The Devizes Guardians

All are cordially invited to attend the Annual General Meeting which is to be held on Wednesday 2nd November at 7.30pm in the Town Hall (Cheese Hall).  The brief formalities will be followed by an opportunity to discuss the Localism Bill and any policy matters which members wish to air.

This is the text of a letter sent by Roger Giraud-Saunders to the Gazette and Herald for publication.  The letter has not been published at the time of posting,

“Yet again the town is under threat of unbridled development. The latest schemes will, if they come to fruition, add approximately 700 houses to an already overdeveloped town. The consequences will be felt by everyone in Devizes. Congestion will increase and pollution, already above levels which are in breach of EU standards, will become worse. Town centre trade will fall. Who will come to Devizes just to sit in a traffic jam?

The developers will doubtless make their normal slick presentations and will promise improvements to the infrastructure. All the usual clichés will be trotted out to try and convince people that their plans are good for Devizes. The promises they make are empty. The open land will be lost under tarmac and concrete. They will not suffer the consequences of their schemes as they move on to blight other towns and villages. Their motives are purely financial and all the incentives they offer prove to be of little benefit when the realities of more traffic congestion etc come home to roost.

Everyone in Devizes needs to protest against further developments of this nature. It may not be in your backyard, but it will affect the quality of your life and the quality of life in the town you chose to live in.

I hope you will all feel moved to register your disapproval of these schemes. The means to register your feelings exist. Sign the petition raised by Laura Mayes on her website, write to Carolyn Gibson at Carolyn.gibson@wiltshire.gov.uk.

Additionally, you are all more than welcome to voice your concerns at our Annual Public Meeting  in the Cheese Hall on the 2^nd of November 2011 starting at 7.30pm.”

To: greg@gregclark.co.uk
Subject: National Planning Policy Framework

Dear Mr Clarke,

I have responded to the on-line consultation on this draft policy, but would wish to explain my unhappiness to you personally as well.

My principal concern is the use of the term ‘presumption of sustainable development’ I feel bound to say that there is little evidence available to my planning officers as to what ‘sustainable development’ means and, hitherto, no demonstration by the local developers that they have any concern for it or understanding of it either!

There is a presumption that we have a sustainable community in Devizes (Claire Perry), because we have access to schools, doctors and other facilities. This is true but, along with a desperately poor road system, all of them are under stress. We have (fortunately) low levels of unemployment in the town – mostly low/semi-skilled jobs, but a complete lack of significant numbers of ‘added-value jobs’. Therefore, any future development must be employment-led and anticipated not followed by the appropriate infrastructure development. This does not square with your premise in the draft policy that house building will lead economic recovery!

I would add one further comment. Our Victorian forefathers gave us a lesson in sustainable development which we largely ignore these days. Along with good sewers, they gave us gardens, parks and other public open space. Today,
with councils pleading poverty and unable to purchase land, developers do have the opportunity to leave us a legacy. They choose to ignore this. At best we get the token children’s play facility and not much else. The previous administration has left us with some appalling, high density developments and, without assistance in provoking developers to provide meaningful open space, we will continue to have swathes of uninterrupted housing development doing nothing for community well-being. In this context, development on a site at Coate in Swindon is likely to be brought to your department’s attention. Can I say that I utterly deplore the approach to
development here for just the reasons I have attempted to outline.

Yours sincerely,

Nigel Carter

This is the text of a letter sent by Jeff Ody to the Telegraph. A much edited version of it was published on Wednesday 7th September:

“In view of the concerns over additional house building around Devizes, the Government’s proposals to exploit its ‘Localism’ Bill to promote ‘a presumption of approval of sustainable development’ has particular significance for our Town.
 
The very fact of the vagueness of this momentous terminology is sinister, allowing commentators on all sides to see in it both the best and the worst of possible interpretations. My own suspicion is that its true meaning is being smokescreened in Whitehall, to fudge the differences of objective on either side of the argument. Most Whitehall illogicalities are the result of either Cockup or Conspiracy : in this case I would go for the Conspiracy explanation. Those responsible want to please all of their political masters with an all-purpose form of words, without coming down on one side or the other.
 
The dangerous result will be, that the housing developers and their lawyers will have a field day, tying the planning regulations into knots and costing the Council planners more than we can afford to oppose their Applications. In the Kennet days the going rate to fight a Planning Appeal was £50,000 a time, and nowadays Wiltshire is much less well funded.
 
What I believe the Government want us to think, is that ‘there should be a presumption in favour of any development being Sustainable’, rather than that ‘there should be a presumption in favour of any development and that it should be Sustainable’, which is a very different matter. However neither is tough enough to withstand the rotweilers the developers use for lawyers!”

Jeff Ody wrote to the G&H about housing proposals as follows (the letter was not published):

“The draft Core Strategy for Devizes suggests 408 houses already permitted but not yet built, plus 569 more houses for the town over the period to 2026. Meanwhile most local opinion believes that the Town’s infrastructure has been stretched to breaking point by too many new houses built in recent years. The Strategy recommends no more new large ‘Strategic Sites’, so the additional ones are expected to be scattered around smaller sites in the town, although developers like Merchant Venturers and Mactaggart’s are already making warning noises about challenging this to suit their own plans.
 
The developer contributions process is flawed.
 
In theory, the housebuilders will be expected to deal with the deficit of infrastructure by their contributions under Planning Section 106 agreements and under the new Community Infrastructure Levy. Unfortunately the history of 106 Contributions in Devizes is not encouraging. Too often the payments are too small and too late. Worse, they do not get fitted into a coherent infrastructure plan which can be carried out before the new housing is completed.
 
Recent examples have been the curious highway lighting on the Horton Road;  and the new London Road bus stop arrangements,  which have to be finalised by October otherwise the Council loses the money to carry them out. These are not thoughtful  or timely contributions to the Town’s capability to accept new housing estates, they are more akin to a tax on the developer.
 
The new estates, which are already being drawn up by the housebuilders, should be preceded by an adequate framework  of infrastructure improvements prepared in advance. This framework should be specified in advance, in such a way that it can be parcelled out among the separate developers and financed piecemeal, whilst fitting into an overall plan.
 
This is a demanding task which the Council’s planning resources would find quite difficult to carry out quickly, and the developers’ lawyers will not hang about in pursuing their Planning Appeals against refusal of building consents.”

Letters from Helen Collier and Jeremy Pilgrim in the G&H last week highlighted local people’s concerns about Devizes future.

Guardian Town Councillor Ted East has responded with a letter to the G&H as follows:

“Helen Collier’s letter last week forecast Devizes ten years from now. Perhaps she had written the letter ten years ago and it has been lost in the post? We already have most of the problems she mentioned: air pollution, lack of medical facilities, parking on pavements in the new estates, roadworks and traffic gridlock. Helen could also have included the problem of using up all the open green spaces that are essential to the well-being of any community. A decade or two of excessive house building in the Devizes area has gone way beyond local needs, it has drawn in people from far and wide and increased demands on all our local facilities so that they are stretched to the limits.

Another letter last week from Jeremy Pilgrim expressed concerns about a Glasgow company’s proposal for houses on the Coate side of Windsor Drive. At least that company has been open about its plans. In contrast Merchant Venturers has surreptitiously submitted a proposal, via the Wiltshire consultation web site, for 400 houses north east of Roundway Park . How many more developers are waiting to pounce, take their profits and leave our community with the all the long term infrastructure problems but without the funds for the remedies?

One arm of Wiltshire Council, our Community Area Board, has recently recognised that there should now be no house building until our infrastructure deficit has been tackled. Devizes Guardians will continue to campaign until Wiltshire Council heeds local demands and stops yet more harmful housing sprawl in our area.”

This letter was published in the Gazette and Herald on 08.09.11

URGENT! Wiltshire Core Strategy consultation is nearly over.  All submissions, comments etc must be with the Council by MONDAY 8th AUGUST 2011.

You can still comment by completing and returning the response form on the website -

http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/planninganddevelopment/planningpolicy/wiltshirecorestrategy/

wcsconsult2011.htm,

- either by email or post, using the following contact details:

Email:

spatialplanningpolicy@wiltshire.gov.uk

Mail:

Spatial Planning Team
Wiltshire Council
County Hall
Bythesea Road
Trowbridge
Wiltshire
BA14 8JN

Our website needs a revamp, but we don’t have the cash to do so.  We would be eternally grateful if someone would volunteer to help with turning it into an all-singing, all-dancing site!

!f you think you can help, please contact via email

devizesguardians@googlemail.com

marked for the attention of Judy Rose.

The new Guardians Councillor for the Devizes East Ward is Roger Giraud-Saunders.  We now have two Guardian Councillors in that Ward (the other is Jane Burton) and five Guardians on the Town Council.

Roger received 308 votes, the Conservative candidate 261 votes, Labour 186 votes and Lib. Dem. 122 votes. Although the turn out was low (only 20.17%) it was a convincing margin.

Roger is sixty-two years old and lives in Devizes with his wife Nina. He attended school in north London and at the age of fifteen joined the Royal Navy, serving fifteen years in the Marine Engineering branch. After losing his right arm in an industrial accident he studied for a Higher National Diploma in Agricultural Engineering, which led to his present work for the Oil Advisory Technical Services based in Swindon.

He feels strongly that Devizes has been ill served by the major parties and, as a Devizes Guardian, he will be able to make a worthwhile contribution to the town in a way that the other parties have not. He has seen the town overwhelmed with new developments carried out with little regard to the impact on the local environment and infrastructure. He will support the other elected Guardians in giving greater consideration to the needs of Devizes and its people.

A personal statement from Roger -

“Local representation on local issues, free from interference at a national level, is important for communities such as Devizes. Now that I have been elected as a Guardians town councillor I will continue to press for solutions to local issues that are important to the community I serve, without being subject to the party line that influences the representatives of the major parties.”

Devizes Guardians candidate, Sarah Bridewell, scored a victory in this Devizes Town Council election, taking the seat from the Conservatives by 226 votes to 219 and increasing the number of Guardians town councillors to four. The overall turn-out for the election was about 26%, but that was to be expected for a by-election in the middle of the holiday period.

This was an excellent result for Sarah and the Guardians especially as the Conservatives had thrown all their resources at retaining this seat, including wheeling their parliamentary candidate out to canvass. It is big disappointment for the Conservatives at town, county and national levels; they had been hoping to show that last year’s Wiltshire Council win for the Guardians could not be sustained and that it was a short-term phenomenon.

We thank our loyal supporters who turned out to vote and show their continued support for the Devizes Guardians. Please see the MEET THE GUARDIANS page for more information about Sarah Bridewell.