Somerset this week: 22 December
This is our last edition pre Christmas so we take the opportunity to wish all our readers and subscribers a very Happy Christmas. We'll be back again in the New Year with some bumper editions.
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Somerset this week: 22 December
Support and influence
It is always good to feel that when you write something, it influences and contributes to debate in the wider world beyond. On 11 December we published an article looking at the inherent contradiction between Defra’s policy on Food Security and The Department of Levelling Up Communities and Housing’s policies on planning. You can read that article here
Two days after our article was published Ian Liddell Grainger, MP for Bridgwater & West Somerset took up the call. In a statement the MP noted: “We cannot afford to lose any more farmland when we are already relying on imports for nearly 50 per cent of our food this dumping of new estates in the countryside is wrecking the social structure of towns and villages and making life even more difficult for those already living there.”
Quite so. Whilst the impact is here to see in every village and market town in Somerset, perhaps we can now expect the topic to be discussed in the Westminster Village too.
Mr Liddell-Grainger referenced the example of a recent planning application in Watchet. In his statement he added: “more than 230 homes were now scheduled to be built on farmland just south of Watchet, the third major development within the local area in the space of a few years. Interestingly enough the application was supported by the claim that this was low-grade farmland - yet when the tenant’s rent was being fixed it was based on it being either grade one or grade two.”
the impact on the local communities can be catastrophic
He went on to say: “It’s all very well for rich absentee landowners to flog off farms to disappear under housing estates but the impact on the local communities can be catastrophic. In the Watchet area the health and dental services are already hopelessly overstretched and people have the devil of a job trying to get seen. Yet a massive estate can simply be plonked down with no provision whatsoever to provide additional social resources. The health centres, the dentists and the schools are just expected to cope with the extra numbers as best they can.”
Chief Planner
No, this is not usually the stuff of exciting journalism, but let’s face it, it is the one thing Somerset Council does that most people get worked up about at some time or other. First things first, Somerset Council has appointed a new Chief Planning Officer. Alison Blom-Cooper was previously the Assistant Director for Strategic Place for Somerset West and Taunton Council. So it is an internal promotion.
She is a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) and has previously worked at senior management level in a number of authorities including Epping Forest District and the London Borough of Haringey as well as being a Consultant Planning Inspector and an Investigator at the Local Government Ombudsman.
One of the things the new Chief Planner might want to look at is the apparent disconnect between reality and the consultee reports that planners rely on in coming to planning decisions.
An alternate reality
This was graphically illustrated on Tuesday this week at the Area South Planning Committee. An application was due to be heard for 100 houses on Coat Road in Martock.
The site was noted as being in Flood Zone 1, the lowest risk category. A flood risk assessment was submitted which Somerset Council as the Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA), deemed to be acceptable. The planners took the advice from the LLFA concluding: “The proposed development is deemed safe from flooding.”
“Safe” despite the planners noting: “Surface water mapping indicates localised shallow flooding along the western boundary, with depths up to 900mm.” To put it another way, areas of the site could flood to a depth of 3 feet!
areas of the site could flood to a depth of 3 feet
In essence the reports the planners relied on basically say: “nothing to see here.”
Oddly, though, that was not what these days we might refer to as the “lived experience.” When local people were given the chance to have their say during public questions, a different reality emerged. A stream of photographs were presented showing fields under water, impassable roads around the site covered in flood water.
The local Flood Warden, Gordon Swindells spoke against the development on the grounds of flood risk. He has done so before. Back in 2019 a site just up the road was also said to have no flood risk. Within 2 weeks of it being approved by planners it was under a couple of feet of water.
Another local resident, Andrew Clegg, also pointed out the area of greatest flood risk on the application site was in exactly the place the applicant intended to put a sewage treatment works.
By now councillors on the planning committee were struggling to balance two different versions of reality. On the one had the words on the page that said there was nothing to worry about. On the other, pictures and oral evidence showing severe flooding issues.
It then turned out that the Internal Drainage Board had also been asked to comment. It had not done so because it had asked the applicant to provide a hydrological assessment. Cllr Sue Osborne (Cons) said none had been provided and hence the IDB had not submitted a comment. As the IDB is very much a local font of knowledge on flooding matters, this was, she suggested, unsatisfactory.
Cllr Hobhouse (LibDem) pointed out that at various times in late November and early December Martock had been cut off by flood waters. He suggested the words on paper bore no connection to the reality of what was actually happening.
On this occasion common sense prevailed. The committee chair, Cllr Seib (LibDem) proposed that any decision on the application be postponed. At least until representatives of the LLFA could be available to face questions from councillors. The proposal was carried unanimously.
Five Year Land Supply
Although Somerset Council is now one council, when it comes to looking at planning, the Local Plan in general, and calculating the five year land supply in particular, the area is still split up into the old district council units.
The five year land supply is calculated by taking a look at the Local Plan. Somerset Council doesn’t have one yet but each former district does, so those are the ones that are used.
The Local Plan has a total number of houses to be delivered over the plan period. using that, planners calculate a number of houses to be delivered per year.
To have a five year land supply, at any one time a council must have enough houses where planning permission is granted and work is underway to cover five years worth of housebuilding.
South Somerset can only show a land supply of 3.1 years.
This is bad news for local residents and good news for speculative development.
If you can’t show five years, then the normal planning rules fall away. The presumption is that planning will be approved. Local views, National Planning Policy Framework, Neighbourhood Plans, you name it, all go out of the window. It becomes a developers charter.
One Wiltshire MP (Dr Andrew Murrison) recently accused developers of gaming the system, effectively targeting councils which cannot show a five year land supply.
And the bizarre fact is that Somerset has built more houses than any other authority in the country bar two (Wiltshire and North Yorkshire). And despite that, South Somerset still cannot show a five year land supply.
On Tuesday this week, the lack of a five year land supply resulted in another application for Langport being pushed through by the planners. 100 new houses to the north of the Somerton Road will now go ahead despite opposition from local people, Huish Episcopi and Langport Councils.
Ironically just 24 hours later, the Department of Levelling Up Communities and Housing’s published a new set of National Planning Policy Framework rules. These state that under the right circumstances, councils only need to show a four year land supply.
Still if residents of Langport and Huish Episcopi are feeling hard done by comfort of sorts is at hand. The South Somerset plan is so far off the mark, that they only have 3.1 years of land supply.
So they would not even qualify as meeting their targets under the new rules.
Nautilus to vanish beneath the waves
The historic Nautilus Works in Yeovil saw the birth of Westland Aircraft and is part of the origin story of Westland, Yeovil’s iconic helicopter manufacturer. Yet it is destined to be demolished by First Bus, the current owners.
First Bus has used the site as a bus depot for some years. However they now say they need to move to smaller premises and sell the site to enable the long-term sustainability of their business.
Various local interests, archaeological societies, South West Heritage Trust and Somerset Council planners had all hoped to persuade First Bus that the building façade should be saved for possible incorporation into any future building scheme.
First Bus refused. Claiming to have marketed the Nautilus Works for eight years without success, they say clearing the site would make it more attractive to a potential buyer.
Sadly English Heritage decided back in 2014 that the buildings did not merit a national listing which left nothing to prevent demolition, despite a determined campaign by local people to save at least a part of the complex.
English Heritage decided back in 2014 that the buildings did not merit a national listing
An on-site meeting was held at the start of this month between representatives from First, a Somerset Council planning officer and a senior conservation officer from South West Heritage Trust.
Craig Leake property projects director for First Group announced to the meeting: "I can confirm that we do plan to proceed with demolition of all the structures in the new year. However we are committed to funding and procuring a publicly accessible building record which will be completed in line with a detailed scope and guidance provided by the Conservation officer with South West Heritage Trust. We plan to approach several archaeological contractors to provide a proposal for this in the near future. We are happy to donate items of salvage to interested organisations. Gantry cranes, oil pumps and a work bench have already been identified on an initial walk through. Anything identified and discovered during the demolition phase will also be salvaged and donated."
Under the circumstances probably the best deal that could be salvaged from the ruins.
Post Office about turn
Somerset Confidential® is not alone in feeling that please we have made have not fallen on deaf ears. On 13 December, Sarah Dyke, the LibDem MP for Somerton & Frome stood up in the House of Commons to point out that DVLA services would no longer be available from Post Offices from March 2024.
This is no small matter given that over 6 million people use their local Post Office annually to access DVLA services.
Losing out on providing DVLA services would not only be damaging to the livelihood of hard pressed postmasters in her constituency. The MP pointed out losing the Post Office service : “will disproportionately affect rural communities. Many bank branches, ….will close across my constituency leaving customers having to travel further to access banking services or to rely on their broadband connectivity at home, which is rather lacking.”
As if by magic on 18 December, her angst was addressed. It was announced that the Post Office had in fact extended its contract with Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.
The new contract arrangement is a three year deal with a rolling annual contract renewal. The first year’s renewal will start on 1 April 2024. At the end of each year both sides will reconvene and decide if they wish to renew for a further year.
Under the new contract, customers can choose to visit relevant branches of the Post Office to tax a vehicle or renew a 10-year photo card driving licence.
Postmasters will receive the same income as they received under the previous contract.
Supply and demand
Sarah Dyke was also in action on 19 December speaking in a debate on sustainable farming. The MP suggested that a reason why the government does not spend as much as it pledged on the Sustainable Farming Initiative (MP Tim Farron stated the underspend as £444m). Replying to Mr Farron she noted: “Recent figures show a remarkably low uptake of the sustainable farming incentive. Does my hon. Friend agree that it simply does not have enough incentive for farmers to join?”
It is a fair question. But if there is a lack of a big enough incentive in one direction, there is certainly an incentive from another.
Farmers are being offered large sums by developers such as The Land Value Alliance. Nearly all of their current proposed developments in Somerset are on farmland.
With a defective planning system and a large number of councils (especially in the south west) unable to show a five year land supply, developers are keen to offer large sums to farmers to sell off their land. However speculative a development may be, without a five year land supply the developer knows they have a substantial chance of winning.
Who needs sustainable farming if you can get a multi million pound return from a developer?
Until we have a planning system that actually puts a value on farmland, it is inevitable that farmers will find the economic attraction of development more compelling than the relatively small sums available under the government’s Sustainable Farming Initiative.
These are varied according to what action you sign up to take. None exceed £700 per hectare though.
Compare that with the sort of offers a developer will make for agricultural land they believe they can get planning permission for. Something in the region of £350,000 per hectare.
Until the planning system takes account of this reality, no initiative for sustainable farming is likely to succeed at scale.
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Interestingly, last Tuesday, 19th December, Radio 4 broadcast a program called "Uninsurable planet". Not alone on this, the UK has many areas of housing already many years into an 'ininsurable' situation. Planning permission does not guarentee ability to insure and while insurance may be available currently, future access to insurance may wwell become unaffordable. I think the phrase is: "Buyer Beware!"