Copyright Our Cimla © All rights reserved. Privacy and Terms of Use
Press Coverage Page 2
Council seeks to ease
‘Concrete Jungle’ fears
South Wales Evening Post – Tuesday, August 25, 2009.
It’s a dystopian vision of the future - acres of green fields turned into a concrete jungle - that could have come out the bleakest of science fiction novels.
Understandably, it has had residents up in arms, inspiring protest meetings, petitions and an avalanche of letters of objection. And all this fuss has been provoked by just three words - Local Development Plan (LDP).
Like all councils in Wales, Neath Port Talbot has had to set the wheels in motion to decide how its towns, villages and countryside are going to be developed up until 2026.
What makes the LDP different from previous plans is that sites included for development were traditionally selected by the council before going to consultation.
This time, anyone is entitled to put forward a site they think is ripe for development. Not just for housing, but for industry, leisure, wind farms, mines and other uses.
The result is that, after the July 31 deadline for sites, known as candidate sites, Neath Port Talbot has had 424 put forward for consideration.
Some have attracted little or no attention. But others, mainly in rural areas such as Alltwen and surrounding villages, Bryn, Tonna and Cimla, have provoked mass opposition.
The council, however, says while it is keen to hear the views of residents, many of the fears voiced are premature. “The problem has been that landowners and agents have identified interesting bits of land and swamped us with requests.” council head of planning Geoff White told the Post. “The interpretation of the people has been that they are effectively applications for planning permission and, if it goes through they will be surrounded by a concrete jungle. “That is not the case. It’s understandable that people have cause for concern if they see the large number of greenfield sites that are now on the maps. It's for us to reassure them that we will go through the appropriate process to evaluate the needs of the authority and how many of the sites will fit in with satisfying those needs. The fact that we have received these sites does not mean they will go into the final LDP. We are required to advertise the candidate sites on-site and we have been doing that as we receive them. The vast majority of them have come in at the last minute, which is pretty typical of the way landowners and agents operate.”
Preparing the LDP is such a complicated process that it will not become clear which of those 424 sites will more the draft plan for another two years. Before then, the council has to complete its Community Plan, a 10 year overall development strategy setting out the county’s needs, such as new housing, industry and other developments.
That will go out for consultation in the spring of next year, although, at that stage, individual sites earmarked for development will not be included. That will be in the next stage of consultation, on the Local Development Plan itself which will be in autumn 2011. "It is only then we will identify in detail the sites we think should be in the Local Development Plan," said Mr White. “So all this excitement about 'this field next to my house is going to be built on' is completely wrong.”
“What we have at the moment is people coming along and asking us to consider particular sites. The public can consult with us online about what they think of these sites throughout the entire process.”
People are not only up in arms about the prospect of fields being built on, but say they have been given too little time to respond, with public notices going up on the sites in question at the very last minute. Although the deadline for written objections is Monday. August 31, the council say any received after that date will still he taken into account. It is also encouraging people to submit their views via a dedicated LDP section of the authority’s website, which the public can access throughout the entire process.
“We will not be making a decision on which sites should or should not go in for some time yet, but the dialogue with the public will continue” said Mr White. “We want to know and understand the public’s views on what is coming forward, and we will take that into amount when preparing the plan. The whole ethos is to prepare the plan in consultation with the public. If the public says we're bonkers to put something in the plan, then we have to sit up and take notice. We are encouraging people to talk to us, to tell us what they think.”
After the six-week consultation in late 2011, the finalised plan will go to the Assembly Government for an independent inspector to consider, “There have to be developments, but it's about finding the right balance” said Mr White.