Winchfield and Hook New Town proposal from Hart District Council in Hampshire
Hart District Council’s proposals for a new town in “Winchfield” will in fact lead to another 1,458 houses being built in Hook Parish. This is more than the 730 new homes proposed in the “Urban Extension” approach put forwards in the Local Plan consultation documents.
This apparent paradox arises because three of the proposed sites in the consultation document are sites SHL126, 136 and 169 which are actually in Hook Parish according to the SHLAA documents. The combined total capacity of these sites recorded in the SHLAA is 1,458 units.
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I should also note that more than half of SHL167 – Beggars Corner – is also in Hook Parish, with a total capacity of 772 units according to the SHLAA. This would put a further ~400 or so houses in Hook Parish, bringing the total to around 1,850.
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The consultation also makes clear that according to Hart DC, (we disagree), that more than one approach will be needed to meet our housing needs. Hook could end up with both urban extensions and a new town partly in their own parish with devastating consequences. In fact from the map, we will end up with a single large conurbation that might end up being called Hartley Winchook.
We urge Hook residents to think carefully about how they cast their votes in the consultation. If they end up voting for a new town as their first preference as suggested by some Hook pressure groups, they may well end up with far more than they bargained for.
In our view, Hook residents would be better voting for a brownfield and dispersal strategy (Approach 1) and adding to pressure to reduce Hart’s housing allocation by challenging the SHMA that is based on out of date Government population projections.
Our guidance for responding to the consultation is available on the download below:
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Forster gave us grief ove rsuggesting pyestock as a suitable alternative as it would join fleet and Farnborough but when you look on the map it is as close as edenbrook will be to this development and at least there is mature woodland in that area. Wish they would use maps with edenbrook clearly shown
Get rid of the councillors that are voting this through. That’s all of CCH. Cllr Steve Forster appears to be for it because he does not want building in his area – very shortsighted. Cllr Steven Parker is driving ahead with it. Cllr Cockerel appears to be for it and other liberals like Neighbour, even though LibDem county councillor says it is the wrong way to go. Any of the cllrs that are voting for all this development rather than standing up to Hart Council and their CEO needs voting off the council at the next local election in May.
Sadly they are now going to develop on gorgeous green, natural, wildlife, plant, animals and insect rich land adjacent to Watery Lane. It seemed at one time that a bloody good fight was fought, by many passionate and well versed locals, although an ‘alleged’ clerical error in the planning dept ‘allegedly’ occurred and our fight then became truly limited and to a point null & void and I literally sat through all of that seven day appeal in Fleet, so I witnessed the ‘game’. And it really is a ‘legal I will catch you out’ game.
We were not able to fight against those who ‘allegedly’ manipulated the system to let this go through.
What concerns me, is that now, we as residents can not trust parts of our council, (although we do have some members that I do trust), we can not trust our political party members, who said on paper, on their very own newsletter that they would NOT let this happen, and yet when we contacted them or provoked them they chose not to respond! Nor can we trust the developers who promise us things that they can not, will not and probably never will deliver or fulfill. We have a Democratic society, only when it suits it seems. I am not bitter, I just wanted to share my thoughts based on what I have experienced over the years.
I know it’s a nightmare and we need more houses but please Gov/planning depts/developers, be more transparent, stop wasting campaigners time, stop hiding behind the jargon you would save the ‘hopefuls’ a lot of time and money!
Start writing real factorial information on their twitter feed. None of this is right. Eversley will be destroyed Hartley wintney hmm horrible…
It would take me about 3 hours to get to the a30 in the morning because of the extra traffic.. And that isn’t taking into account all the bloody speed bumps they will no doubt add in this utopian arsepit. Once again, time for a no confidence vote for the dullards @ hart
That’s longer than the Muppet spent writing that pathetic excuse as a development plan!
And does that look like a set of sites that is capable of creating a sustainable community, being bisected by the M3 and the railway?
Pure damn lazyness, rather than looking for sites brownfield …they picked a single site to get the majority of houses in, then wrote a document describing how engaging and sustainable they are!! Remember this is the second attempt…the first time forgivable, second a stackable offence!!!
This is bloody awful. Rather than actually doing some work they allowed the developers pick the sites they want to develop!!!
It makes me feel sick just thinking about it. It would destroy the entire area. Barratts can sod off.
Scabby money grabbing environment destroying gits…