SamDev and Chirk Bank

[Maggie 65]

Here is the full text for the document that John Healey has written to be distributed around Chirk Bank, about SamDev options which goes with the questionnaire above. There are a stack of hard copies going to the meeting on Tuesday that need to be distributed around Chirk Bank so everyone has a chance to comment. Help needed!

Important Stuff

Development in Chirk Bank

It’s that time of year again !

Shropshire Council is presently consulting on its future policies on where new development will be allowed.

Presently development in Chirk Bank is controlled by the old Oswestry Borough Council Local Plan. Chirk Bank in common with other settlements has a development boundary within which new housing would generally be approved, and beyond which there should be no new development (except in certain exceptional circumstances such as affordable housing)

The development boundary for Chirk Bank is currently drawn very tightly around the existing built footprint of the village protecting open frontages to Oaklands Road and Old Chirk Road.

You may recall that before its demise Oswestry Borough Council was reviewing how they would deal with future development proposals within the Borough. They were consulting the public on sites that landowners had put forward for inclusion within possible extended development boundaries. Development for housing of the fields along Oaklands Road and Old Chirk Road was put forward by landowners. The Borough Council was to have rejected all of these sites for housing allocations, but was abolished before this could be put into place.

Rather than taking forward this work Shropshire decided to start the process anew using a different approach in which the Parish Council have a critical role in determining where and when development takes place. This in turn determines the amount of the new community infrastructure levy that the Parish Council receives thus they are dangling monetary carrots. Shropshire Councll has asked all Parish Councils to respond to various options for the future management of development in their areas. Most Parish Councils have consulted with residents and responded to Shropshire, and these options are currently open to public consultation under the branding SAM dev (site allocations and management of development). This consultation is to end on the 8th June. There is an online consultation form on the planning section of the Council website.

Weston Rhyn Parish Council has failed to make their preferences known to Shropshire and has failed to consult residents on the options put forward by Shropshire. Weston Rhyn Council has been given an extension of time to allow it to offer some sort of response and as part of this process Shropshire Council are to hold a” Community Visioning” events in July.

Where a Parish Council has indicated that it wishes to have housing development this will be allowed within two settlement types - Community Hubs and Community Clusters. Both types of settlement may or may not have a defined development boundary, again according to the preferences expressed by Parish Councils. Outside these designations settlements will be classified as falling within open countryside where no new development will usually be allowed.

A Community Hub is usually a large village with significant community facilities, a Community Cluster is a group of two or more rural settlements (I assume within the same parish) which in combination provide some community facilities. In both instances the scale and location of new development is so be agreed with the Parish Council.

So how have neighbouring Parishes dealt with these issues?

In Gobowen, Gobowen is proposed as hubs with Selatyn, the Hengoeds and Pant Glas as clusters with an anticipated 30 new houses across the cluster. The parish wishes to see a development boundary maintained at Selatyn. For St. Martins the parish proposes St. Martins as a Hub, but no community clusters. For Whittington the Parish proposes Wittington as a hub, with community clusters at Park Hall, Hindford, Babbinswood and Lower Frankton. Existing development boundaries will be retained .

The options for Chirk Bank would seem to be:-

1. That it reverts to the status of open countryside where no development is permitted

or

2. That it becomes part of a Community Cluster

For the latter it would presumably be linked to other smaller settlements such as Bron y garth Pontfaen and Wern .

If it were to become a Cluster settlement the next question would be should Chirk Bank retain a development boundary, and if so should it be the present boundary or an extended boundary to take in additional housing allocations on fields presently outside the boundary?

In order to assist the Parish Council in their consideration of there important local issues I enclose a simple Questionnaire on Future Development within Chirk Bank. I hope you find time to complete the questionnaire which will be submitted to Weston Rhyn Parish Council as part of the SAMdev consultation.

(THIS QUESTIONNAIRE HAS BEEN CONVERTED INTO A POLL FOR YOUR DELECTATION!, see above, I will use the results from this poll, and compile them into something statistical, but not worry too much about whether the people responding to the poll are from Chirk Bank or not, I.e. keep the results from the questionnaire separate from the poll, Will be very interested to see how this works and what sort of response there is to the poll, Thanks Mr Community-Online for setting this up!)

Edited May 18, 2012 by Maggie

[Carry Wood 0]

I strongly disagree with any further building in Chirk Bank, because of the effect it will have on wildlife in the area, we are also part of the world heritage zone and any further building will jepodize our beautiful countryside. Carry Wood.

[Fisherman 2]

I agree chirk bank has enough housing as it is. to add to this however, Weston rhyn is also in danger of being spoilt by over development.Both villages ,in my humble opinion are full of enough housing as it is.Developers are providing new builds as we speak under the proviso of affordable housing,however they seem to be well over the £100'000 mark, too much for youngsters to start out.I don't know the answer all I can say is when I left my parents house in the parish in 1992 it was hard but with hard work and graft it's been ok.It was the same when I was starting out, no money in the pocket and supposedly no houses in the parish. They are there if you look ,so is there any need for new build.The new starters probably couldn't afford them anyway.Chirk bank is close to my heart as that is where I spent my childhood.There have already been too many trees removed(remember the damson trees by th rec) lets hope it's not spoilt any more.

[Simple Simon 36]

Perhaps the solution would be for local residents opposed to further new developments should get together and identify unused, empty or abandoned properties and their owners.

Developers will always use the argument that the country needs more housing and pressure will be put on green areas. I understand that a fuss is being kicked up about proposed sites for development in Selattyn and Hengoed.