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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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23rd September '07
Yet again Torridge councillors revisited the vexed question of affordable housing in this area with the first ‘Update’ on recent moves coming our way. The news didn’t look very good when the first paragraph contained the sentence, ‘Although only 17 affordable dwellings were completed in the last financial year there are now over 300 dwellings in the pipeline to be delivered over the next 3 years.’ As councillors are very aware ‘pipelines’ have an unfortunate tendency to develop blockages – or even get diverted. The key point in this ‘Update’ was that our last ‘Survey of Need’ in 2004 was detailed enough to establish specific figures for the area. We were, however, told that there was now a lot more interest from landowners and Registered Social Landlords (Housing Associations to you and me) in providing affordable homes – and Torridge was becoming far more proactive in following this interest up. Councillor Ken James who comes from one of the most rural areas of Torridge pointed out that in Pyworthy there were 8 local people who wanted to stay in the village if they could access affordable housing yet there were 45 people on Torridge’s list of those interested in moving to Pyworthy – and the villagers were worried at getting lots of people from Bideford moving in at the expense of locals. What an odd take on the usual worries expressed by Bidefordians at having hordes of ‘Northerners’ moving into the town!
To the Plans Committee of TDC last week to discuss the scheme by Westward Ho! Tennis Club to redevelop their site in Avon Lane for housing – and what a fascinating debate it was. As is well-known the Club want to relocate and selling the site for 24 houses is an easy way of raising the necessary capital but local residents do not seem too keen on the plan. The meeting kicked off with local councillor Roger Tisdale listing various points against the scheme including his claim that there were already large numbers of empty flats and houses already existing in Westward Ho! yet the community has a desperate need for recreational facilities. Additionally he aired concerns over local traffic flows, the adequacy of local sewerage facilities and the unanimous opposition of Northam town council. His main ire, however, was directed at the lack of any replacement site for new tennis courts which made the whole planning application rather premature.
I then pointed out that by only putting in for 24 houses the developers (Newland Homes) were, amazingly, just one below the number at which they have to supply affordable homes – a great pity! One other point I raised was the offer by the developers, under a Section 106 agreement, to pay £15,572 to help improve the TDC-owned tennis courts opposite the cricket pitch. Now if the houses sell at, for example, £250,000 each 24 houses equals £6 million – so £15,000 odd didn’t seem much especially as a development of this size would normally require a play area on the site but this has been waived following this offer – presumably freeing up more land to build on. Other councillors raised similar issues with councillor Sam Robinson asking what alternative sites had been looked at and then pointing out that the application went against at least three of the council’s own policies.
Answers to most of these queries were offered by the Planning Officers present and they stressed the need of the Tennis Club to obtain planning permission which in turn would allow them to get an accurate value for the site – although as councillor Sam Robinson pointed out any builder or surveyor worth his salt could give them an excellent estimate now. The final result of all this was councillor Tisdale moving and my seconding a motion to defer the application until a suitable and available alternative site in the parish of Northam for the tennis club is identified. The vote was 7 in favour, 1 against and 1 abstention.
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