EASTON-IN-GORDANO PARISH COUNCIL

 

Julie Smart                                                                                                  1 Monmouth Road

Clerk                                                                                                            Pill

Tel/Fax:  01275 374442                                                                              North Somerset

Email: eigparish.council@btinternet.com                                                  BS20 0AY

 

 

9^th February 2007

 

 

 

                                                                                                                    

Dear Councillor

 

FURTHER PROPOSED MODIFICATIONS TO REPLACEMENT LOCAL PLAN

 

This Parish Council urges you to take note of the contents of this letter, since we are not convinced that, apart from the Ward Councillors for the immediate area, all North Somerset Councillors were made fully conversant with all the facts over the proposal to remove land in the north of the district from the Green Belt.

 

As you know, at the November Council meeting, a proposed amendment to retain Green Belt status for an area of land in this parish, including Courthouse Farm, as opposed to removing it from the Green Belt for future Port use, was defeated. At the same meeting an amendment to leave the Portbury land in the Green Belt was passed. The resulting amended modifications have been subject to a further consultation period, which ended on 24^th January. This Parish Council has made strong objections to these modifications, which add to the major representations made by both Easton-in-Gordano and Portbury Parish Councils, together with large numbers of parishioners, regarding the original Policy E5/a to remove both areas of land from the Green Belt.

 

The purpose of this letter is to urge you, at the February Council meeting, to support the retention of the Courthouse Farm area within the Green Belt, following the outcome of the consultation which will, without doubt, show overwhelming support for this, whatever the recommendations from officers might be.

 

We do not intend in this letter to repeat all our previous objections. These were all clearly and very fully set out in our letters to NSC and the Inquiry Inspector on 25.8.05 and 20.2.06, and to Councillor Crockford-Hawley on 31.5.06. Presumably all these letters are on file and will be accessible to you. However, key points from these earlier objections were as follows:-

 

·         Policy E5/a was introduced at the last minute at the 2005 Inquiry without any indication in the modified draft deposit local plan of a change to NSC’s approach to this issue, thus precluding the opportunity to make formal representations of objection to the Inspector at the Inquiry.

 

·         The lack of any material evidence which would change the view of the Inspector at the previous 2003 Shipway Farm Inquiry, supported by the Secretary of State, that:-

 

1.        the Royal Portbury Dock had failed to demonstrate a need for further development land and to achieve an appropriately intensive and efficient use of the existing port area, owing to a profligacy of the present land use;

 

2.        many activities, particularly the huge amount of car storage, are not directly dock related, are not an efficient use of Port land, and could take place elsewhere.

 

Our objections to the Further Proposed Modifications are as follows:-

 

• Easton-in-Gordano is the parish closest to the main area of activity of the Bristol Port Company, and has, since the opening of the Royal Portbury Dock, already suffered from a huge amount of encroachment, resulting in major adverse effects on the environment. This piece of land is the last green buffer between the village and the Dock;

 

• the effect of the proposals would be to single out this parish for further damaging encroachment and further deterioration of the local environment;

 

 

. . . / cont.

-2-

 

 

 

 

• at a public meeting several years ago, prior to the establishment of the coal tip at the Royal Portbury Dock, attended by a large number of residents of the Parish, Mr Terence Mordaunt of the Bristol Port Company gave a public assurance that, once the coal tip was established, there would be no further encroachment by the Port on to land within the parish of Easton-in-Gordano. The protection of the piece of land in question for future Port use would represent a contradiction of this publicly given assurance;

 

• breaches over conditions applied to previous Port developments have not been enforced by North Somerset Council, particularly in relation to the coal storage area, where the height regularly exceeds that level stated in the planning agreement, and where the agreed amount of sprinkling frequently does not take place. Indeed the height of the coal currently exceeds the agreed height, with other ships delivering coal expected in the near future. This gives the Parish Council no confidence that any safeguards put in should the Courthouse Farm area be deleted from the Green Belt would be guaranteed the protection they would require.

 

We are aware that it has been pointed out on behalf of North Somerset Council that land between the Port and Portishead is now recommended for inclusion in the Green Belt, but this in no way benefits Easton-in-Gordano and cannot be used as any justification for a further damaging effect on this parish.

 

The Government is apparently keen to give local communities more opportunity to participate in planning processes and to ensure that local planning policy is underpinned by a local evidence base. A Parish Plan for the parish of Easton-in-Gordano has been published recently. It is based on the views expressed in responses to a questionnaire distributed to the 2166 households in the parish. Responses were received from 1311 households and 81% of those responding supported the maintenance intact of the existing Green Belt that currently surrounds the developed area of the parish. These responses, together with the large number of individual letters of objection which have already been sent to NSC and a petition of almost 1000 names from the parish, are the firm and only evidence of local opinion on this matter – opinion of which, the Parish Council maintains, proper account should be taken by North Somerset Council in making a decision of such importance to the future of the parish.

 

We trust that our objections will be taken into account. However, should they not be met, it will be our intention to make the strongest representations to the Secretary of State, through the Government Office of the South West, for North Somerset Council to be directed to remove this modification.

 

We urge you, therefore, to vote appropriately at the February Council meeting to maintain the Green Belt status of the land referred to above, both to protect the environment of this part of North Somerset and to avoid the necessity of the Parish Council having to lobby the Secretary of State.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

 

Julie Smart

Clerk