Hart destroys its own Local Plan
Hart Council will effectively destroy its own Local Plan. It has taken the decision to oppose the appeal into the Cross Farm care home application by proceeding ‘on the basis that the planning application has been refused’.
This is laughable because the Cross Farm development was one of the preferred sites in the recent draft Local Plan consultation. The proposal is for a 160 unit care village and a 64-bed care home. The potential impacts of the decision to turn down the application are:
- Hart loses 224 dwellings from its draft Local Plan, potentially rendering it unsound
- The Local Plan no longer meets the specialist housing needs of older people, potentially rendering it unsound
- The council loses around 25Ha of valuable SANG land, constraining capacity to build new homes in the district
- The cost of the appeal is likely to be around £100,000, rising to over over £200,000 if Hart Council loses
- May lead to the introduction of a further round of consultation into the Local Plan, costing more money and losing another six months in the schedule
It is looking like the new CCH/Lib Dem administration is even worse than the previous Tory administration when it comes to planning policy. It may well be time for the Secretary of State to step in and appoint commissioners to replace this failing council.
The full article in the Fleet News and Mail can be found here.
How long are the residents of Hart going to put up with this type of leadership?
That’s about right.
Just to make sure I am not misinterpreting anything here. HDC will spend £200k minimum to defend against the appeal by a developer who wants to build on the land that has been included into HDC own draft local plan. And the defence is based on a wooly excuse that HDC are currently using the consultation as feedback on Cross Farm so want to delay (I assume until HDC then can definitely say Cross Farm is in the plan) making a decision. HDC would like to spend £200k to delay a decision by a few months?? Please someone put me out of my misery and tell me I have got the totally wrong
If it weren’t potentially so dangerous from the overall local planning perspective, this would be laughable. As it is, it shows appalling incompetence and is very worrying. I gave up long ago asking “What next?” of this planning authority. We are going to have to hunker down and take whatever comes, or so it would seem, because HDC won’t have any influence.
Lewis Ruffle Michele Ruffle