It has emerged that Hart Council officers have held a secret meeting about Shapley Heath with Homes England and the developers. The meeting was revealed in a late response to a question put to Graham Cockarill back in November. He didn’t turn up to the meeting, and the promised written answer has only been provided today.
No wonder he didn’t want to answer the question during the General Election campaign.
The question was put by head the head of the Conservative group on the council, Anne Crampton. The response is produced in full below.
Hart holds Shapley Heath secret meeting with developers and Homes England
It is astonishing that meetings like this are not minuted. Even more astonishing is that the developers are more involved in the process than elected councillors.
We also asked a question at the same meeting. This was about the climate change impact of building up to 10,000 unnecessary houses. Sadly, the response didn’t really answer the question. But it is clear they are doubling down on investigating Shapley Heath Garden Village.
Hart Council has committed to spending the £150K Government funding it received on Shapley Heath. It has also said that it will seek a further £500K of funding from next years’ budget. By way of context, Hart’s annual spending budget is around £10m. So, this £500K represents about 5% of annual expenditure.
However, Hart’s finances are coming under increasing pressure.
Second, the medium term outlook is deteriorating. It was described in a recent Cabinet paper as a “perfect storm of detrimental changes to funding”.
Hart District Council perfect Storm of detrimental changes to funding
This is caused by a number of issues such as the New Homes bonus being phased out and a reduction in business rates income. They are reliant upon risky and uncertain income from their commercial activities to balance the books from 2021/22.
This is illustrated in the following excerpt from the Cabinet paper:
Shapley Heath too expensive for Hart’s stretched finances
The medium term forecast is reliant upon making more than £500K profit in FY21/22 from commercial activities. This rises to over £1m in the following year.
Hart District Council reliant on commercial income from 2021/22
It is proposed to develop 15,000 new houses on land surrounding Grazeley village. This site lies just to the south of the M4 and west of the A33, adjacent to AWE Burghfield. The councils have already carried out a master-planning exercise. The plans include a new railway station, primary and secondary schools, employment buildings and outdoor space. Incidentally, this master-plan work looks far higher quality than anything so far produced for Winchfield New Town/Shapley Heath.
The press release from Wokingham Council says the development will require £750m of infrastructure spending for 15,000 houses. This equates to £50,000 per house. Interestingly, the master-plan evaluated 5,000, 10,000 and 15,000 house schemes. Only the 15,000 house scenario produced a viable outcome. The viability assessment for Shapley Heath included only £164m of infrastructure funding for 5,300 houses or only £31,000 per house. Grazeley is proposing around 61% more spending per dwelling than Shapley Heath. It seems Hart Council’s claims of massive infrastructure spending for Shapley Heath are just a pipe-dream.
The Grazeley site is close to the northern boundary of Hart District. Of course the extra traffic from extra 15,000 houses on our doorstep will have a big impact on our district. But the bigger question is, why do we need Shapley Heath Garden Village, if there is to be a much bigger new town just a few miles away?
All the reasons why Shapley Heath Garden Village is a bad idea
An outline of an alternative approach to long term planning in Hart
The master page containing all of these posts can be found here. A link is also provided in the navigation at the top of the page. Please do keep an eye out for further updates and share them with your friends.
Building Shapley Heath will increases Hart’s housing target. This is quite a complex argument, but please bear with us. First let’s dispel some myths.
The CCH/Lib Dem coalition claim that Hart’s housing target is bound to increase, so we must plan for Shapley Heath. But nothing could be further from the truth.
The Hart Local Plan is being examined under the old SHMA method, plus we have been asked to build 731 extra houses for Surrey Heath. This results in an average 423 dwellings per annum (dpa) over the plan period to 2032 (see main modification 19). The SHMA is the Strategic Housing Market Assessment, where the councils concerned pay consultants to make up numbers about our housing need. If we had been assessed under the new standard method, the housing need for Hart would have been 282 dpa.
In various documents Hart has suggested it will pursue an early review of the Local Plan once adopted. This early review will be carried out using the standard method. According to the latest ONS projections, this will see our annual average requirement fall to around 251 dpa for the period 2020-2041.
Hart District Build Requirements under various scenarios
In summary, all the evidence points to Hart’s housing need falling, not increasing. Having dispelled the Lib Dem/CCH myth, let’s have a look at the impact of their proposals. In fact, building Shapley Heath will bake in over-building for decades to come.
Shapley Heath Garden Village impact on housing need
In recent years, we have built at a faster rate than is required by the Local Plan. This is the result of ‘planning by appeal’, where we have had a number of large developments forced upon us. This is forecast to continue out to around 2023. The Shapley Heath housing trajectory submitted to the Government adds to the build rate, starting in 2023.
Shapley Heath/Winchfield New Town Housing trajectory
However, under the standard method, our requirement falls to 251 dpa over the period 2020-2041. The steady-state build rate for Shapley Heath is 360 dpa, far higher than the requirement. If we add Shapley Heath (at only 5,000 total houses) to the existing Local Plan commitments, and compare it to the 2020-2041 requirement, then we will end up building 3,225 extra unnecessary houses out to 2039. If Shapley Heath expands to 10,000 houses, then this excess build rate will continue for many more years.
Shapley Heath Garden Village Excess Building
But it gets worse. The housing target is derived from population and household projections. The population projections are based upon trends from the previous ten years extrapolated forwards. If we continue to build more than we need to, this over-build is baked into our future housing targets, affecting us for decades to come. This will add extra pressure to build even more settlements or urban extensions such as Rye Common or West of Hook. So we must try and build at a steady rate to match no more than our annual housing target.
In conclusion, the rationale for investigating Shapley Heath is built on (at best) a misconception about future housing targets. Continuing to build this monstrosity will add even more pressure to build even more. It is a reckless policy that must be stopped.
Let’s hold our politicians to their word:
If the Government don’t force any more houses on us, this development is not needed, it will never go ahead.
If we don’t need the houses, then it won’t get done.
Well, we don’t need the houses, so it’s time to save £650K and abandon the project now.
All the reasons why Shapley Heath Garden Village is a bad idea
An outline of an alternative approach to long term planning in Hart
The master page containing all of these posts can be found here. A link is also provided in the navigation at the top of the page. Please do keep an eye out for further updates and share them with your friends.
Shapley Heath Garden Village is a proposal to build up to 10,000 new houses in Winchfield and Hook parishes. If built, it would effectively create a single conurbation joining Fleet, Hartley Wintney and Hook. We have termed this abomination Hartley Winchook. It would virtually obliterate Winchfield as we know it. It is worth noting that earlier very similar proposals would result in around 1,850 houses being built in Hook parish.
Below is a map showing how the proposal fits into the local area.
Shapley Heath in Context
The new town would start ~650m west of Edenbrook in Fleet. It would extend west to the Crooked Billet in Hook and be bounded to the north by the A30 & M3 near to St Mary’s Park in Hartley Wintney to the north. It stretches south to the Basingstoke Canal SSSI.
This new town was proposed as Policy SS3 in the Hart Local Plan. It was rejected by the Inspector on the grounds that it wasn’t necessary. Even Hart’s bid for funding said the Garden Community wasn’t required and would be delivered in addition to the Local Plan requirement.
Shapley Heath in addition to Local Plan
Hart Council’s bid to the Government for funding to support this proposal included a housing trajectory.
Shapley Heath Garden Village/Winchfield New Town Housing trajectory.
Starting in 2023, over the course of the Local Plan period up to 2032, the Garden Village would result in 2,440 unnecessary houses being built.
Scale of Shapley Heath
When completely built out to up to 10,000 houses it would be 5 times the size of Elvetham Heath, ~4 times the size of Hartley Wintney, around 3 times the size of Hook, and nearly as many houses as Fleet parish.
Shapley Heath: Vision Document 10000 houses
This is the first of our posts showing:
What is Shapley Heath, explaining its location and scale?
An outline of an alternative approach to long term planning in Hart
The master page containing all of these posts can be found here. A link is also provided in the navigation at the top of the page. Please do keep an eye out for further updates and share them with your friends.
The Shapley Heath Garden Village Vision Document can be downloaded below.
It seems that the actual weather is stubbornly refusing to comply with the flood assessment carried out for Hart Council as part of its evidence base for the Local Plan. The sustainability assessment claimed:
There was some evidence of wet ground at the far east of SHL183, but “no other obvious evidence of current or past flooding”.
The detailed assessment also said there’s only a one in 30 year chance of surface water flooding.
Taplins Farm Lane is in the middle of the proposed Shapley Heath development. The proposal to spend £150-650K of taxpayer funds does not include any work to assess or mitigate flood risk.
Shapley Heath work-plan doesn’t look at flood risk
Let us hope for a more sensible approach in the New Year. We plan to come forward with some alternative ideas for a review of the Local Plan. These will mean we avoid a new settlement anywhere in Hart, and won’t need large urban extensions either to at least 2041. Plus we get improved facilities in our urban centres.
We wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
The latest electoral material from Lib Dem Graham Cockarill reveals that at the very best he has his pants on fire. This comes hot on the heels of the previous fake news. It is quite astonishing that he claims that he is “the man with a plan to save our green fields”.
NE Hants Lib Dems: Pants On Fire
This is the same man who is sponsoring the entirely unnecessary new Shapley Heath Garden Village. The developers expect this to deliver up to 10,000 houses. So, that’s 10,000 unnecessary houses on our green fields. Entirely the opposite of his claim to save them.
Shapley Heath: Vision Document 10000 houses
This new town was thrown out of the Local Plan because it was unnecessary. In fact the Local Plan itself said it was unnecessary. The Inspector agreed and even the bid for Government money said so.
Shapley Heath Garden Village not required
Despite four years of effort, no evidence could be produced to demonstrate viability or deliverability.
Shapley Heath not viable or deliverable
NE Hants Lib Dems play down brownfield capacity
Perhaps the most egregious claim in the leaflet is he says “only an idiot or a liar would pretend all our housing needs could be met by brownfield land”. We have long campaigned for brownfield development in place of needlessly concreting over our green fields. We remind Mr Cockarill that back in 2015, Hart Council claimed there was capacity for only 450 homes on brownfield land. Since then around 1,500 have been granted permission at Hartland Park plus over 500 at Sun Park and many more on smaller sites across the district. As a result, we have over 2,500 dwellings on brownfield sites. Or more than 5 times the claimed capacity. And we haven’t even started on revitalising our urban areas yet.
We will leave it up to readers to decide who is the idiot and who is lying.
Shapley Heath controversy: where each NE Hampshire candidate stands.
The Shapley Heath controversy erupted at the recent North East Hampshire hustings. The Basingstoke Gazette covered the story here. In summary, Conservative candidate Ranil Jayawardena opposes the Shapley Heath proposal. He believes that our future housing needs can be met by redeveloping brownfield land and revitalising our urban centres. Liberal Democrat candidate, Graham Cockarill supports the proposal. Indeed in his role as Cabinet member for Place on Hart Council he is the sponsor of the programme. Labour’s Barry Jones admitted he knew little about the proposals but would reluctantly support the plan.
Three candidates were not invited to the hustings. The local Green party confirmed on Twitter that their candidate Culann Walsh opposes the scheme. Independent candidate Tony Durrant also opposes the plan. Monster Raving Loony, Screaming Laud Hope has not yet responded to our question. We have summarised the positions of the candidates in the graphic above.
Shapley Heath Controversy – Details of the hustings
Apparently, candidate Cockarill challenged the notion of Shapley Heath being up to 10,000 houses. We were told that Mr Jayawardena brandished the vision document clearly showing the 10,000 ambition in the Vision Document.
We understand from others at the hustings that candidate Cockarill stated brownfield development was desirable. However, he thought landowners in Fleet aren’t interesting in selling. We know from the work carried out by the Rural Hart Association that the owners of the Hart Shopping Centre are interested in redevelopment. Indeed, they supported the Future High Streets bid (see final letter in the appendices) to regenerate Fleet. Moreover, some of the other prime regeneration sites are owned by either Hart District Council or Hampshire County Council. For instance, much of the Civic Quarter, including the Harlington Centre, plus Victoria Road car park and Church Road car park are in public ownership.
Creative thinking in three dimensions could preserve parking space; deliver better leisure and cultural facilities; housing that people can afford and infrastructure spending. It does seem odd that our local councils prefer to concrete over our green fields, rather than provide better facilities for their residents.
Of course, planning is a local rather than a national matter. However, our MP can ‘set the tone’ for the area; lobby Government to cut off further funding to Shapley Heath; call on Government to provide regeneration investment and vote more generally for brownfield first policies. Many people will of course be more concerned about national matters. Please bear Shapley Heath in mind when casting your vote on December 12th.
In the light of the focus on the environment in the General Election campaign, we thought it would be a good idea to look at the Shapley Heath Climate Change impact.
Shapley Heath Climate Change Impact: Summary
1,000,000 tonnes of CO2 emitted from construction
312,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum from the occupants
Loss of pasture carbon sink
Damage to SSSIs, Ancient Woodland and heritage
Yet, Hart has agreed the “serious impact of climate change globally” and recognises “the need for urgent action”. Councillor Graham Cockarill is standing in the General Election as a Liberal Democrat candidate. They say “the UK should be leading the world on tackling the environment crisis”.
Why are they pursuing an unnecessary new town that goes against their own climate change policies?
Shapley Heath Climate Change Impact: CO2 emissions
According to this article in the Guardian, construction of an average 2-bed cottage emits around 80 tonnes of CO2. The average size of Shapley Heath dwellings is likely to be larger, so let’s assume 100 tonnes of CO2 per dwelling. The vision and bid documents both suggested the eventual size of Shapley Heath will be 10,000 houses. So, building 10,000 houses will emit around 1,000,000 tonnes of CO2. There will of course be additional emissions from building new roads, supermarkets and office blocks.
These 10,000 houses will house around 24,000 people, and each of them will emit on average ~13 tonnes of CO2 per annum each. So, there will be 312,000 tonnes of CO2 emitted by the occupants of the houses.
Moreover, the existing pasture acts as a carbon sink, so this benefit will be lost too.
Remember, the Hart Local Plan, the Inspector’s report and even the bid document said that Shapley Heath isn’t required to meet our housing targets, so all of these emissions are entirely avoidable.
Shapley Heath Climate Change Impact: Damage to Nature
The area of search contains or borders many important natural sites. These include:
Odiham Common SSSI
Basingstoke Canal SSSI
Numerous ancient woodland sites that are also Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation
Shapley Heath Climate Change Impact – Damage to nature
Hart District Council and Lib Dem Climate Change Policies
Back in September, Hart Cabinet decided the following in respect of climate change (our emphasis):
Recognises the serious impact of climate change globally and agrees that there is a need for urgent action; and
Agrees that a cross party Climate Change Member Working Group be established and that the Terms of Reference for that Group as set out in Appendix 1 be agreed in principle; and
That a Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan led by the Member Working Group be prepared by January 2020 based on Hart District Council becoming a net zero carbon emitter by 2040 at the latest.
Councillor Graham Cockarill is standing in the General Election as a Liberal Democrat candidate. They say:
The UK should be leading the world on tackling the environment crisis. Our planet is on the brink of being irreparably damaged and we are responsible for that damage.
Why are they pursuing an unnecessary new town that goes against their own climate change policies?
The CCH Rhetoric Machine went into overdrive at Thursday’s Cabinet. After claiming their untrue statements about Shapley Heath were just rhetoric, they went on to make more spurious claims in the Cabinet meeting (report here). We have produced a short video to tackle the main claims:
Since then , they have produced a defence of their position on Facebook. Below is their post, together with the RHA response in red.
CCH rhetoric machine goes into overdrive
This post is in response to accusations made against CCH Councillors on certain fb pages.
Do they mean us? Surely not.
If you would like to see for yourself what was said and how it was said, please see the link below for HDC’s live streaming of last night’s cabinet meeting and, Paper H relating to the Garden Community that was to be discussed.
Please take the video to 37 minutes to begin at the start of the Garden Community debate.
Alternatively, you can read our post, with edited highlights from the meeting here.
CCH have been accused of:
– being rude to members of the public.
Not by us. There are many words we could use to describe CCH’s attitude, but on the night they weren’t particularly rude to anybody.
– being prejudicial towards a new settlement.
Not true. Prejudicial has no meaning in this context. The accusation in the QC opinion is of CCH being of ‘closed mind’ and thus having a predetermined attitude to matters relating to Shapley Heath.
– wanting to build houses Hart doesn’t need.
Well, this is true. Their own Local Plan said that the new town wasn’t required. The inspector agreed and threw out Policy SS3. The Garden Village bid document said the same thing. Yet, they still bid for Government money for an unnecessary Garden Village. Now they have agreed to spend up to £650K to flesh out the plans for it having committed to Government that it would deliver 5,000 homes above local requirements with an indication that there is capacity “…for a development of 10,000 homes…”.
– wanting to build 10,000 new homes.
Up to 10,000 houses is stated both in the bid and the accompanying Vision Document.
We say, we were assertive in demonstrating our reasoning, were reactive to correct misinformation and were defensive, when necessary, of ourselves and, the people we represent.
As you decide for yourself, we would like to draw your attention (see below) to just one member of the public’s statement as it has bearing on one of the accusations made against us (We believe this refers to the RHA statement):-
Rural Hart Association (RHA, made up of 3 predominately Winchfield groups),
Not true. WAG is based in Winchfield. We Heart Hart is based in Hartley Wintney and NE Hants Greens are district-wide. In addition, other Hart-wide groups support RHA.
state they want to regenerate Fleet Town Centre and, have ‘given developers the Hart Centre’.
True. RHA does want to regenerate Fleet and the other urban centres to keep up with neighbouring towns like Camberley, Aldershot, Farnham and Wokingham. RHA came up with several options for regeneration of Fleet. Hart Shopping Centre was put forward as one of these options to developers by RSH.
They then state that their developers will not carry out any work on this ‘regeneration’ scheme ‘unless HDC takes the Garden Village off the table’.
Not true. The developers won’t invest time and money in urban regeneration when the Council has such an obvious bias towards the new town and clearly no interest in looking at urban regeneration.
Is this prejudicial by residents of Winchfield wanting future development away from them and for it to continue in and around Fleet?
Again ‘prejudicial’ has no legal meaning. Residents aren’t the people who actually make planning decisions, so they can’t be predetermined. Of course, they can oppose proposals they disagree with. The Local Plan itself identifies the decline of Fleet as a key issue, yet the policies to address this are feeble. It is the interests of all Hart residents for the countryside to be preserved and for all of the urban centres of Fleet, Hook, Blackwater and Yateley to thrive. Private money is clearly available to support such schemes as evidenced by the regeneration of Camberley, Farnham, Aldershot and Wokingham.
If you live in Fleet, Church Crookham, Crookham Village, Elvetham Heath and Hook, you will know they’ve seen the majority of urban expansion over the last decade.
Compared to their size, Hartley Wintney and Odiham have also seen big new developments. In addition, Fleet has fallen behind its neighbours in terms of retail, leisure and public amenities.
Do you ‘really’ want more development tagged on, using existing infrastructure… roads, schools, doctors, station that already cannot cope?
No. A masterplan for all of our urban centres will address these issues and should also deliver infrastructure funding in the places that need it. Remember the infrastructure plans for the new settlement were described by the Inspector as “not of any great substance”. Plus, a new town won’t deliver any new infrastructure for existing settlements. At least urban regeneration would deliver funds for infrastructure in the areas that are already creaking under the strain.
Do you want to live in town where it’s centre is high rise apartment blocks offering no outdoor space for families?
The LSH proposal for the Hart Shopping Centre utilised existing sightlines and in no sense was it “high rise”. Additional regeneration opportunities such as the Civic Campus could also deliver outdoor spaces.
That’s what RHA are proposing for you.
More rhetoric that you shouldn’t take too seriously.
We will look at all options open to us but, CCH want to deliver our future housing needs in a way that is high quality, sustainable and right for the majority of Hart not, just for the few.
But you clearly aren’t looking at anything other than a new settlement. The Paper explicitly rules out looking at alternatives. There is nothing ‘high quality’ about any of the new town proposals delivered so far. For instance, three locations for a secondary school have been proposed. One was next to a mental health unit housing sex offenders, the second was directly on top of a high-pressure gas main and the third was under electricity pylons. And of course, the Inspector threw out the last proposal because he wasn’t convinced it was deliverable.
And, as we have said many times before, reiterated by Councillor “it’s only rhetoric” Radley last night, if we don’t ‘need’ to build more houses then we ‘won’t build any more houses.
The CCH Rhetoric machine is up and running again. The bid to Government committed you to building over and above the local requirement. The new town isn’t needed to meet requirements. So, why are you spending £650K of taxpayers money?
