The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
A parish council says lack of improvements to infrastructure coupled with more house building is creating ‘distrust between local people and authorities”.
Holbeach Parish Council has written to South Holland District Council planning officers and the chairman of its Planning Committee following applications by housing developers to reduce the Section 106 contributions.
These are where developers agree to provide things for the community, usually in the form of affordable housing as a percentage of a development or financial contributions to go towards education or healthcare.
“During the public meeting the parish council organised regarding Boston Road sink hole; it became evident that our parishioners’ main concerns revolve around the significant number of houses being built in our town, compared to its size, and the pressure this is causing, and will continue to cause, on our aging infrastructure,” the letter, sent to development manager Richard Fidler, head of planning Phil Norman and Planning Committee chairman Coun James Avery states.
It continues that Holbeach was allocated “proportionally more” housing in the South and East Lincolnshire Local Plan and two further sites of over 250 homes had been granted permission.
“At present the majority of the public perceive there are only negative implications of housing development,” it continues. “These negative perceptions have only been exacerbated by the significant problems we have had with drainage and sewage networks, and roads over the past few years.
“There has been a significant amount of time and money spent on devising strategies to improve the town’s infrastructure; however, a lack of tangible improvements to date coupled with the continued sanctioning of reductions in affordable housing allocations and additional developments outside the building line, creates distrust between local people and authorities.
“Affordable housing is being reduced on nearly every development within Holbeach, based on the justification that it is not viable for the developer.
“As a council we feel that if a development cannot meet the needs of our local people by providing sufficient numbers of affordable housing, it should not continue. In simple terms. If it’s not viable, don’t build it!
“Clearly these are significant problems that one authority alone can’t solve, but we feel the first thing to be done is to get transparency around this issue, so that members of the public are aware of how much money is allocated and/or been spent and what plans are there for improvements to infrastructure within Holbeach.”
The letter includes Freedom of Information requests for more information on Section 106 reductions in the town.
Deputy chairman Coun Sophie Hutchinson said it came after Ashwood Homes applied to remove all Section 106 agreements for a development.
“We felt we should be championing other issues the public have and their main concerns seem to be housing and infrastructure,” she said.
