9/9/09 Aylesbury Vale District Council permits 700 new houses

Against unanimous local opposition, the application for a Mixed Development of 700 houses on land south of the bypass road gains outline approval.

We have just borne witness to the most scandalous and devious interpretation of our planning laws that will result in the approval, under delegated powers to officers, of an application that will irrevocably change the historic configuration of Buckingham and its community. The application in question is for a separate community of 700 dwellings to be sited south of the bypass road and cut off from the town by both the A421 and the A413. The scandal in question relates to the manner of its approval.

At the Strategic Development Control meeting in Aylesbury on Thursday, 3rd September, District Councillors were told of the impending financial doom should they choose to refuse the Officers' recommendation. Let us be quite clear at the outset that this application was not supported in any way by the community of Buckingham. Over 300 individual objections were received and at the meeting substantially argued objections were submitted by the Town council, the Buckingham Society and local residents.

The factors that were exploited by the applicant, Hallam Land Management (HLM), relate to those aspects of planning procedures which play directly into the hands of the developer. By taking their first application to Appeal and submitting an identical second application, they were able to overcome the objections Council had submitted to the Inspectorate while continuing to threaten the likelihood of the original Appeal - and its related costs - being awarded in their favour. Should the meeting have voted in favour of refusing the application, then Hallam Land would have pursued the Appeal and the District Council would have faced prohibitive costs.

In these circumstances, all other valid planning objections were cast aside. We shall no longer have a say in where development should be located in Buckingham. How do you account for this blatant abuse of our so-called democratic process?

Government, in the form of Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) and the Milton Keynes & South Midlands Regional Strategy (MKSMRS), has decreed that Aylesbury Vale is a growth area. This district has, therefore, to find the means of increasing the housing supply by an astonishing 40 percent.

In planning the growth agenda, Aylesbury Vale has published a number of documents under the umbrella of the LDF (Local Development Framework). Key to a properly planned strategy are those documents that set out the principles for development and allocate suitable locations that meet those principles. Public consultation is - we were informed - a necessary process before the documents can be formally adopted.

Clearly all areas of Aylesbury Vale District will be affected by the increased growth but the decision to place Buckingham as the only second tier settlement was taken without a second round of consultation with either the citizens of Buckingham, nor the 'Rest of the District'. It placed Buckingham in an invidious position, allocating the town a figure of 1200 additional dwellings without a proper assessment of the impact on a small town and its likely infrastructure requirements. Development on this scale (asking the town to take a 25 percent increase in its housing stock) will have a place-changing effect and a significant, far-reaching impact on the historic character of what was a traditional market town. And all of this without the promised Allocated Sites document, which would have allowed the community some say in where this development might best be accommodated.

This, in itself, is a scandalously high-handed way in which to conduct policy and it was recognised as such by some of the Vale's elected Members at a meeting last February when a motion was put forward urging the Cabinet "to re-examine its resources and find a means to consult on the principles of the lower tier allocations in the LDF, while simultaneously working on options on the detailed allocations for consultation".

The reasoning behind this motion was succinctly phrased by Cllr. Mrs Davies, who was concerned that "the LDF process, as currently being taken by AVDC, will leave rural areas of Aylesbury Vale vulnerable to speculative large scale development, supported by opportunistic government intervention" - a position given added weight by the first application for the London Road site, which had been submitted in the autumn of 2008.

Given Buckingham's role in the "rural areas", this surely was a motion that should have been supported by our elected Councillors. It was NOT and lo' look what has come to pass: a speculative and opportunistic application that exposes Buckingham to a development that is ill-conceived, divorced from the town and in no way "protects or enhances the quality of the historic environment, or the existing community", which is set out as a planning objective in PPS1 (Planning Policy Statement 1).

Why then was this application so readily accepted in the context of these objectives? The reasons would appear two fold. In opposition to the fine words relating to "protecting and enhancing the environment" and "ensuring that the impact of development on the social fabric of communities is considered", Government also requires local authorities to maintain a continuous five year supply of housing sites. Not surprisingly, therefore, there is huge pressure on those local authorities faced with unprecedented growth demands to find the so-called 'deliverable' sites.

The likes of HLM put in an opportunistic and speculative application for those areas that will have to take development, especially when local authorities are not up to speed with either the LDF or the supply of deliverable sites. Greenfield sites, despite the emphasis placed on 'brownfield before greenfield', are particularly vulnerable as they offer a sufficient scale to offset the infrastructure demands that will be made on the developer. (referred to as '106 Agreements').

In this particular case, HLM's first application was not determined. The Council had got locked into lengthy discussions on the various infrastructure deficiencies and failed to bring it to fruition within the given timescale (horribly short for an application of this magnitude). HLM took the application to Appeal on the grounds of non-determination. Appeals, it must be remembered, are lengthy and costly affairs. They then promptly put in an identical second application and proceeded to "negotiate" with the Council on agreements regarding the infrastructure requirements. Negotiations, we might add, that neither the Town Council nor the community of Buckingham were party to.

The outcome, as reported at the Strategic Development Control Meeting on 3rd September, was that the Council had been able to reach agreement, or "were close to reaching agreement", on all these outstanding matters and therefore their previous submission to the Inspectorate was effectively null and void. In the circumstances, they would therefore lose the Appeal and be liable for costs. We were left in no doubt at the meeting that the 'costs' (although undisclosed) would almost bankrupt the Council. But we were told that if the present (second) application was recommended for approval, as advised in a vehement manner by the Officers, then the Council could seek a postponement of HML's Appeal, giving the Officers time to negotiate the outstanding details with HML and that would lead to HML abandoning its Appeal - because it would have won game, set and match.

How would you describe this apparently perfectly legal, but in reality underhand, tactics? There were one or two councillors at the meeting who did not hesitate to call them bullying tactics. What makes this appalling saga so particularly despicable is that an application, which the community regarded as totally unsuitable for the town for many, good "material" reasons, would be determined BEFORE the next stage of our Local Development Framework (LDF) has been completed.

Its Core Strategy (which was published for consultation in June) has yet to be formally adopted. And, most importantly from Buckingham's point of view, the Allocated Sites document for what is referred to as 'The Rest of the District' had not been produced. This document would - in theory - have given the citizens of Buckingham some say as to where the development should be located. This is now denied. The system has failed local people dismally. There are, in our view, many valid planning or 'material' reasons for refusing development on this site but they were not considered valid because they were outweighed by the necessity of avoiding financial ruin, brought about by the Council's delays in keeping up to speed with Government diktats.

It is vital that local planning authorities get LDFs in place quickly but, given the avalanche of changes brought about to the planning system, this is proving difficult, impossible even, because of labour shortages and skills gaps in local authorities' planning departments; many caused by experienced planners being "poached" by developers. Add in the pressures that the growth agenda has forced on District Councils, such delays are predictable - maybe inevitable. This gives the speculative developer both space and ammunition to pre-empt the legislation, avoiding all its safeguards regarding local community involvement.

There are numerous clauses in the planning legislation that appear to require the need for local priorities and community involvement in development decisions. But they count for nought when the bulldozer of forced growth is thrust upon unprepared and under-resourced local authorities.

Buckingham has become a major casualty in this fiasco. We have been let down by our Local Authority, our elected Members and the County Council. We are not NIMBYs. Over the past decade, the Buckingham Town Design Group and the Town Council have recognised that Buckingham will have to accommodate growth and, in consultation with the community, have produced a framework of guidelines which would help to locate that growth and identify major infrastructure needs. This has not been taken into account at any stage in the preparation of the Core Strategy. This is unforgiveable.

But who can, and who will, seek to address the issues that have led to this disastrous outcome? As it stands, the system allows speculative development to bypass the safeguards communities have every right to expect. Partly because of conflicting policies and partly because the professional developer working on a national stage can always outplay the impoverished local authority.

In the present economic climate, it can only get worse, unless and until the planning system can be seen to uphold and protect the community values it now pays lip service to but has yet to give them sufficient weight in the overall, final analysis.

The Buckingham Society urges you to campaign on behalf of all communities seeking a fair crack of the whip. Legislation should ensure that large scale development is defined in terms of the existing settlement and that the approval of planning applications for such large scale developments can only be granted following a rigorous adherence to all local development framework documents.

Carolyn Cumming, For The Buckingham Society
9 September 2009

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