Leaflet campaign doubles size of We Heart Hart petition

A big thank you to all the volunteers who have helped with the We Heart Hart leafleting campaign.  Just before we started leafleting we had 923 signatories.  Today, the number is 1,846; meaning the petition has doubled in size in just three weeks.  This is more than three times the number of people who responded to Hart District Council’s consultation and more than 8 times the number of people who expressed a preference for a new town.

Support for our cause has increased after we published the legal opinion from Peter Village QC that said that Hart was in a “hopeless position” with the Local Plan.  Surely it is time for Hart to think again and adopt our 5-point plan to bring the Local Plan back on track which is summarised below:

  • Create a medium growth scenario with a lower housing requirement than the current high growth scenario to give an option to reduce the environmental impact of development.
  • Create a formal brownfield option and invite a competition to design the best way of using our brownfield land.
  • Do the work and consult upon the additional elements of a proper Local Plan such as employment, education, transport, retail and other infrastructure.
  • Consider the Environment and Landscape by carrying out proper habitat studies and landscape character assessments.
  • Fix the management and governance problems within Hart Council that have resulted in the past failure and current hopeless position.

If you would like to support our position, then please sign and share our petition.

 

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Rushmoor’s Employment Land Review has errors that reduce brownfield site availability

Vacant Block at Ancells Farm, Fleet, Hart District, Hampshire

Vacant Block at Ancells Farm, Fleet, Hart District, Hampshire

Rushmoor Borough Council has produced a draft Employment Land Review (ELR) on behalf of Hart District Council, Surrey Heath and Rushmoor.  We Heart Hart has examined this draft document and found some serious errors in the way they have calculated both the historic jobs growth numbers and the future jobs projections for the area. Moreover, after discounting the Experian methodology for calculating future jobs growth saying:

“Experian-derived forecasts which are considered unreliably high in that they make too many assumptions around unconstrained economic growth”,

they recommend that the scenario that is used for testing should be based on the numbers for housing development contained in the SHMA, which themselves are inflated by the self same Experian forecasts they earlier dismissed as unreliable. This is clearly an absurd position that results in the forward B-class job projections (598 per annum) being nearly double the rate (300 per annum) that would be achieved if we continued at the rate of growth that was delivered between 1998 and 2012.  The impact of this is that the amount of employment land we need is being over-stated and so reducing the amount of brownfield land that might be available for housing.  This represents a great opportunity for Hart Council to challenge Rushmoor to re-visit the ELR and revise it so that more brownfield land comes available across the three districts.

We have asked several questions about the errors we found, but have not received satisfactory responses. We urge you to contact your councillors and ask them to challenge Rushmoor to come up with more realistic estimates and revise the ELR before it becomes final and sign our petition:

 

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The detail of the analysis is shown below.

ELR Table 8.2

ELR Table 8.2

The starting point for the analysis is Table 8.2 that shows the forecast employment change in a number of different types of jobs, from which it is possible to derive the ratio of B-Class jobs to all jobs at 53% (17,428/32,906). B-Class jobs means those jobs that require office space or light industrial units, rather than an indication that they are somehow inferior.  Then we must look at Figure 7.12 that allegedly compares the historic rate of growth of B-Class jobs to the forward projections.

Figure 7.12 ELR

Figure 7.12 ELR

By inspection, Figure 7.12 shows the trend in B-Class jobs as approx 555 per annum from 2002-2012.  The data from Table 8.2 allows us to derive total job growth of around 1,048 per annum.  However, as we shall show below, this number is far in excess of the actual job growth achieved according to the SHMA.

The SHMA contains data on the historic rates of job growth.  This shows two sets of data that are derived from different sources and cover different time periods (Figures 4.3 & 4.4 of the SHMA).

First, there is the period 1998-2008, covered by ABI data.  This shows overall job growth in the period of 7,200, or 720 per annum for the 10 year period with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 0.6%.  This would equate to a growth rate of B-Class jobs of 382 per annum, far lower than the 555 jobs per annum shown in figure 7.12.

Second there are different BRES sourced data for the periods of 2009-2012. The BRES data from 2009-2012 shows total jobs growth of 200, or 67 per annum (35 B-Class per annum) for the 3 years in question or a CAGR of 0.05%, again far lower than the 555 in figure 7.12.  It is difficult to see how the 555 number was derived since it is much higher than either period covered in the SHMA.  Despite repeated questions, no one has been able to explain how they derived their number for Figure 7.12.

Comparison of the BRES data and the ABI data shows a discontinuity between 2008 and 2009, with a jobs increase of nearly 10,000 when we know the economy was in the teeth of a deep recession. Note that the report states that the ABI and BRES data cannot be directly compared because they are compiled using different methods. It is therefore clear that each period (and dataset) should be treated separately and independently rather than splicing them together.

Treating the datasets separately would indicate total jobs growth over the economic cycle of 7,400, or 529 per annum or a CAGR of 0.41%, based on backward extrapolation of the BRES data.  This would equate to B-Class jobs growth rate of 280 per annum, or about half the number in Figure 7.12 of the ELR.

Taking the 0.41% rate of growth as a future projection would mean we would add 11,332 overall jobs over the period of 2012-2032 at an average rate of 567 total jobs per annum, or 300 B-Class jobs per annum.

However, the scenario recommended for testing in the ELR assumes a rate of B-Class jobs growth of 598 per annum (or total jobs growth of 1,128 per annum), nearly double the rate that would represent a forward projection of past performance over the economic cycle.  Incidentally, this is almost the same number as the future jobs growth number contained in the SHMA, which is based on the same Experian forecasts that the ELR itself discredits.

 

Hart New Town plan proposes school next door to child sex offender unit

Mildmay Oaks Hospital next door to proposed school

Proposed school next door to Mildmay Oaks Hospital that held escaped child sex offender

Most residents in Hart District will have heard of the recent escape of a convicted child sex offender from the Mildmay Oaks hospital in Winchfield (formerly known as the Vistacare hospital). Fortunately, the patient has been found and detained in another establishment.

However, what many may not know is that the Barratt Homes plan for a new town at Winchfield included a secondary school right next door to the Mildmay Oaks hospital and a further primary school only a little further away.  The image above is taken from the Barratts Vision document with an illustration added to highlight the proximity of the hospital adjacent to the proposed schools.

It seems beyond the bounds of credulity that anyone would consider that a suitable location for a secondary school was right next door to a hospital looking after convicted child sex offenders, especially when the unit failed CQC inspection twice whilst under the management of Vistacare and now has suffered a serious security breach under the new Partnerships in Care management.

The constraints placed by the location of the hospital have not been considered in the on-going testing of the new town location.

Surely it is time now for Hart Council think again about its absurd new town plan.

Top QC says Hart Council’s position on the Local Plan is “hopeless”

Scales of Justice weigh against Hart District Council

Scales of Justice weigh against Hart District Council

 

Top planning QC, Peter Village has produced a devastating legal opinion on Hart District Council’s Local Plan process and pronounced that they are in a “hopeless position“.  Hart Council have received this opinion, but have refused a meeting to discuss ways of improving the plan.  In fact, at last night’s council meeting, council leader Stephen Parker dismissed the report as “just one opinion among many”.

It is imperative that Hart gets a high quality local plan in place quickly and fends off the demands from Surrey Heath and Rushmoor Borough Councils to build an extra 3,100 houses in Hart.  The council’s attitude displays a staggering level of arrogance and complacency that can only lead to more delays and extra costs to get the plan right.  We urge all voters to press their council candidates to push to get the Local Plan process back on track by adopting our 5-point plan and dropping all ideas of a new town in Hart District.

The essence of the opinion is:

  • The Regulation 18 public consultation in the autumn of 2014 addressed housing options and did not consider other vital issues such as employment, retail, transport and infrastructure.
  • Hart District Council said in April 2014 that they would conduct a second Reg 18 consultation in March 2015, which they have since dropped and now intend to proceed directly to a Regulation 19 consultation on the Draft Plan for Final Inspection.  This plan is likely to fail because either the Local Plan will not contain all the elements it should, or they will not have consulted on all of the things they should consult upon.
  • Hart have not consulted upon the demands from Surrey Heath and Rushmoor that Hart build 3,100 houses for them.
  • Hart have not considered a medium growth “policy on” scenario of not meeting the full housing need on environmental grounds.
  • Hart have not properly considered the brownfield capacity of the district, highlighting that the capacity could be up to 3,500 dwellings, far more than the 750 dwellings Hart is still insisting upon.

Reader may recall that set out a 5-point plan to address these issues and this is summarised below:

  • Create a medium growth scenario with a lower housing requirement than the current high growth scenario to give an option to reduce the environmental impact of development.
  • Create a formal brownfield option and invite a competition to design the best way of using our brownfield land.
  • Do the work and consult upon the additional elements of a proper Local Plan such as employment, education, transport, retail and other infrastructure.
  • Consider the Environment and Landscape by carrying out proper habitat studies and landscape character assessments.
  • Fix the management and governance problems within Hart Council that have resulted in the past failure and current hopeless position.

If you want to press for change, please sign our petition:

 

Go to Petition

 

The full Legal Opinion and our latest Press Release can be found below:

Peter Village QC Legal Opinion
Peter Village QC Legal Opinion
We Heart Hart Press Release 1 May 2015
We Heart Hart Press Release 1 May 2015

This has been covered in the Basingstoke Gazette.

 

QC Opinion

Press Release