Inspectors Response to the Local Plan

The Inspectors' have issued a letter following the Stage 1 hearing sessions  

Inspectors' letter 14 January 2020

Please click here to view the Inspectors' letter to the Council following the Stage 1 hearing sessions 

Statement from Tom Newcombe, Chair, Great Chesterford Parish Council:

Great Chesterford Parish Council has reviewed the letter regarding the lack of Soundness of the draft Local Plan, and welcome the ruling with cautious optimism.

 It is certainly pleasing that the overwhelming feelings of the residents of North Uttlesford towards the proposed 5000 House “Garden Community” outside Great Chesterford have finally been acknowledged and the proposal itself has been recognised for what it is – unsound thinking, based upon very shaky evidence which has been hastily cobbled together and completely failing to demonstrate viability or sustainability.

 The Inspectors themselves conclude: “The North Uttlesford Garden Community is flawed in terms of landscape and heritage impacts and the potential for the A505 improvements and public transport infrastructure are uncertain, undermining the potential for this Garden Community to be a sustainable place”. They also cite the “lack of clear mechanisms to ensure the Garden Community Principles will be met”, the “overly optimistic” housing delivery trajectory, the focus on Garden Communities “predetermining” the delivery strategy in the longer term and are highly critical of the draft plan in many other respects. They conclude: “based on [the inspectors] concerns about the soundness of the plan […] we anticipate that the changes necessary would amount to its almost complete redrafting”.

 Whether or not the Council intends to attempt to redraft the plan (the Inspectors care clear they should not) or pulls it completely and starts again, of crucial importance is the statement from the inspectors that: “…our view is that the Council should delete one of the Garden Communities from the plan.  Our suggestion would be that this should be North Uttlesford, which for the reasons set out above, seems to have the most barriers to its development and perform the least well against the Garden Community Principles.  As well as realising the benefits associated with the provision of a wider range of sites described above, to do so would realistically acknowledge and address the enormity of the scale of the highly ambitious task of delivering three Garden Communities in the district at once.  It would also reduce the post plan period development by around 3000 dwellings, thus providing the potential for a variety of small and medium sized sites to be allocated in the next local plan period, if appropriate.”

 We are distraught at the amount of time and public money which has been wasted by UDC on a draft plan which where it was so abundantly clear, for such a long period of time, that it was not going to pass the first hurdle at examination. We of course hope the whole sorry saga is now at an end, but are acutely aware that UDC now finds itself with a poor supply of housing, and no current Local Plan. Choppy waters remain on the horizon I'm afraid.

 We are of course deeply indebted to many of our Parish and District Councillors and residents for their tireless work in fundraising, in assisting the Parish bring the fundamental flaws in the North Uttlesford Garden Community proposal to the Inspectors attention and we thank our professional team as well. We have also received many kind donations from other groups and Parishes in Uttlesford and South Cambridgeshire for which we are very grateful.

 For the time being, thank you to all those who have supported us. Particular thanks to Parish Councillor David Hall, whose work on this matter has been truly outstanding.

We can now pause and reflect, and hope UDC takes on board the letter in full. As a District, and as a village, we are now likely to be the subject of speculative applications for housing. We will have to consider any which come forward on their merits, but work in concluding the Neighbourhood Plan for the villages of Great and Little Chesterford is vital, and continuing apace, and any help you can bring to this very important next step will be greatly appreciated.

For now, we can be very proud of this collective effort. Thank you all.

 Tom Newcombe

Chair, Great Chesterford Parish Council