Minutes of TheNEIGHBOURHOOD PLANTEAMFOR ALL SAINTS, CENTRAL, SOUTH and part of THORLEY
Held on 4thNovember2014 at 7pm
Diane Basavaraj* / Alyson Bailey, Thorley Manor Residents Association*
Stephen Cooper, Bishop’s Stortford Chamber of Commerce / Justine Duggan
Gary Duncan, Countryside Properties / Rob Francis, Bishop’s Stortford Civic Federation*
Cllr Robin Lumsden, Thorley Parish Council* / Deborah Munro, Parsonage Residents Association
Colin Nicholls* / Matthew Serginson, Solum Regeneration*
Cllr Norma Symonds / Cathy Tooze, BS Secondary School Consortium
Murray White* / Cllr Mike Wood*
*Present
In attendance: James Parker, Chief Executive, Bishop’s Stortford Town Council
Sue Belo, Bishop’s Stortford Town Council (taking minutes)
- APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE
Apologies were received from John Barfoot, Stephen Cooper, Justine Duggan, Deborah Munro, Norma Symonds and Cathy Tooze.
- MINUTES OF THE last MEETING
The minutes of the meeting held on 14th October 2014 were agreed.
- MATTERS ARISING
Robin Lumsden reported that he had received a document from East Herts Council concerning the identification of suitable travellers’ sites in East Herts but that he had found it incomprehensible. Keith Warnell confirmed that he had attended the meeting and that East Herts had an obligation to provide 50 pitches for the gypsy and traveller community within the district and that one of the areas that was under consideration was Bishop’s Stortford South.Post meeting note: East Herts has since provided clarification on this – only 12 pitches for Gypsies and Travellers are required in the district in the period 2013–2031, which could be provided on either one or two sites. Further information will be provided under Matters Arising at the next meeting.
James Parker reported that he had spoken to Bob Lee of Bishop’s Stortford Chamber of Commerce and that Bob had confirmed that representation on the NP Team should be a fundamental role of the Chamber. He agreed to speak to Stephen Cooper about it but Stephen has not been in touch nor attended any meetings in the interim.
Keith Warnell reported that he had made a presentation on the Bishop’s Stortford Neighbourhood Plan to Thorley U3A and that 200 people had attended. He distributed questionnaires and leaflets at the event and a lot of interest was shown. Keith requested that the team try to encourage residents to complete the online version of the questionnaire wherever possible due to the costs of inputting, as well as postage which amounts to approximately £2.50 per questionnaire.
- SPORTS, COMMUNITY AND LEISURE
Colin Nicholls presented the Objectives and Issues for Sports, Community and Leisure. He had emailed all members of the team of volunteers and had received feedback from some but not all.
Objectives: Draft objectives were based partly on NP1 but reworded to make them more meaningful and also to highlight the tension between sports and green spaces. The team suggested that the wording be amended slightly to avoid confusion as follows:
1)Provide and enhance appropriately sized and accessible indoor and outdoor community facilities to meet the needs of residents.
2)To support whenever possible, the preservation of the town’s green spaces and surrounding Green Belt, by the location of new outdoor sporting and leisure facilities.
Colin also reported that Birchwood School had invited him to meet to discuss the new cycle track and conference centre being planned opposite the school on the Pearse House site.
Rob Francis asked whether or not there had been a meeting on a strategic sports plan at East Herts. James Parker reported that Tim Page attended a meeting on this but that there had been little progress so far as he could tell.
Issues and Opportunities:
1)To try and quantify both demand and current availability of various outdoor and indoor sports, leisure and community facilities within the town. [Establish a data base of facilities and users.]
2)To consider the benefits of dual use of facilities in all future development. [Use of school facilities by general public.]
3)To review how best to support the initial building costs of any facility and then the subsequent ongoing maintenance cost/management.
Colin said that he had a list of regular hirers of community centres which showed that there was a lot of demand.
There was a discussion about the value and importance of all-weather surfaces for sports pitches. Both Hockerill and Birchwood have all-weather surfaces amongst their sports facilities, attracting a lot of community usage as a result.
Colin also commented that if leisure facilities within schools are built for joint use with the local community that they may have trust status and benefit from exemptions in VAT and the possibility of lottery funding.
Mike Wood suggested that it would be useful to get usage figures for Grange Paddocks and suggested that Colin should contact the manager there. Keith Warnell commented that the pitches at Grange Paddocks are prone to flooding as the pitches are located in a flood plain. Rob Francis mentioned that when the BSN application was being considered they held a meeting on sports and a representative of the Community Football Club made a case for more improved pitches so could be a useful contact.
- BISHOP’S STORTFORD SOUTH AND MANOR LINKS
Bishop’s Stortford South
Alyson Bailey introduced the area as follows:
- Bishop's Stortford South is a primarily residential area with a neighbourhood centre, primary and secondary schools and 2 small industrial estates.
- Part of Thorley Parish abuts the area that is currently open farmland and is earmarked for development of up to 1000 houses or 750 houses and a school.
- The A1184 main road runs north/south to the east of the area which is characterised by a mix of modern and older developments.
- All the roads off the two feeder roads in Thorley Park are quiet cul-de-sacs with access to green areas, a country park and children’s playgrounds.
It was suggested that the word ‘earmarked’ was amended to ‘proposed’ and pointed out that although the area was referred to as Bishop’s Stortford South, it was mainly within Thorley Parish.
Objectives: Alyson listed the Objectives for the area which had been narrowed down from a longer list as follows:
1)Development to be planned on Garden Village principles with housing design, road layout and colour palettes complementary to the local area.
2)Ensure that any development has adequate traffic planning and mitigation.
3)Provide opportunity of shared ownership properties for the local community over and above the HOU3 policy of the emerging District Plan.
4)Sustainable inclusive leisure and recreational facilities are provided to meet the community needs.
5)Provision of sufficient off-street parking to meet the community’s car ownership needs.
6)Road widths to exceed the HCC standards and to include pavements either side of same.
7)To provide well lit and safe footpaths interconnecting streets and green spaces.
8)Provide amenities for recycling bins to prevent them being stored at front of properties and causing visual litter.
There was agreement that the reference should be to Garden City principles as this was the usual term used, unless it could be shown that the term Garden Village was generally used.
Issues and Opportunities: Alyson highlighted several issues connected to the site as follows:
1)There are hydrology issues as the land drops 20 metres towards the east and there is an underground river on the site. There will be an obvious loss of permeable surface and the site also abuts the Stort Flood Plain (have diagrams)
2)The flood plain may change with the run-off water from the North which is generated from the BSN development.
3)Maintain and preserve the Hertfordshire Way that crosses the site.
4)Ensure that the site boundaries complement their boundary with the rural area by “tailing off” into the countryside and do not end in a high wall.
5)Significant traffic movements along the A1184 London Road may be exacerbated by a development of 1000 houses and a school.
6)There may be Air Quality Management issues along the A1184 caused by the traffic increases due to this development.
7)Safer Neighbourhoods/Planning out Crime to be considered in the development design.
8)Green spaces, seating and playgrounds to be incorporated.
9)Covenants restricting garage conversion to habitable areas.
10)Covenants restricting any extensions or alteration to building design for 10 years.
11)Trees and hedges planted by developers must be maintainable by residents or in areas that are adopted by EHDC for them to maintain.
12)Developer has mentioned a business park, should there be through access to housing?
Alyson had received comments from Janet Rolfe, a long-term resident with a substantial amount of knowledge of the area who had pointed out the risks of flooding in the area due to the underground river and the fact that the development site fed into a flood plain. There was a discussion about the SUDS (Sustainable Urban Drainage System) scheme used for new developments which factored in the risk of climate change as well.
Alyson also referred to the Hertfordshire Way route through the site and suggested that a building free area or green space should be kept either side of the route.
There was a discussion about covenants on conversions of garages and extensions which had little legal status as they counted as ‘permitted development’.
There have been some developments such as Fairfield Park in Bedfordshire where rules have been incorporated into house ownership. See
Alyson also highlighted the issue of trees where there have been past problems in identifying tree ownership in Thorley.
East of Manor Links
Keith Warnell presented the Objectives for East of Manor Links in the absence of Deborah Munro and introduced the area as follows:
- The area adjacent to the site known as BISH 6 consists entirely of substantial bungalows on large plots with double garages in a quiet cul-de-sac.
- One side of this area has an open vista to Bishop's Stortford Golf Course and the whole area is laid out in a peaceful and tranquil setting.
Objectives: These were as follows, with some identical to those for Bishop’s Stortford South:
1)Development to be planned on Garden Village principles with housing design, road layout and colour palettes complementary to the local area.
2)Ensure that any development has adequate traffic planning and mitigation.
3)Open aspect to the rear of those properties adjacent to BISH6 be maintained as far as is possible.
4)Given the spatial relationship of Manor Links to the Golf course, no properties higher than 2 storeys.
5)Traffic access into Manor Links to be limited and mitigate by other entrances in order to avoid congestion in a quiet cul-de-sac.
6)Preference on construction of a bungalow development for area directly adjacent to Manor Links - backing on to gardens - that would complement the area. This would provide a much needed, rarely available type of housing desired by the community and also preserve the open aspect for the existing bungalows in Manor Links.
Keith pointed out that the site is shown in the draft District Plan as two developments with different access; a smaller area at the back of Manor Links that is supposed to be social housing and is currently described as flats and a second area of private housing. However, at present only the smaller area for social housing has been approved for sale by the Golf Club which still owns the remainder of the site. As the Golf Club is a cooperative organisation, it would require the agreement of the majority of members to sell the remainder of the site. It was agreed that it would be useful to carry out a survey of estate agents to establish the need for more bungalows in the town.
Mike Wood raised the question of traffic and road safety as key issues for this site. A pedestrian crossing will be needed across the Dunmow Road for pedestrian traffic to reach Birchwood School and two primary schools in the area. This will require funding.
In addition, the 30mph speed limit will need to be moved back to nearer the M11 and an appropriate policy will be needed for this.
Diane Basavaraj asked whether consideration had been given to the cumulative traffic impacts on both congestion and road safety.
Robin Lumsden asked about the duplication of policies and James Parker explained that deduplication would happen later in the process as some policies would fit naturally within key topics such as Housing and Design while others may be area-specific and need to remain. It was, however, important to ensure that they were covered twice rather than not at all.
Keith Warnell also pointed out that some of the criticism of NP1 had been that several policies had been watered down as a result of deduplication and that it was important to try to avoid this happening and be specific with policies where they were appropriate to an area.
It was agreed that Alyson would add the road and pedestrian safety issues to the list of Objectives for Manor Links and circulate to the team.
Team members were asked to email any further comments to team leads within the next two weeks.
- publicity and engagement
The questionnaire has now been printed and distribution to all households in Bishop’s Stortford is now underway. All questionnaires should be delivered by 14th November.
To date, 138 questionnaires have been completed online and nearly 100 on paper but it is important to try to encourage people to complete the online version due to additional costs.
A further consultation day is being organised for Saturday 8th November from 9.30 to 5.00 in the former Currys unit at Jackson Square as previously and rotas have been sent to team members.
Stickered publicity leaflets have been distributed to people in the town, in Thorley and other parts of the town. It was agreed to produce more stickers for use in leafleting commuters and others over the coming weeks. A date of 20th November was proposed for leafleting commuters subject to confirmation from Murray and Rob and any other volunteers wishing to take part.
It was suggested that all team members should suggest ways of promoting the online questionnaire via links on other websites and email newsletters. Rob Francis offered to help via the Civic Federation website and suggested that Sue Belo contact Jill Wade of Haymeads Residents Association as well as Hockerill Residents Association and George Cutting of Havers Action Group. Alyson Bailey agreed to promote the online questionnaire to Thorley Manor and suggested that Deborah Munro might be able to do the same with Parsonage Residents Association.
- PRESENTATION SCHEDULE
James Parker presented the presentation schedule for Stages 1 and 2 presentations and asked whether there were ways to speed up the process. It was agreed that Rob Francis’ team are furthest ahead as they have a Focus Group meeting planned for 27th November at the Chamber. It was agreed that Murray White would incorporate BS South and Manor Links into Housing and Design for the Focus Group and that this would be organised as soon as possible. Likewise, it was agreed that Sports, Community and Leisure was also at a stage whereby a Focus Group could be arranged. It was agreed that Sue Belo would liaise with Murray White and Colin Nicholls to organise the sessions and to invite key interest groups and individuals. It was suggested that Ian Hudson may also be interested in attending the Sports Focus Group.
Rob Francis said that he felt that 27th January was too early to present draft policies on Green Infrastructure as the results of the survey would only just have been received. It was therefore suggested that 27th January to be considered as an opportunity for all the teams to present briefly their reviewed objectives incorporating the results of the questionnaire.
Keith Warnell also advised that there was an issue with Health as Norma Symonds will have to resign from the Core Team for the Neighbourhood Plan due to a clash of meetings with the Health Committee. It is possible that another councillor may replace her on the Core team.
It was agreed that the timetable would be reviewed at the next meeting.
- preparation for next meeting of 25thnovember 2014
The next meeting will be held on Tuesday 25th November at 7pm in the Council Chamber when Murray White will present Stage 1 – Issues and Objectives for the Goods Yard, and a member of the Education Key team will present Stage 1 – Issues and Objectives for Education and Childcare.