WBC published the latest Site Allocations Development Plan Document (SADPD) proposals on Wednesday in preparation for a full Council meeting next Thursday with the principal recommendation that the site allocations as documented are submitted to an inspector for approval. This process is known as Regulation 19.
Previous incarnations have been following the Regulation 18 process which has involved two extensive consultations with the public to occur.
The SADPD provides two time periods which explain the preferred locations for future development to occur both in the urban area and those sites that will be taken out of the Green Belt to allow further development. Those time periods are 2022 – 2027 and 2027 – 2040.
The 2022 – 2027 period in the document are sites that assuming development proposals are forthcoming will be developed, and the 2027 – 2040 proposals are for sites that are to be safeguarded for future development, but may never be built out depending on needs at the time. This is a process the Council is required to do by law. For Brookwood, there are no proposals for the 2027 – 2040 period so we can expect no development other than minor changes to the already built area.
The original SADPD in 2016 was rather devious with its treatment to Five Acres (GB02) in my opinion as officers decided that as Five Acres was owned by two individuals it was actually two separate sites in practice. This allowed officers to consider doubling the number of authorised pitches to around 30. The reality was, and as evidenced by all previous documentation produced by officers, the site was run as one site. I campaigned ferociously against this disgraceful plan and achieved some significant victories.
Even now, Five Acres has 13 authorised permanent pitches, and two temporary pitches, although they are currently not in the location planning permission has been granted for.
The proposals for Traveller accommodation at Five Acres in the SADPD are for an increase from the current 15 pitches to 19 pitches, an increase of four overall. There will likely be an additional transit pitch at Five Acres allowing some flexibility for visitors to legally visit.
I believe that this is the best outcome we could have achieved for Brookwood and is approximately 11 fewer that had previously been suggested. The planning application for these 19 pitches, moving the 15 from the approved location and the additional four, is currently making its way through the system. I currently ignore the fact that the bulk of the work has already been done, but I’m not ignoring the illegal pitches at the back of the site. Incidentally there were two when I went past on the train earlier in the week. The Planning Department are dragging their heels on this, and now with the publication of the Regulation 19 SADPD, they will struggle to justify doing nothing about it.
The other area to impact Brookwood is GB01, which is the old Coblands site and surrounding land area. Obviously everyone has seen what has been going on here for the past couple of years. GB01 suggests the site will take 93 dwellings at a dph of 35. A planning application is in for this site with the proposal to build 126 dwellings, to include changes to Brookwood Crossroads with an emphasis on improving the throughput for local traffic. I have blogged extensively about this in the past.
As ever, if you have any questions, please contact me.
Cheers.
Kevin
Cllr Kevin Davis 