Does anyone know who owns the land at Sandleford where the council want to build 2,000 houses?

Why not ask Stuart Goodwill at WYG, since they have been commissioned by the landowners? His email address is in this document.

For anyone else who is curious, check the bottom of this article:

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/Article...?articleID=6824

Don't get your point

Does it matter?

All the landowners around Newbury are very keen to see their fields covered by housing estates.

The Sandleford site is probably ahead of the others for two reasons:

they have been pushing plans for the development for a long, long time - so it looks ready to go,

and it's a far more sensible place to build than the others in terms of access to amenities and local infrastructure. For instance, in comparison, the Racecourse is an insane place to build 1,500 homes.

Strange, really, that the previous plan to build at Sandleford was ditched because the racecourse was 'better' (even though the proposal was previously unknown, I believe). Now we are going to build at Sandleford anyway, a site that could've taken all the racecourse housing with far less grief to the infrastructure. But I suppose the racecourse needed its' hotels etc, and the houses pay for them?

Racecourse has been given outline permission already, and Sandleford will follow if the Tories get their way. I only ask as I want to know who is pushing this development forward and why the Tories are so keen to support it, despite it coming bottom of the sustainability test...

Richard, your short term knowledge of the region lets you down..... Sandleford was first proposed long before the Racecourse was mooted, by the then LD administration - not that I think the party name makes a jot of difference. Your party-orientated judgement doesn't work for me when the party identity is not the deciding factor. I don't remember the players in that application, but the Inspector at the Inquiry plucked the racecourse out of the hat and turned down Sandleford, then retired.
The core people pushing the development forward, as anywhere, will be the owners of the land who see their asset going up in value. I'd be amazed if slices of the land were not bought before the last attempt and placed in the land bank ready for whenever a further attempt was possible. Forget party, WBC has always supported the Sandleford development. Whatever sustainability test was made up, the development makes more sense than the racecourse as it does not choke existing infrastructure.

I like the Sandleford plans.

I'm one of only a handful of Wash Commoners who actually walk and run accross Sandleford. As a green-field it really doesn't have much to recommend it. You can only walk accross on the foot path, there is no public access to the woodland and that green in the field, well that's what farmers call crops and you'll get a good shouting-at from the farmer if you let your dog run about there - and quite rightly. The development will preserve all of the woodland and create a public park, so as a place to walk it will be far superior, and if the S.106 money is spent well it'll be a country park to be proud of.

In terms of biodiversity, monocultures of field-beans, rape, and barly support pretty-much zero wildlife, and modern farming has no use for hedges so there's very little left of what once would have been a decent wildlife corridor through Sandleford. There's also very little in the way of mamals that might compete with the phaesant shoot. In contrast, housing estates are really rather rich habbitats, and if the estate is integrated well with the parkland and the areas of copse are connected with hedges and integrated with the Enborne riparian habitat then the biodiversity will be fantastic.

As for sustainability, that really all depends on how well the development is designed, and that's why it's so grievous to see our elected so-called representatives courting the nimmby vote when they should be lobying for a well-planned quality development with well-designed access roads, community centres, and green spaces. I'm so not-convinced by the talk of grid-lock - if the Wash Common blue-rinsers don't want affordable housing built near them, I just wish they'd have the honesty to come out and say it. People have to live somewhere.

Between them the racecourse and Sandleford will supply about a third of the houses that WBC were tasked with building. They were delighted to find so much of their target in two developments. However, that still left 7,000 more to build elsewhere ...

The government have scrapped the target, but that doesn't mean they want fewer houses built - if anything they want more. Their approach is idealogically different to Labour's. Labour set targets in a top down fashion, forcing councils to sanction developments. Conservatives don't believe in this sort of social control, instead they want to release the market from constraints in the belief that the market will cater for our housing needs. So they are proposing changes to the planning laws - removing many powers from local government so they have to get out of the way of the developers.

So if it is 2000 houses where are the 6-8000 people going to find a doctors surgery and say 2-4000 children going to find a school, as I understood that neither facility was being provided on the site.

These are issues that apply wherever the houses are built, but Sandleford is better equipped than alternative sites to meet the needs of the new residents.

The Falklands Surgery is on a site that would allow it to expand to cater for the new customers.

Primary school provision is not something I know much about - I see that the development is in Falkland Primary's catchment area - an area that has recently been expanded to take parts of John Rankin and St John's catchment areas - suggesting that Falkland could give the new areas back and take on the new development.

Once you get to secondary schools everyone will want their kids to go to St Barts, wherever the houses are built. St Barts and Park House are both within walking distance of the development.

I expect that the schools may also need to expand to cater for a large number of additional pupils but that is what S106 money is for. Sadly this does rely on WBC reaching a good deal with the developers - and sticking to it - not a thought that builds confidence.

Agreed. And don't forget the retail park, college, and south facing slopes. Sounds like WBC have found the best spot in Sandleford.

Falkland Surgery were concerned about a potential small increase in numbers created by the accomodation being constructed beside them at present.

That was, to put it crudely, probably on a cost basis; as they are like to be high usage patients in that development.

NWNREADER, I understand it was a Lib Dem proposal to begin with, I mentioned the Tories as it is them who are pushing the LDF through. I just want to know why the council chose the least sustainable site and what connection (s) there are with the landowners (if any).

EDIT: When I say least sustainable, the site came bottom of the council's own sustainability appraisal. We all have our own thoughts about it's suitability, but the bottom line is it placed bottom of all the sites suggested in the original appraisal.

Surgeries are paid, generally speaking, based on the number of patients signed on their books. A few extra patients mean that the existing doctors etc have to cope with an increased workload for little additional cash. Especialy relevant if the new patients are likely to be high expense patients in a care facility (hopefully they get additional cash in such cases, but I wouldn't bet on it).

However, if they are looking at 3 or 4,000 extra patients there would be enough new cash coming in to hire another doctor or two and to build an extension on the surgery to cater for the increased workload.

The majority party always pushes its plans through. Who else to do it?

Maybe the site was chosen because it is the best available, despite whatever 'sustainability' means.

I certainly thought Sandleford was a good move previously

The 'sustainability' study is a total load of rubbish. Sandleford scored poorly because it was furthest from the centre of Newbury ( the fact that the site is next door to the retail park does not count apparently ) and because the landscape around the development was considered to be 'valued'

I understand the the average ratio in England at the moment is about 1 GP to 1,800 people (Although there is considerable variation).