Letters – Informal talks would address concerns

It has recently been reported that Moulton Parish Council has concerns regarding redevelopment of the Gardman site, so close to the very attractive village centre.

I hope Moulton will forgive me for using their concerns to illustrate a wider problem. In my personal opinion they are quite right to want a say with whatever happens in their patch at an early stage.

The parish seems to be calling for a direct pre-application consultation with developers, in other words a chance to influence whatever scheme is proposed before it is submitted to SHDC planning officers and committee.

From experience I can tell them that developers are often highly reluctant to talk to parish councils directly. Indeed I found this problem with the new housing developments in the Holbeach Peppermint roundabout area. After all SHDC are not bound to act on parish council planning comments, the final decision is theirs and it could be considered to just make the lives of district planners and developers more complicated.

On the odd occasion that direct talks do occur most developers seem to prefer to talk only to parish clerks, some of who work only a few hours a week and do not always have time to be well up on planning or to deal with such matters. Such talks should be with whoever the parish decides is best placed to represent them.

I believe larger numbers of residents talk to their parish councillors than attend impersonal open presentations arranged by developers and/or the district council, useful though these may be.

There is however no legal obstacle that I can find to prevent informal conversations between parish council members and builders of large developments.

Such talks would help to address residents’ concerns at an early stage, avoid unnecessary revised planning applications and remove a lot of angst.

It would also perhaps help to ensure that section 106 monies were applied as local residents need and that a fair share of such funds were spent very locally and directly on the communities most affected.

I do get tired of schemes that propose on first application to include community buildings and facilities that somehow never materialise, like health centres or plans to provide the required amounts of social housing, that sometimes subsequently get reduced in favour of more “market” homes for commercial reasons.

Obviously, unless an application is large or could be controversial, matters can be left to district planning officers and neighbours but I do urge all builders and developers of larger projects to consider if it would be helpful to talk to the parish councils concerned before submitting formal applications to district councils.

This requires no changes in the law and very much follows the spirit of localisation, that seems to be slipping since it was first floated some years ago.

Paul Foyster
District and parish councillor
Holbeach Town