Hart Council debacle inspires poetry

Posted on January 15, 2016August 15, 2023

People send me stuff. The poem below, inspired by yesterday’s news, was sent to me to publish, provided I kept the identity of the author secret. So, I publish without further comment (to the tune of Oh! Mr Porter):

Oh! Mr Parker

Oh Mr Parker what shall we do?
The council is incompetent,
and now we know it’s true
You’ve pulled the consultation, you’ve really made a mess
Omnishambles sums it up, someone tell the press!

We told you many times to wait,
Don’t do it yet we said
Pause to see figures straight.
But no, against advice you blindly steamed ahead
You rushed it out, it’s all gone wrong, and now you’ve made your bed

Senior heads should surely roll
The council’s a laughing stock
Wasting money on a poll,
Spending all our funds on this really was quite slack
Who is accountable? Is Phillips coming back?

Someone has to sort this mess
And do it pretty quick
Picking up the pieces and telling porkies to the press
Trying to get this run again will be no easy feat,
No errors this time please, we don’t need a repeat.

Oh Mr Parker, you must stop these mistakes
You try to hang this on your staff
But the blame is yours to take
The leader’s led us up the garden path
The truth is out, it really is – he couldn’t run a bath!

Hart Council calls off Local Plan Consultation

Posted on January 14, 2016January 15, 2016

Breaking News: Hart calls off Local Plan Consultation

In an astonishing move, Hart Council have called off the Local Plan consultation with only 24 hours to go before the consultation was due to close.

Their full statement is (our emphasis):

From 2pm on Thursday 14 February Hart District Council stopped the Local Plan Consultation and removed the online response form from the website.

Leader of Hart District Council, Cllr Stephen Parker, said:

“We have found errors in the consultation material for our Local Plan Consultation. In order not to undermine the consultation process and to maintain a fair and transparent procedure, we have taken the decision to stop the consultation and have ceased our online response form.

I apologise to the residents and businesses of Hart for the inconvenience caused and I would like to reassure the public that by working with my colleagues to rectify the issues discovered, we will create a robust consultation going forward.”

It is deliciously ironic that they got the month wrong in the statement calling off the consultation.

Rushmoor calls for new town, urban extensions and dispersal in Hart

Posted on January 14, 2016January 14, 2016

Empty Offices at Farnborough, Rushmoor Borough, Hampshire.

Earlier this week Rushmoor cabinet considered its response to Hart’s Local Plan consultation and has come up with some controversial proposals.

First, their response says:

Rushmoor Borough Council supports the strategy of prioritising development on brownfield land, and on land outside the zone of influence for the Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area. Rushmoor expects that in addition to this, the first full consultation version of the Hart Local Plan will be based on a strategy to meet housing needs that requires a combination of the options set out in in the consultation paper. This will include dispersed development, strategic urban extensions and a new settlement at Winchfield in order to help deliver the housing need identified in the SHMA.

And in a veiled criticism of Hart’s strategy of holding the consultation now, when the evidence base is under review it says:

At this stage in the plan preparation process, Rushmoor Borough Council considers that the most appropriate strategy and timescale for meeting housing need across the HMA can only be identified once the update to the evidence base is in place. Moreover, until the implications of the conclusions in the updated evidence base are understood, it is not possible to comment on the detail of the housing options in isolation from other strategic cross boundary issues.

However, Rushmoor reserves the right to change its response, once the new evidence base is published:

It may be that once this evidence base is updated, some of Rushmoor’s comments may change or fall away, particularly when Hart publishes a complete version of its Local Plan for consultation, based on the most up to date evidence.

It seems to us that it would be poor strategy to commit to a new town now, when the evidence base is being reviewed. It may be that the threat to build 3,000 extra houses for Rushmoor and Surrey Heath falls away and Hart’s own alleged “need” also falls, in which case we will be able to build all of our remaining need on brownfield sites and have many sites left over for future planning periods. If we had a vision to keep our essential countryside, and not build a new town, then we would not need to meet Rushmoor’s need.

If you would like to ask Hart to abandon the new town alternative and create a brownfield solution to our housing needs, we urge you to respond to the Hart District Council consultation about the Local Plan and ask them to think again. We have created a dedicated consultation page and two guides to responding to the consultation that are available on the downloads below. The comments are designed to be cut and pasted into the boxes provided. It will be very powerful if you could edit the comments into your own words. Please do find time to respond to the consultation and play your part in saving our countryside.

Full version:

Responses to Local Plan Consultation

Download Now!430 Downloads

2 Minute version:

Respond to Local Plan Consultation in 2 minutes

Download Now!417 Downloads

Rushmoor responds to criticism by revising evidence base and delaying its Local Plan

Posted on January 14, 2016January 14, 2016

Empty Offices at Farnborough, Rushmoor Borough, Hampshire

While all of our eyes have been on the Hart Consultation about the Local Plan, Rushmoor has also been busy on its own Local Plan. The most important point is that Rushmoor is revising the SHMA and the Employment Land Review which will:

be beneficial in assisting with a response to a number of comments received through the consultation, which challenged elements of the evidence base, and in particular, raised objection to the fact that the potential shortfall in housing supply in Rushmoor should be accommodated in Hart.

We might add that it was largely We Heart Hart supporters who made these comments – so thank you very much for your contributions. It does show that reasoned analysis of the evidence base can lead to real change, at least in Rushmoor.

In addition, as well as making reference to the Government’s lower population and household forecasts, Rushmoor say that “all of the three major forecasting houses that produce employment forecasts at local authority level have updated forecasts since those used in the SHMA and the ELR”. We Heart Hart have strongly challenged the previous jobs forecasts, so we can only hope that these forecasting houses have come up with something more reasonable.

Rushmoor is also revising its land bank database (SHLAA), and this should be available in early 2016.

Interestingly, Rushmoor has also delayed its Local Plan by up to a year in total to cater for these revisions to the evidence base. Rushmoor’s next consultation, built upon the new evidence base will be in October 2016.

We find it difficult to see how Hart is going to manage to produce a full draft Local Plan by the Summer of this year, when the updated evidence base is not going to be available until the Spring, and it is going to take Rushmoor at least 6 months to process that information and produce the next draft of its Plan.

Rushmoor has also provided a response to Hart’s Housing Options consultation that we will cover in another post.

7 reasons to oppose a new town in Hart

Posted on January 13, 2016January 13, 2016

Which would you rather preserve – derelict eyesore or our wildlife?

As the consultation on the Hart District Local Plan draws to a close, it is worth reiterating the main reasons why you should oppose a new town and urban extensions in Hart.

They would open us up to 3,000 extra houses from Surrey Heath and Rushmoor, and we would get the worst of all worlds, a new town, urban extensions and green field dispersal.
The rate of building would then be used against us in the next planning period, so the problems we create today would be compounded into the future.
It would be bad strategy to commit to a new town now, when we know that the housing needs assessment is being revised, and in all likelihood it will be revise down
The proposed new town location is simply not suitable, in that there isn’t enough land to create the nirvana of a self contained new settlement promised by some HDC councillors, and would lead to a giant Hartley Winchook conurbation.
The infrastructure costs are astronomical, and the developer contributions will not meet these costs, thus pushing up council taxes in the future
There is an alternative brownfield solution that will meet the actual needs of Hart residents through providing specialist accommodation for the elderly and affordable starter homes for the young people struggling to get on the housing ladder.
Brownfield development is a more sustainable, greener alternative that will be kinder to the environment and provide infrastructure funding for our existing communities.

Full version:

Responses to Local Plan Consultation

Download Now!430 Downloads

2 Minute version:

Respond to Local Plan Consultation in 2 minutes

Download Now!417 Downloads

Hart Council starts to identify brownfield opportunities

Posted on January 12, 2016January 12, 2016

Hart District Council (HDC) starts the process of identifying brownfield opportunities

Hart Council starts the process of identifying brownfield opportunities

In a welcome development, it appears as though Hart Council has started the process of identifying brownfield opportunity areas.

These include Pyestock (aka Hartland Park), Ancells Farm and part of Redfields Business Park. This is an important development as Hart had previously ruled out Pyestock as a location.

They also identify a wide range of other brownfield sites, from the SHLAA that were deemed to have a capacity of 592 units, at an average density of 32.5 dwellings per hectare.

Parish/Ref	Sum of Site Assessment Capacity (Low)	Sum of Site Assessment Capacity (High)	Sum of Size (Ha.)	Average of Low Density (dpa)
Blackwater and Hawley	320	320	12.00	26.7
SHL100	320	320	12.00	26.7
Church Crookham	6	6	0.42	14.3
SHL28	6	6	0.42	14.3
Elvetham Heath	45	45	2.25	20.0
SHL104	45	45	2.25	20.0
Fleet	221	221	3.56	62.1
SHL113	12	12	0.68	17.6
SHL245	8	8	0.18	44.4
SHL320	150	150	1.80	83.3
SHL322	37	37	0.61	60.7
SHL41	6	6	0.05	120.0
SHL42	8	8	0.24	33.3
Grand Total	592	592	18.23	32.5

Whilst this is a welcome development, it is clear that work is yet to start on the rest of the district outside the environs of Fleet and Church Crookham.

We do call into question the assertions in the consultation that there is only capacity for 450 units on brownfield sites and the timing of the consultation, as it seems clear that brownfield capacity is going to rise significantly, so we will not need a new town, nor urban extensions.

If you would like to ask Hart to redouble its efforts to build the case for a brownfield solution to our housing needs, we urge you to respond to the Hart District Council consultation about the Local Plan and ask them to think again. We have created a dedicated consultation page and two guides to responding to the consultation that are available on the downloads below. The comments are designed to be cut and pasted into the boxes provided. It will be very powerful if you could edit the comments into your own words. Please do find time to respond to the consultation and play your part in saving our countryside.

Full version:

Responses to Local Plan Consultation

Download Now!430 Downloads

2 Minute version:

Respond to Local Plan Consultation in 2 minutes

Download Now!417 Downloads

Hart Local Plan Consultation descends into omnishambles

Posted on January 11, 2016January 11, 2016

Omnishambles

Following our post this morning pointing out material discrepancies between two different versions of the Hart Local Plan consultation response form, Hart Council have issued a statement saying they have corrected the issues and published version 6 of the consultation form and:

“The administrative error occurred when the Response Form was corrected on 6 January 2016 to include the villages of Crookham Village, Dogmersfield and Eversley in the list at Question 4 (Approach 1). This reflects the main consultation document itself (Refined Options for Delivering New Homes) which is correct. Unfortunately an earlier, incorrect, version of the Response Form (which was never published) was used as the basis for this correction, which is where the error lies. To be absolutely clear, there was no conscious attempt by anyone to change the text in the Response Form that precedes Question 1.”

However, this statement suggests the latest response form is now in line with the main Refined Options paper and the summary booklet, but it is not.

1) The text of Q4 in V6 says:

Response Form V6 Question 4

Clearly Dogmersfield and Crookham Village are now included. But V4 did not include them.

2) The summary booklet does not include reference to Dogmersfield and Crookham Village:

Summary Booklet Question 4

3) The text of the refined options paper does not include references to those parishes either.

Refined Options Paper Question 4

This begs a number of questions:

What are HDC going to do about the people who answered the V4 document?
Has the on-line version changed?
If so, when, and what about the people who answered under the old wording?
What are they going to do about hte discrepancies between all of the documents?

It seems to me that those who relied on the main refined options paper and the booklet distributed to every home, may well have been misled by those documents as the actual questions in the actual response forms are different to the main source documents.

All in all, the only word I can find to describe this is “omnishambles”

Hart Council changes the rules of the Local Plan consultation as it goes along

Posted on January 11, 2016August 15, 2023

In a quite astonishing development, we have been alerted to the fact that Hart District Council has changed the rules of the consultation part way through the process. This is in addition to the inexplicable decision to postpone how the way answers will be weighted until after the consultation has closed.

Version 4 of the consultation paperwork, dated 3 December 2015, stated clearly that questions 4 and 5 of the consultation must be answered:

Hart Consultation V4 must answer Q4 and Q5

But Version 5 of the consultation paperwork, dated 6 January 2016, says there is no requirement to answer questions 4 and 5:

Hart Consultation V5 no requirement to answer Q4 and Q5

As of 09:30 on Monday 11 January 2016, Questions 4 and 5 were mandatory in the on-line version of the consultation. This is a fundamental change to the rules in the middle of the consultation and one is left wondering quite how the results can be considered valid and surely it can’t be right that the rules for paper submission are different to those for online submission.

In addition, Hart Council announced at a meeting of the Hart District Association of Town and Parish Councils that they would not decide how to weight the answers to the questions until the consultation was complete. This is confirmed by a question to the December Council meeting:

Hart determining scoring criteria after the consultation is complete

[Update]

It gets worse. The paper copies of the form have no comments box for Q4 of the consultation, but the on-line form does:

Page 3 of the Consultation form

Page 4 of the Hart District Council Local Plan Consultation form

Page 4 of the Consultation form

[/Update]

[Update 2]

I have been alerted to even more differences between the two versions of the document:

V5 now seems to include Crookham Village, Dogmersfield & Eversley in Q4. V4 doesn’t include those parishes. The online version now includes them, but I don’t know if it has been changed.

Neither version has a comments box for q4, but there is a q4 comment box online, even though Q6 directs you to a comments box for q4.

In V4, the question directs you to Table 2 on page 7, in V5 it directs you to the same table on page 9. In the version of the booklet I have, Table 2 starts on page 8.

And perhaps most significantly:

Q6 has been changed, with V4 allowing comments on rejected sites and V5 not including the following in the question:

“You may also comment on any ‘rejected ‘sites (in blue and listed on the tables on each map)”

Has someone been taking inspiration from The Thick of It?

[/Update 2]

This is a very worrying development and resembles how one might expect countries to operate that do not have as mature democracies as we enjoy in this country.

If you would like to try your luck in responding to the consultation and objecting to the new town idea, we urge you to respond to the Hart District Council consultation about the Local Plan and ask them to think again. We have created a dedicated consultation page and two guides to responding to the consultation that are available on the downloads below. The comments are designed to be cut and pasted into the boxes provided. It will be very powerful if you could edit the comments into your own words. Please do find time to respond to the consultation and play your part in saving our countryside.

Full version:

Responses to Local Plan Consultation

Download Now!430 Downloads

2 Minute version:

Respond to Local Plan Consultation in 2 minutes

Download Now!417 Downloads

Fleet resident describes Winchfield new town as “monstrous”

Posted on January 8, 2016January 8, 2016

Development proposals around M3 J4a and Bramshott Farm

A resident of Fleet has written to We Heart Hart and described the proposals for a new town at Winchfield as “monstrous” and proposed a number of brownfield sites around the district as alternatives to meet our housing needs. He also points out that “our MP, Mr Ranil Jayawardena, is against coalescence in the Winchfield area as it will introduce hideous and wanton destruction of a large chunk of rural Hampshire by HDC civic vandals and philistines”.

His full report that has been sent to Hart District Council can be downloaded on the link below.

The alternative brownfield sites he proposes for development include Bramshott Farm, Minley and Guillemont Park, shown in the image above.

He goes on to propose a number of other sites including land near Runabout and Iveley Road (see below),

Development proposals Norris Bridge Gyratory

Additional brownfield land near Pyestock (see below),

Development proposals around Kennels Lane near Pyestock

and the worked out gravel pits near Bramshill and Blackbushe airport (see below).

Development proposals on brownfield gravel pit sites at Bramshill

Development proposals on brownfield gravel pit sites near Blackbushe

We welcome these ideas from a Fleet resident, as it shows that opposition to a new town comes from many people, not just those living in or near Winchfield. If you would like to make your voice heard and object to the new town idea, we urge you to respond to the Hart District Council consultation about the Local Plan and ask them to think again. We have created a dedicated consultation page and two guides to responding to the consultation that are available on the downloads below. The comments are designed to be cut and pasted into the boxes provided. It will be very powerful if you could edit the comments into your own words. Please do find time to respond to the consultation and play your part in saving our countryside.

Full version:

Responses to Local Plan Consultation

Download Now!430 Downloads

2 Minute version:

Respond to Local Plan Consultation in 2 minutes

Download Now!417 Downloads

Full report from the Fleet resident:

Fleet resident brownfield site ideas

Download Now!260 Downloads

Link

Winchfield floods again

Posted on January 7, 2016January 16, 2020

Winchfield flooded again Taplins Farm Lane

Bravehart was out and about again this afternoon and shot a video of another flood on Taplins Farm Lane in Winchfield again, for the second time in a week.

How long will it take for the message to get through a new town of 5,000 houses is simply not viable on these sites and these roads?

If you would like to make your voice heard and object to the new town idea, we urge you to respond to the Hart District Council consultation about the Local Plan and ask them to think again. We have created a dedicated consultation page and two guides to responding to the consultation that are available on the downloads below. The comments are designed to be cut and pasted into the boxes provided. It will be very powerful if you could edit the comments into your own words. Please do find time to respond to the consultation and play your part in saving our countryside.

Full version:

Responses to Local Plan Consultation

Download Now!430 Downloads

2 Minute version:

Respond to Local Plan Consultation in 2 minutes

Download Now!417 Downloads