FINAL NEWS UPDATE FOR BALDWINS GATE ACTION GROUP (1)

The summary of events is that, despite major campaigning by local residents, who are NOT NIMBYs but people who know what is and is not appropriate development in the village, the development was finally approved on appeal. The decision of one man, the Inspector, changed the village for ever and also changed lives of many residents to their detriment.

The farmer who sold the land became richer, Richborough who facilitated the sale became richer, the local residents near the development became considerably poorer as the value of their "rural homes" diminished.

The legal loophole that allowed this planning application to succeed, the supposed lack of a five-year housing land supply by Newcastle Borough Council, was not closed and yet another developer attempted to build yet another housing estate in the village. A separate Action Group fought that and the application was again refused. An appeal was submitted but withdrawn before it was heard.

Maybe they heard of the difficulties being experienced by Kier Living, the developers of the Gateway estate who had paid such a high price for the privilege.

With approval for just over 100 houses given, the first house was occupied around December 2017 and ten months later, there are less than 10 occupied. Most of the estate has NOT been built because of the difficulty in selling and there is now talk of trying to sell homes on a shared ownership basis.

At the time of the original application and appeal, there were many houses for sale in the village with a wide range of prices. So there was no need for new properties but construction companies simply want to build houses and the easiest place to build is on pure new flat virgin farmland. The fact that it is Grade 1 farmland is irrelevant, despite the fact that with an increasing population there will be even more mouths to feed and the country is presently unable to feed itself without imports.

THE DEVELOPMENT HAS BEEN A DISASTER FOR THIS VILLAGE AND FOR MANY OF ITS RESIDENTS.

DEMOCRACY IS DEAD.

Vote Conservative? Never again!

Conservatives

Building a Britain where EVERYONE WHO 

WORKS HARD can own a HOME OF THEIR OWN!

... and when you've worked hard, and bought

a home of your own, in a place you would like to live

for the rest of your days, in peace and tranquil

surroundings, 

THE CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT

brings in the NPPF so that, if your local council officers

have failed to do their job properly, 

(ie through no fault of your own),

your retirement can be ruined by developers

building unwanted, unneeded houses

right next to you, causing chaos and disruption

to the peace you had worked hard for, and reducing

the equity you have in the property on which

you may have been relying to finance your 

care in later years.

Poor Bill Cash, MP, has worked hard for his

constituents over many years but the party

he represents shows themselves to be

totally inconsiderate of the supporters

who have put them into power and, as a result,

he will lose many of those supporters.

This scenario will be repeated over many

rural constituencies and if conservative 

MPs lose their seats, as a result, it will be

the present Government to blame and not

those MPs themselves.

Local democracy dead?

Local democracy dead?
Local council officers incompetent?
Party funding from developers?

Whatever the reason, we lost the appeal!

Despite there being no NEED for houses in Baldwins Gate, no PLANNED expansion of Baldwins Gate, all RURAL development planned to make three Rural Service Centres more sustainable... despite ALL the local objections... despite the planning objections put forward unanimously by the local Planning Committee... despite hundreds of pages of evidence against the proposals...
THE PLANNING INSPECTOR CONCLUDED THAT NONE OF IT MATTERED.

According to the statistics, Newcastle doesn't have enough housing SO BUILD IT ANYWHERE!

It doesn't matter that it destroys Best and Most Versatile Agricultural Land (BMV)
or that everyone needs to use a car to get anywhere
or that there are inadequate facilities for an increase of 50% population
or that the school is full
or that we have only a part-time subsidiary surgery of the doctors at Madeley
or that public transport is totally inadequate.

NONE OF THIS WAS MENTIONED BY THE INSPECTOR.

And by granting this appeal, the inspector has opened the flood gates to applications all over the village. ALL PLANNING LOGIC has gone and Newcastle Planners are making totally illogical recommendations by paying lip-service to "Sustainability"...

• How can it be "unsustainable" to build 5 houses at Slaters when 113 extra families will be travelling from Baldwins Gate to everywhere by car from Gateway Estate?
• How can it be "unsustainable" to build 3 houses at Manor Road when 113 extra families will be travelling from Baldwins Gate to everywhere by car from Gateway Estate?
• How can it be "unsustainable" to build 1 house at Hill Chorlton when 113 extra families will be travelling from Baldwins Gate to everywhere by car from Gateway Estate?

It IS UNsustainable to be building those but so was the building of an extra 113 houses on Gateway Estate. Once we have an extra couple of hundred cars what difference would a dozen more make? Or another couple of hundred when the next estate is built behind the school... WHERE DOES IT END?

After the announcement of the Appeal Decision it was suggested that the Action Group get a barrister's opinion as to whether the appeal could be challenged with a judicial review. That opinion would have cost the group £2500. 

However, if the result had been positive, there is no way that in a short time we could have raised even pledges to cover the potential £50K costs if we were to lose so all we could do was write to the Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, asking for him to review the decision which has so many flaws in its logic and which does untold damage to the whole borough by the precedent it sets.

NO RESPONSE SO FAR! 

WE ARE IN THIS SITUATION BECAUSE NEWCASTLE CANNOT IDENTIFY SUFFICIENT LAND TO MEET ITS HOUSE-BUILDING NEEDS FOR AT LEAST THE NEXT FIVE YEARS which means that developers can apply to build anywhere and the NPPF sats that their application must be viewed "WITH A PRESUMPTION IN FAVOUR OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT".

WHY?

• Is it because the officers of the council have not updated their housing target figure for several years despite the original targets being TOO HIGH?
• Is it because an officer of he council told our Parish Council that we need not bother with a Neighbourhood Plan because "there will be no major building in Baldwins Gate"?
• Is it because nobody explained to the Planning Committee councillors the danger in which they placed the council if they removed certain sites from the Housing Land Supply list?
  
  OR
• Is it because the OFFICERS of the council have a different agenda to that of the Planning Committee...? ... an agenda that works AGAINST the wishes of the council tax payers who pay their salary and for whom they are supposed to work?

ONE DAY IT WILL ALL BECOME CLEAR!

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And another accident causes chaos on the A53 in Baldwins Gate

At around 4pm on 30th May 2014, the main A53 road in Baldwins Gate, Newcastle-under-Lyme, was blocked by an accident at the junction of Gateway Avenue.  This is the latest in a string of many accidents on this stretch of road and occurred at the very spot where developers, Richborough Estates, have submitted plans for a pedestrian crossing.

Residents protested vigorously against a planning application which, if it had succeeded, would have seen half the vehicles in the village being forced to access the busy A53 from this single junction. The application was refused by the Newcastle Borough Planning Committee but Richborough Estates have now submitted an appeal which is yet to be heard.

The scene was attended by two ambulance crews and police were forced to divert westbound traffic through a small housing development in order to keep the traffic moving.

   

      

Yet another Accident closes A53 in Baldwins Gate

Wednesday 30th April saw the A53 through Baldwins Gate, Staffordshire, completely blocked yet again by another serious accident with tailbacks stretching over a mile in each direction. This is the latest in a long list of accidents on the A53 in the area, ranging from minor to fatal.

Baldwins Gate Action Group successfully campaigned against a development of 113 houses on prime agricultural land in the village which would only add to the high volume of traffic which is faced daily by the residents.

Councillors on the Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Planning Committee visited the site and concluded that everything we had said about this dangerous road was true. With the village's lack of infrastructure and facilities, they agreed that such a development was totally unsustainable and not in the interests of the residents or the Borough. 

UNANIMOUSLY, the councillors rejected the application by Richborough Estates, a company which did not intend to develop land the land but rather sought to obtain planning permission in order to share in the increased value of the land once sold to a developer. Some would class these as simply land speculators trying to cash in on the current confusion in the planning system caused by poorly drafted legislation in the National Planning Policy Framework - NPPF. 

Despite their development being shown as unsuitable and against the interests of the village, they have stated that it is their intention to appeal and this is currently awaited.

IS DEMOCRACY DEAD?

Newcastle-under-Lyme planners have today recommended approval for the expansion of the rural village of Baldwins Gate by one third in the number of houses, but that will mean 50% increase in population. This is despite over 600 objections.

The houses, up to 113, would be built in a village where there is NO WORK, NO NEED, FEW FACILITIES, and a daytime bus service of 1 per hour (already full at peak times). 

England doesn't have the ability to feed its population NOW, but in the future, with and increased population, THE NEED FOR VALUABLE FARMLAND WILL BE MORE IMPORTANT.
Only 21% of England's agricultural land is classed as Grade 1 or 2 and Government says that it should only be built on as a LAST RESORT…. This is Grade 1 & 2 land.

Is democracy dead?

Is Eric Pickles' vision of LOCALISM DEAD?

Is this the first accident caused by HS2?

Saturday 26th October was never going to be an ordinary day in Whitmore and Baldwins Gate. It was the day that HS2 were coming to the village hall to explain why we should support their £42,600,000,000,000 expenditure on a high-speed line that was no longer going to be that much quicker than the ordinary lines and that would be financially detrimental to most of Staffordshire.

One major impact (in more ways than one) that the event had, seems to be yet another road traffic accident on the A53 in the village ... the fourth in two months! Once again the village and the A53 were clogged. Fortunately it was not for 8 hours on this occasion. Rumour has it, though this is not to be relied upon as evidence, that a car was waiting to turn into the HS2 exhibition, causing a small tail-back, and another motorist failed to stop causing one vehicle to shunt into another and another.....

For the villagers, traffic is a MAJOR issue and now, with the proposed construction of a MINI_ROUNDABOUT, they are all up in arms.

Highway engineers and Traffic Management Designers can say what they like but the facts speak for themselves. The village keeps being the location of accidents, both minor and serious.

Adding 113 extra houses, increasing the village population by 50%, will supposedly do nothing to make matters worse, at least once we have our new roundabout and extra Puffin crossing. There's no doubt that these obstacles will slow traffic but the designers don't see traffic speed as an issue anyway. What they will do is clog up the village at peak times, blocking exits from other side avenues, and seriously limiting the access and egress of properties in the vicinity.

The proposers of this development and associated engineering works are missing the point that the village is NOT stagnating, has NO NEED for this development, has no MARKET for these houses, and HAS NO INFRASTRUCTURE to support such an increase in population. The development is UNSUSTAINABLE!

Simply because the Newcastle Borough Council has failed to demonstrate that it can meet its 5-year housing targets, it is now being preyed upon by parasitic land developers taking advantage of its predicament like vultures pecking at an injured animal.