Old_Bag

Hugbubble wrote: »

...Actually Cknocker didn't say the biggest town in Cornwall

Yes I know he didn't - do I need a double negative there or what ?
Which is why I VERY specifically used the phrase which you 'word for word' quoted but somehow didn't seem to actually read:-

"Cknocker says he lives in one of the biggest Towns in Cornwall - and he implies they have a serious housing shortage."

And his exact words were :- "I live in a town that is one of the biggest in Cornwall,"

So, which bit did I get wrong this time ?

As for him not meaning 10,000 houses being built in the smaller communities doesn't help Cornwall and his LARGE town - why did he then post the link then ?
His post was about his large town not having affordable housing, and his link was suggesting the solution to the problem of the lack of affordable houses was to put them in the smallest rural communities.

I would never assume that CK's ( forgive the familiarity) lives in a sprawling metropolis, but did say big town. i.e not a small village

The_Old_Bag

Hugbubble wrote: »

The point is, people move into Cornwall and then complain about any more houses being built on their doorstep.

By the way, I haven't moved to Cornwall and then complained about more houses being built on my doorstep. So why am I being tarred (hopefully not feathered this time) with this argument again.?

My village happens to have relatively reasonable housing for the area, certainly I cannot afford to move nearer to my work for example, because I cannot afford to !!
We regularly have property for sale from small cottages to huge barn conversions, and considering some of these new homes are 5 bedroom I think the effect of people moving from Cornwall to a 5 bed in the sticks will take a long time to trickle down the food chain to the homeless in CKs town.

Cknocker

Just to complete the circle here and how the desirability of towns and villages and how insuficient building affects the whole chain: -

First off lets destroy the illusion that Camborne is a quaint Cornish Town (You may remember the story of the curfew in Redruth last year, well Camborne is the town next door and we unfortunately have more in common with Redruth than we would like).

Why don't the locals move elsewhere, well its simple Camborne/Redruth have the cheapest house prices in the county, unfortunatley the wage to price ratio even then is on a par with the South East, wlsewhere it is on a par with inner city London. So that leaves the simple choice to move out of the county, most who gain degree level qualifications do, I got lucky and managed to find a well paid job in the county.

With high unemployment, why is the town so popular? Well its popular by nessecity, the locals from surrounding towns and villages cannot afford to stay in their towns and villages as the prices are so ridiculously high, generally driven by outsiders (TOB, I am not assuming you are from outside of your village, its irrelevant), with a strong reaction to any development proposals (You may have seen the story of the fishing village where a new fish quay was objected to, generally by people who only lived in the village part time and in the end it was taken by the objectors to the high court.

As a result of the increased demand caused by objections elsewhere, we are now in a position that it is proposed to nearly double the size of the town in the next fifteen years, with a housing density that is quite frankly disgraceful. At the same time jobs are being centralised to Truro, leading to those commute miles you spoke of.

As I said I'm not saying concrete the countryside, far from it, just try to understand that every community has a responsibility to accept a level of development that makes the community sustainable, without pushing that responsibilty on to other communities as has happened here.

I am sorry if you feel I have tarred you with a brush and I have unfairly transferred the situation here to yourself, but it is an attitude that makes me extremely angry.

planning_officer

The_Old_Bag wrote: »

The plans would break the Local Plan
...
It also apparently goes against the "emerging Local Development Framework Core Strategy" [that will replace the Local Plan eventually - it's the 'new' version!]
...
The application undermines the "sustainable strategy for housing land allocation"
...
It is also apparently "contrary to the development plan.....and would result in a significant loss of 'Greenfield' land".

If all that is true, it sounds like the developer has not got a hope of getting planning permission!!

If your Local Plan and emerging Core Strategy have already identified suitable sites for housing and this is not one of them then the developer really has got an enormous battle to get permission. It sounds like a speculative proposal by a greedy landowner or developer!

planning_officer

withabix wrote: »

... remember that the building of these houses will enable other residents to move into larger houses, resulting in existing affordable houses to become available.

Not quite - affordable housing is very different to low cost market housing (which is what you are referring to) - affordable housing is subsidised (can be any size of dwelling, although commonly it's smaller properties), but the important thing is that it is offered for sale at a price that is lower than the going market rate for that size of property.

The_Old_Bag

Just a quick update for anyone who may be interested.

Planning applications for this exact piece have land have already been rejected several times - presumably not on the basis of nimbyism or because the yokels had fists full of straws !!

On the one hand this is hopeful, esp since every single point in the list of reasons why these applications were rejected still exists.
BUT, having spoken to the planning dept and housing dept and read all the plans and paperwork, the only thing to have changed this time is external pressure and targets.

As several posters have pointed out, there are National and "Strategic" targets imposed on Councils. So it is not just a matter of if your area wants or needs new development - and this is not just from villagers and nimbyists point of view, but the councils and planning dept.

They may know that their area does not need or want this scale of development, but once you have been allocated a target, it is a done deal.
Then I gather the council and the council planning dept are under pressure to come up with the land and the houses within a set time frame. i.e. they are supposed to have 5 years of stock identified ahead of time for example.

All quite interesting actually, if rather complicated for a thick nimbyist yokel.
Having read all the paperwork and spoken to council staff and planners I have real concerns that this development will get approval because the council is behind on it's own target for identifying land and cracking on with getting specified numbers of houses built.
There is repeated strongly worded reference to the council failing to meet the targets they have been set, but not a word about any need in the village or the surrounding area.

So although on the facts of the site, as planning_officer suggests, and local need, the application should be rejected, but, because of these external demands on the Council I think they will move the goal posts and now approve it.

Again, many thanks for all the advice and help
TOB

withabix

planning_officer wrote: »

Not quite - affordable housing is very different to low cost market housing (which is what you are referring to) - affordable housing is subsidised (can be any size of dwelling, although commonly it's smaller properties), but the important thing is that it is offered for sale at a price that is lower than the going market rate for that size of property.

True, but there is Affordable Housing and then there is affordable housing!

Cknocker

The problem is TOB that for a long time there were not enough developments getting planning permission due to over strict planning guidelines, as a result the government has eased what is acceptable, so something that was not acceptable 5 years ago could now be considered acceptable.

For this to happen though it would still have to find its way into an area plan, although the planners can depart from the area plan, with the potential for the application to be called in by the secretary of state.

In short if its not in the area plan you have a good chance, if it is you are going toi struggle, but if it isn't it could still happen.