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> Chieveley - the new Sandleford?, Is there more to this than protecting a fictional rabbit warren?
On the edge
post May 20 2012, 10:37 AM
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Trawling through this week's NWN, it seems that the Sandleford protesters have the Planning people on the run. Like it or not, there are externally imposed demands for new housing in the area, so even if Sandleford doesn't go ahead - the new homes will have to go somewhere.

Chieveley was mentioned, that is around North Newbury / Hermitage. Seems that the protesters are implying this site would be far better and the local landowner (Fairhurst Estates) didn't have time to submit a proper application!

So if its not going to be in my back yard, the answer is simply to throw it over the wall in to the neighbours. Thanks a bunch!! Doesn't actually affect me personally - but this type of politicking is quite selfish and squalid.

Don't try and pretend there are all sorts of environmental issues, historic or national treasure reasons - when your only alternative suffers from exactly the same problems.

So this really is a fight, at great public expense, simply to protect the interests of a few individuals who are powerful and influential. Shame the vast amount of thought and energy expended couldn't be directed at helping us properly decide how best to meet the Government demand.

Douglas Adams? Come on North Newbury has D H Lawrence and the Fox. So perhaps all is not lost; start worrying about those rabbits!



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dannyboy
post May 20 2012, 11:26 AM
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So this really is a fight, at great public expense, simply to protect the interests of a few individuals who are powerful and influential. Shame the vast amount of thought and energy expended couldn't be directed at helping us properly decide how best to meet the Government demand.


You got it in one. And there are some rather large sums of cash involved too. Funny, but I seem to remember reading about the Chievely area being inside an AONB and as such any development was heresy.

Sad that the proles can be coerced into doing all the donkeywork.....
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NWNREADER
post May 20 2012, 02:35 PM
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These major development rows are rarely about which is the 'best' site, more likely which developer makes the better case for their site and profit over another.
That is what happened when Sandleford was first dropped - out of the blue the Racecourse option (previously not on the table) was suddenly discovered by the Inspector (who retired next day). Given the compression the Racecourse development will create on already hard-pressed infrastructure it is hard to see how it passed any sustainability test....
Developers quietly buy up plots from individual owners, under a variety of names, so it is hard to see the way a substantial land bank is being created. Then they present a plan to the Council the Planners will struggle to defend against.
106 fees? Added to the sale price of the houses.......

kerrching!!!!!
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Cognosco
post May 20 2012, 03:23 PM
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QUOTE (NWNREADER @ May 20 2012, 03:35 PM) *
These major development rows are rarely about which is the 'best' site, more likely which developer makes the better case for their site and profit over another.
That is what happened when Sandleford was first dropped - out of the blue the Racecourse option (previously not on the table) was suddenly discovered by the Inspector (who retired next day). Given the compression the Racecourse development will create on already hard-pressed infrastructure it is hard to see how it passed any sustainability test....
Developers quietly buy up plots from individual owners, under a variety of names, so it is hard to see the way a substantial land bank is being created. Then they present a plan to the Council the Planners will struggle to defend against.
106 fees? Added to the sale price of the houses.......

kerrching!!!!!


Developer goes off home to his/her nice house in the country and leaves the people of Newbury to try and fight their way through even more traffic congestion parking problems requiring , surgeries, dentists, sewage, more water supplies etc. Not a thought given to infrastuctre by developer or planning department. The only thought is given to the bottom line as usual and who will it have to be shared out with being the main concerns. rolleyes.gif


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Biker1
post May 20 2012, 04:26 PM
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As long as we keep growing our population then we need more space.
We all have to go somewhere and use up more resources whether it be land, water, energy etc.
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dannyboy
post May 20 2012, 05:19 PM
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QUOTE (Cognosco @ May 20 2012, 04:23 PM) *
Developer goes off home to his/her nice house in the country and leaves the people of Newbury to try and fight their way through even more traffic congestion parking problems requiring , surgeries, dentists, sewage, more water supplies etc. Not a thought given to infrastuctre by developer or planning department. The only thought is given to the bottom line as usual and who will it have to be shared out with being the main concerns. rolleyes.gif



You need more people before you need more infrastructure.
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Grumpy
post May 20 2012, 08:41 PM
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QUOTE (dannyboy @ May 20 2012, 06:19 PM) *
You need more people before you need more infrastructure.

That's a stupid statement. You need the infrastructure designed and implemented before you build more houses and then find that the infrastructure is inadequate.
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Simon Kirby
post May 20 2012, 09:01 PM
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QUOTE (Grumpy @ May 20 2012, 09:41 PM) *
That's a stupid statement. You need the infrastructure designed and implemented before you build more houses and then find that the infrastructure is inadequate.

You think it's stupid? Did you miss what happened in Ireland and Spain? Unbridled speculative house building hasn't just bankrupted the idiot developers, it's bankrupted the countries, and their idiocy looks likely to bring the whole of Europe down. I suspect this is what dannyboy is driving at. It's my guess that we do need more houses because we do have a housing shortage, but I have no actual evidence that's true, and if, as has been said, our population growth is actually down to Eastern European ecconomic migration then it's a fair bet that once our economy slumps the population will slump too, so it wouldn't do any harm to make sure on the figures. Maybe someone set the housebuilding targets just to keep their property development chums happy.


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John C
post May 20 2012, 09:27 PM
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QUOTE (dannyboy @ May 20 2012, 12:26 PM) *



You got it in one. And there are some rather large sums of cash involved too. Funny, but I seem to remember reading about the Chievely area being inside an AONB and as such any development was heresy.


The trouble with that is that 3/4 of West Berkshire is AONB, which more than likely mean that any greenfield site would possibly be AONB.
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Andy Capp
post May 20 2012, 09:38 PM
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I'm not worried about where the developments go, I just have no confidence that the council can deliver a good deal. Recent performance leads me to think they are incompetent.
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spartacus
post May 20 2012, 09:44 PM
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QUOTE (John C @ May 20 2012, 10:27 PM) *
The trouble with that is that 3/4 of West Berkshire is AONB, which more than likely mean that any greenfield site would possibly be AONB.

I have trouble with this.... This 'AONB' title really is overused and seems to have been thrown about with gay abandon on any patch of countryside that might be just 'nice' (when viewed from a certain angle).... It devalues areas which REALLY have significance or take your breath away as far as 'Natural Beauty' is concerned....

I mean 'OUTSTANDING'??!! Really!!? 3/4 of West Berkshire?? So on a par with Snowdonia, parts of the Peak District, North Yorkshire etc etc........?

If they dropped the 'O' it might be more easily accepted but to me while it may be nice countryside there's nothing particularly jaw-droppingly outstanding about it.....




Bring in the bulldozers...........
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Jayjay
post May 21 2012, 07:53 AM
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QUOTE (Simon Kirby @ May 20 2012, 10:01 PM) *
You think it's stupid? Did you miss what happened in Ireland and Spain? Unbridled speculative house building hasn't just bankrupted the idiot developers, it's bankrupted the countries, and their idiocy looks likely to bring the whole of Europe down. I suspect this is what dannyboy is driving at. It's my guess that we do need more houses because we do have a housing shortage, but I have no actual evidence that's true, and if, as has been said, our population growth is actually down to Eastern European ecconomic migration then it's a fair bet that once our economy slumps the population will slump too, so it wouldn't do any harm to make sure on the figures. Maybe someone set the housebuilding targets just to keep their property development chums happy.


I think the opposite may be true. Will people go home to no jobs and no money when they can claim benefits here and also claim child benefit for children still living in their own country?
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blackdog
post May 21 2012, 10:39 AM
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Chieveley has nothing to do with it. Fairhurst Estates own most of Shaw - all the land from Vodafone up to the Snelsmore - Hermitage Road is at risk. They have been trying to get permission to build on it for years - but were slow on the uptake.

The anti-Sandleford group talk about saving green space - in reality they mean saving the green space by them. The alternatives have always been Shaw or Thatcham. Of the three the Sandleford scheme is the most advanced, and looks pretty good (though what you see in the early stages is rarely what you eventuall get) and is easily the best in terms of local infrastructure. If they included an exit south of Newbury to take traffic quickly out to the A34 avoiding Newbury or Wash Common it would be spot on.

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dannyboy
post May 21 2012, 11:09 AM
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QUOTE (Grumpy @ May 20 2012, 09:41 PM) *
That's a stupid statement. You need the infrastructure designed and implemented before you build more houses and then find that the infrastructure is inadequate.

Is it? Who is paying for all this extra capacity that is, until the population increases underused & possibly lying idle?
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Simon Kirby
post May 21 2012, 11:59 AM
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QUOTE (blackdog @ May 21 2012, 11:39 AM) *
The anti-Sandleford group talk about saving green space - in reality they mean saving the green space by them. The alternatives have always been Shaw or Thatcham. Of the three the Sandleford scheme is the most advanced, and looks pretty good (though what you see in the early stages is rarely what you eventuall get) and is easily the best in terms of local infrastructure. If they included an exit south of Newbury to take traffic quickly out to the A34 avoiding Newbury or Wash Common it would be spot on.

Completely agree. This really is the issue: can we trust our local con-dems to secure us a quality, well-planned development and ensure that the developers deliver all of what's promised? I very much doubt it. I don't even have any confidence we'll get the country park, the developers have certainly been very quiet about it, and I'd have thought they'd be telling us all about how wonderful it could be to galvanise support if they had any nouse.


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Cognosco
post May 21 2012, 07:55 PM
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QUOTE (dannyboy @ May 20 2012, 06:19 PM) *
You need more people before you need more infrastructure.


Well if planning regulations actually worked as it should, instead of favouring the developers or the money making, infrastructre would be planned as part of the development. Not a lot of good building 2000 houses if the water works, sewage system, roads, hosptitals, doctors, dentists, etc. can only just cope with what is already built. But there again the local authorities are just not able to think along those sort of lines are they? rolleyes.gif


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spartacus
post May 22 2012, 12:37 AM
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QUOTE (Cognosco @ May 21 2012, 08:55 PM) *
Well if planning regulations actually worked as it should, instead of favouring the developers or the money making, infrastructure would be planned as part of the development. Not a lot of good building 2000 houses if the water works, sewage system, roads, hosptitals, doctors, dentists, etc. can only just cope with what is already built. But there again the local authorities are just not able to think along those sort of lines are they? rolleyes.gif

'Chicken or Egg' springs to mind sometimes when you look at the way towns and villages develop - bearing in mind the above. In these days of austerity, the absolute truth of the matter is that there's no public money available to 'build the schools first and then think about how we're going to fill the classrooms second' like there may have been in the past.

In the not too distant past (in my lifetime) they could chuck up a large school and still have change out of £50k. The same with the other necessary 'infrastructure items' like a medical centre.... In relative terms these sorts of facilities could be built for peanuts..... These days even a brand new medium sized shared facility like a small school could easily cost £1m+. There's no way to pay for this without allowing developers to build large numbers of houses so that they can recoup their costs. Either that or the Local Authority pay for the entire structure and no council tax payer is going to like to do that.

I'm sure when the first brick was laid for Kennet School around 1956(ish) the residents of Stoney Lane in Thatcham could never have envisaged the sort of housing sprawl that was later to be built around it. The same for Francis Baily school.
1961

1968

1972

1991


But with the best will in the world you just can't do that these days... Perhaps in a chocolate box world out there in another dimension there may still be Quakers and the John Cadbury's of the world prepared to design and fund settlements from scratch with schools and nurseries, shops and businesses, open spaces and libraries all incorporated into one housing development but back here in the real world developers will not supply these unless their shareholders can see they're getting a good return for their investments.......
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spartacus
post May 22 2012, 12:37 AM
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On the edge
post May 22 2012, 04:23 PM
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Have been cursed with a long memory - would argue that we did know exactly what would happen to Newbury / Thatcham from 1947 onwards. Trawl through the Town and Country planning records at the British Museum reading room. The developments we've seen might not have been planned in detail, but were certainly scheduled. Trouble always has been that Newbury suffers from a distinct lack of leadership, something recognised by the last CEO when he left office. That means our 'brightest and best' are still stuck in the 1950's when we were a 'small market town, with warm beer and old ladies cycling to church.' Think ahead; that's a West, or should I say South Berkshire oxymoron isn't it?


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blackdog
post May 24 2012, 10:25 AM
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QUOTE (Simon Kirby @ May 21 2012, 12:59 PM) *
Completely agree. This really is the issue: can we trust our local con-dems to secure us a quality, well-planned development and ensure that the developers deliver all of what's promised? I very much doubt it. I don't even have any confidence we'll get the country park, the developers have certainly been very quiet about it, and I'd have thought they'd be telling us all about how wonderful it could be to galvanise support if they had any nouse.

Sounds like the Sandleford developers were pretty vocal about the country park at the hearing yesterday.
http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/2012/a339-co...gle-carriageway
'250 acre country park', 'management to be negotiated'.

I'd rather hear 'ownership to be passed to charitable trust'.
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