Date:   24th October 2006
 
 Dear Prime Minister
 

Freshford Mill Somerset

1. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs DEFRA requested that the planning application for redeveloping the site known as Freshford Mill  should be 'called-in' for their approval, before a decision is made.  Unfortunately, DEFRA has now decided NOT to 'call-in' the planning application, and the BANES Development Control Committee has decided to'permit'.
2. this particular application has such important national ramifications for the erosion of the Green Belt which in this case is also within an Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty and an Area of High Ecological Value we are entitled to know why DEFRA has changed its mind, especially when Freshford Parish Council had provided a long list of very closely reasoned objections to this planning application
3. NB In spite of having several months to correct an error, by the Ordnance Survey (that the Environment Agency relies on) Freshford Mill is still depicted as being outside of the flood plain. This error in any third World country would be regarded as corruption at the highest level.
4. Make no mistake Freshford Mill and the proposal by Southern & Counties for more than 20 dwellings -that has been approved by BANES planning officers in spite of total opposition from the residents of Freshford and their Parish Council -lies entirely under water in the event of a flood. The residents could only be rescued by boat or helicopter.

The above paragraphs are extracted from the website: www.freshfordmill.co.uk

The residents of the village of Freshford (like all other villages in England) one of the most beautiful in this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty are presently compiling a village report that will present how they feel about the future development of their village.  It makes a mockery of this lengthy activity that the most unwelcome planning proposal in recent history in Freshford has been approved without being "called in"

Freshford village is partly in BANES and partly in Wiltshire, this means that because the Mill is in BANES  that the Wiltshire residents and the West Wiltshire District Council were not allowed to take part in responding to planning proposals and have no vote in the matter.

 I have been asked to request that this proposal is properly considered not just rubber stamped.

Yours sincerely

A. Citizen

A reply to the letter to the PM above is included below. The text of the letter  is identical to that received

Government Office for the South West

Our reference: SW/THM/5021/203
Planning Team 2 Rivergate Temple Quay BRISTOL BS16EH

Website: www.gosw.gov.ukDirect Dial: 0117 900 1880 Fax 0117 900 1906

E-mail: phil.warry@gosw.gsi.gov.uk

Date: 16 November 2006

Dear Sir,

FRESHFORD MILL

Thank you for your letter of 24 October to the Prime Minister about our decision not to call-in this application. I hope you will appreciate that the Prime Minister receives a considerable amount of daily correspondence, so it would not be possible for him to reply to every letter personally. Your letter has therefore been passed to this office for a reply, as we deal with planning matters in the South West region.

We received a number of requests last year to call-in this application, but concluded that the Secretary of State's intervention would not be justified, so it was left for Bath and North East Somerset Council to decide the application as they thought fit. I understand that planning permission was in fact granted last December. Once an application has been approved, the only course of action left open to the Secretary of State would be to revoke the permission. However, she would only consider doing do (sic) if the decision to grant permission was considered to be so grossly wrong as to damage the wider public interest in a matter of national concern. Given that we did not consider this application raised issues which would justify call-in by the Secretary of State, we do not consider that use of revocation powers would be justified now.

I am sorry I cannot send a more encouraging reply.

Yours sincerely

PHIL WARRY

A reply is published below

Planning Team
2 Rivergate
Temple Quay
Bristol BS1 6EH

Secret Meetings

I am not at all sure that there is a need for a government office in the south west, but that is another matter. I note that your office decided not to call-in the application but you do not state the grounds under which that decision was made. Aren’t the public entitled to an explanation of why your office made that decision, Especially when the former Secretary of State requested that the application should be called-in?

  Issues that are Not in the Wider Public Interest?

You note that a reversal of the decision would not be justified as the decision would have to have been so grossly wrong as to damage the wider public interest.  Why aren’t  the following in the ‘wider public interest’?

Rejection of a decision made by John Prescott’s former Department- The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs DEFRA who requested that the planning application for redeveloping the site known as Freshford Mill  should be 'called-in' for their approval, before a decision is made. As this particular application meant:

Building dwellings not only in  the Green Belt but also within an:

An Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty and an Area of High Ecological Value

persistence of a highly misleading Flood map of the location of Freshford Mill on the Environment Agencies web-site which depicts the Mill as being outside the flood zone when it and the new build is wholly within it.

Can you explain to me why these three issues are “not in the wider public interest” and why the development would not damage the wider public?

Yours sincerely,

A. Citizen

A reply is published below

Government Office for the South West

Planning Team, 2 Rivergate, Temple Quay, Bristol, BS1 6EH

Phil.warry@gosw.gsi.gov.uk  Website: www.gosw.gov.uk

Our Ref: SW/THM/5021/203

Dear Citizen

FRESHFORD MILL

Thank you for your letter of 6 March about our decision not to call-in the planning application at Freshford Mill.

Perhaps I should explain that we did in fact receive a request from Freshford Parish Council for John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister (who is also the First Secretary of State) to call-in the application. At that time the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister had responsibility for planning matters, including consideration of requests to call-in planning applications, but this has since passed to the Department for Communities and Local Government. However, in this case it was decided that, on balance, the Secretary of State's intervention would not be justified. The attached letter sets out the reasons why the application should not be called-in, from which you will see that very careful consideration was given to all the issues involved. In the circumstances I can only repeat the advice in my earlier letter that we do not consider that there are any grounds for revoking the planning permission.

I hope this clarifies the situation.

Attached letter below

Government Office for the South West

Mr G Webber, Planning Services, Bath and North East Somerset Council, Trimbridge House, Trim Street, BATH, BA1 2DP

Our reference: SW/THM/5021/203 Your reference: 05/02563/FUL

The Planning Team 2 Rivergate Temple Quay Bristol BS16EH, Website: www.gosw.gov.uk Fax   0117 900 1868

E-mail: lyndon.cook@gosw.gsi.gov.uk

22 November 2005

Dear Mr Webber

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (GENERAL DEVELOPMENT PROCEDURE) ORDER 1995

CHANGE OF USE TOGETHER WITH ALTERATIONS TO PROVIDE 21 NO. RESIDENTIAL UNITS, PROVISION OF IMPROVED ACCESS, LANDSCAPING, PARKING AND ASSOCIATED DEMOLITION , AT FRESHFORD MILL, ROSEMARY LANE, FRESHFORD

1. I refer to our letter of 18 October 2005 directing your Council not to grant planning permission for the above   development.
2. As you know, the Secretary of State's general approach is not to interfere with the jurisdiction of local planning authorities unless it is necessary to do so. Parliament has entrusted them with responsibility for day-to-day planning control in their areas. Local planning authorities are normally Best placed to make decisions relating to their areas and it is right that in general, they should be free to carry out their duties responsibly, with the minimum of interference.
3. There will be occasions, however, when the Secretary of State may consider it necessary to call in a planning application to determine himself instead of leaving it to the local planning authority. His policy is to be very selective about calling in planning applications. He will, in general, only take this step if planning issues of more than local importance are involved and if those issues need to be decided by the Secretary of State rather than at a local level. Each case is, however, considered on its own facts.
4. The First Secretary of State has carefully considered all the matters raised regarding this application. Bearing in mind that the issue before him is not whether the application should be granted planning permission but whether or not he should call it in for his own determination, the First Secretary of State considers that the following are the main matters relevant to his decision:
1. With regard to planning in the Green Belt, his policies to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment (PPG2);
2. With regard to planning for housing, his policies to make more efficient use of land (PPG3);
3. With regard to planning for industrial and commercial development, his policies to balance the location requirements of business with wider environmental and social objectives (PPG4);
4. With regard to development in rural areas, the key policy consideration is the need to ensure the quality and character of the countryside is protected and, where possible, enhanced; in particular, by strictly controlling new building development away from existing settlements or areas allocated for development/and by giving priority to the re-use of previously-developed sites and existing buildings, subject to sustainability considerations including the likely impact on an area of outstanding natural beauty (PPS7);
5. With regard to biodiversity and geological conservation, the key policy considerations are the need to ensure our national and international responsibilities and obligations for nature conservation are fully met, and Biodiversity and geological conservation objectives are taken into account in all planning applications (PPS 9);
6. With regard to integrated planning and transport, his policies to promote accessibility to development comprising jobs, shopping, leisure facilities and services so that there is a realistic choice of access by public transport, walking and cycling, recognising this may be less achievable in some rural areas (PPG13);
7. With regard to planning and the historic environment, his policies for securing the upkeep of historic buildings (PPG15);
8. With regard to archaeology and planning, his policies to preserve sites of archaeological interest and of their settings (PPG16);
9. With regard to planning and pollution control, his policies to encourage the redevelopment and beneficial use of contaminated land and to ensure that any unacceptable risks to human health, buildings and the environment are identified and properly dealt with as new development and land uses proceed (PPG23); and
10. With regard to development and flood risk, his policies to ensure that development within areas vulnerable to flooding be protected to an appropriate minimum standard taking account of the likely effects of climate change (PPG25).
5. The Secretary of State is of the view that the applicant appears to have taken PPG2 into account and has put forward very special circumstances, which in the applicant's view outweigh the harm caused by the development. Furthermore the Secretary of State is satisfied that the Council has thoroughly assessed the housing issues raised by the application. In particular, how the proposal complies with national policies on sustainability, housing density and design matters. Having considered the constraints on this site in terms of its Green Belt location within the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Secretary of State considers that the re-use of this brownfield site for housing does not raise significant conflict with national planning policies in PPG3 and PPS7. The Secretary of State also considers that the proposal raises only matters of local importance in respect of traffic generation, pollution control and flood risk issues. He also notes that the Council proposes to attach conditions to the planning permission in order to address the impact of the development on the historic fabric of the site.
6. Having regard to his policy on call in¹ therefore, the Secretary of State has concluded that, on balance, his intervention would not be justified in this case as there is not sufficient conflict with national planning policies on the above matters, or any other sufficient reason, to warrant calling in the application for his own determination.   He has therefore concluded that the application and the issues raised would be more appropriately decided by Bath and North East Somerset Council.
7. The Article 14 Direction issued pursuant to the Secretary of State's letter of 18 October 2005 is hereby withdrawn.

Yours sincerely

ANNE LLEWELYN

' The Secretary of State's policy on call in is set out in a Parliamentary reply  reprinted below.

CALLED-IN PLANNING APPLICATIONS

GOVERNMENT POLICY STATEMENT

Hansard, Written Answer, 16 June 1999, 138

PLANNING APPLICATIONS

Mr. Bill Michie:To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement about his policy on calling in planning applications under section 77 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. [87392]

Mr. Caborn: My right hon. Friend's general approach, like that of previous Secretaries of State, is not to interfere with the jurisdiction of local planning authorities unless it is necessary to do so. Parliament has entrusted them with responsibility for day-to-day planning control in their areas. It is right that, in general, they should be free to carry out their duties responsibly, with the minimum of interference.

There will be occasions, however, when my right hon. Friend may consider it necessary to call in the planning application to determine himself, instead of leaving the decision to the local planning authority.

His policy is to be very selective about calling in planning applications. He will, in general, only take this step if planning issues of more than local importance are involved. Such cases may include, for example, those which, in his opinion:

may conflict with national policies on important matters;

could have significant effects beyond their immediate locality;

give rise to substantial regional or national controversy;

raise significant architectural and urban design issues; or

may involve the interests of national security or of foreign Governments.

However, each case will continue to be considered on its individual merits.

a comment is published below

In spite of the content of the letter above and its enclosure of the reasons given for why the Secretary of State did not Call -In the application. I still assert  that in relation to the list above:

1. the development does conflict with national policies on important matters: building new dwellings in the Green Belt, and in an Area of Outstanding natural Beauty and an area of outstanding natural scientific interest.
2. significant effects beyond their immediate locality -detracts from a regional amenity by taking some of the tranquillity away for visitors, and detracts from the value to the area of tourism
3. it would appear that the issues of the Green Belt and other issues are not of interest to others
4. urban design issues:  a new estate separate from an ancient village, that has a large conservation area, In which none of the new dwellings will be made from local stone and in which special measures have to be taken to protect the inhabitants from flooding. Measures that will have an impact on the architectural quality of the development

Once again, this is just another example of an undesirable development that locals and others have failed to stop. We must continue to support the National Trust as this body would seem to be one of the only ways we can preserve our natural heritage from undesirable development. Whatever the designers of the planning policies believed they had created, the reality is that a coach and horses can be driven through their pieces of paper.   www.nationaltrust.org.uk

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