UNAMIMOUS REFUSAL OF WINSLOW GREEN APPLICATION

At it’s meeting yesterday the Strategic Development Committee of AVDC voted unanimously to refuse the application for the Winslow Green Development. A string of speakers representing local councils, special interest groups and local residents condemmed the application on a wide range of grounds with only the developers Agent speaking in favour. This was followed by all but one of the Committee speaking on the subject and all of them were opposed.

Commenting after the meeting Cllr Llew Monger, who had addressed the committtee on behalf of Winslow Town Council, said ”This was the perfect result today and shows the power of public involvement. Over 1000 people have written to object and over 700 attended public meetings during the build-up to to today. However, whilst we have won this battle the war is probably going to continue. The developers have six months in which to register an appeal and in the past they have indicated that that is just what they will do. We will now have to turn our attention to other possible applications for large local developments while we wait to hear what the Winslow Green people intend to do.”

Shipton Hamlet Conservation Area Review

The public consultaion period for the review of the Shipton Conservation Area closed on Friday 6th and Winslow Town Council joined almost all of the hamlet’s residents in calling for the designation to remain as it is. Originally the Tory Cabinet Member for Planned Development had called for Conservation Area Status to be removed due to changes since the last review in 1990. Liberal Democrat leader on AVDC, Cllr Alan Sherwell, ‘called- in’ the decision and the Environment Scrutiny Committee asked for a range of other options to be considered. A new review offered either ‘de-designation’ or a new reduced conservation area.

Llew suppported local residents at a meeting with AVDC and pointed out that any changes to the Conservation Area have been made with full planning permission given by AVDC so they can hardly say that those changes are responsible for the need to remove the Conservation Area status. Indeed at a time when the area immediately adjacent to Shipton is under threat of major development the District Council should be doing all they can to protect the area rather than making life easier for developers.

Local historian Julian Hunt has slammed the latest report as being ”ill conceived, hurried and thoroughly misinformed” and said that ”Such a flawed document should not form the basis of judgement of the AVDC Councillors who should reject it out of hand” We now await the decsion of the Cabinet Member and hope that common sense will prevail and the whole idea of ‘de-designation” be dropped.

Lib Dems slam Tory snub to democracy

Liberal Democrat County Councillors led by Cllr Mary Baldwin, the Liberal Democrat leader at Bucks CC, walked out of the Budget debate at the County Council last Thursday following a heated exchange on the right of the Liberal Democrats to speak in the annual Council Tax setting debate. Cllr Baldwin said “we have objected to the way the Council meetings were run for a long time even making a formal complaint after the November meeting to the Monitoring Officer. That time it was after a series of Council meetings where the Liberal Democrat’s were not being given a chance to speak. I was reassured then that it would not happen again by the head of legal services. However yet again the Chairman was biased against the Liberal Democrats and stopped us from taking part fully at one of the most important meetings of the council – the annual budget meeting.”

Cllr Baldwin continued “The Tories have one rule for themselves and one for the opposition. The Tories have been in power for 120 years, and just ride roughshod over our democratic right to hold them to account for how they are spending tax-payer’s money. The Tory action meant we could not represent out constituents properly. We had no alternative but to leave in an attempt to make them realise that democracy is vital and that we represent the voice of about 65000 residents of Buckinghamshire. It is our job to make sure that their voices are heard and we were prevented from doing this. The Liberal Democrats view is that we were telling them home truths and hitting them where it hurts and exposing the devastating affect on frontline services this budget would have and they didn’t like listening to the truth.”

The Tories have since claimed that the Liberal Democrats were electioneering. “This is not the case and is an insult to democracy” said Liberal Democrat Councillor Julia Wassell who represents part of High Wycombe, “as an opposition it is our job to challenge the leadership and make sure decisions are based on fact. The budget meeting is one of the most important of the year and for the Chairman to clearly favour the Tories and not let the Liberal Democrats speak is outrageous.” Cllr Raj Khan said “We had held several meetings on the 3.9% budget figure and knew the outcomes of this would be service cuts which we are against. For the leader to change that budget to 3.7% without notice in his speach, while excellent news, makes us very worried about what services that are going to be slashed to reach this figure.” -ends-

Market Square protest against Winslow Green

A large group of local residents and Councillors, including Winslow Town Mayor Denis Corben and Deputy Mayor George Langley gathered in the Market Square on Saturday morning to protest against the proposed Winslow Green development. The Chairmen of both Little Horwood and Great Horwood Councils were also present. Placards were waved and leaflets distributed to local residents in what was a good natured protest. As one resident pointed out it was all very well mannered and the protesters all made sure they had appropriate car park tickets before getting involved!

Cllr Llew Monger, who had organised the demonstation, said ”The principle aim was to bring to peoples attention the fact that they only have until Friday 27th to get letters of protest in to Aylesbury Vale’s Planning Department if they are to be included in the officers report to members of Committee” The application to develop 3,300 homes, offices and retail centres will be heard by the Strategic Development Committee on 1st April. Cllr Monger went on to say ”already there have been hundreds of letters of protest but there are hundreds more people who oppose the development but have not yet written to AVDC to say so. We really need everyone who cares about the future of Winslow and the Horwoods to send their written comments to AVDC by 27th”

Winslow Green – Write a letter today!

Over 700 people have attended public meetings in the Horwoods and Winslow to hear about the proposed Winslow Green development and out of all four meetings only two people have expressed support for the proposals. However, saying NO at a meeting is just not enough. We need everyone who went to the meetings, and many more, to write a letter to AVDC.

Don’t leave it to others

WRITE A LETTER TODAY

Written objections should be sent to;

Mr Anthony Barker, Development Control Division, AVDC, 66 High St, Aylesbury, Bucks HP20 1SD,

quoting reference 08/02944/AOP.

Your objection should be based on planning reasons and could include some of the arguments below:

· 95 % of the development would be on ‘greenfield’ land.

· It would destroy the rural nature of Winslow and the Horwoods

· The scale of the development is entirely out of proportion to Winslow. It would be a ‘New Town’ and would totally overwhelm our community.

· It would take 15 years to build and cause huge disruption. The proposed relief road may not be completed until 2019 to aggravate the disruption still further.

· The 3300 houses and proposed office blocks would generate over 22,000 vehicle movements each day which would cause further pressure on the already congested A413 and A421.There is no evidence that the relief road would help Winslow in any way.

SAVE THE WINSLOW WE KNOW AND LOVE

All local councils oppose Winslow Green

Over 600 people have attended public meetings at Winslow, Great Horwood and Little Horwood over the last two weeks and at each meeting residents sounded an emphatic NO! to the proposed Winslow Green development. These meetings have been followed by all three local Councils voting to oppose the development. The next stage of the process will be for the planning application to be heard by the AVDC Strategic Development Committee on 1st April where the local councils will have an opportunity to to present their case for opposing the scheme.

GROUP AGAINST GREENWAY MEETING

A further meeting will be held at 8.15pm in the Winslow Public Hall on Tuesday 10th February to organise on-going opposition to the proposed development. The meeting is being organised by the Group Against Greenway and supported by the Winslow Protection Society. This is a great opportuntity for those who have missed the earlier meetings to catch up on what is being said about the application and to hear what practical steps they can take to oppose it.

Committee says ‘NO’ to Winslow Green

The Development Committee of Winslow Town Council have voted to recommend to the full town council that they formally oppose the application to build 3,300 houses on the site of the former Little Horwood Airfield. The full council will discuss this recommendation at a specially convened meeting in the St Laurence Room on Wednesday 4th February at 7.30pm when this will be the only item on the agenda. This decision follows a packed public meeting at the Winslow Combined School attended by some 400 residents. It was standing room only when Cllr Llew Monger, Chairman of the Development Committee, addressed the meeting and explained the background to the proposal and indicated the general feelings of the Committee. Members of the committee joined Llew on stage to answer questions from residents after the presentation. ” I was impressed with the quality and range of the comments ” said Llew after the meeting. Residents could have been excused for takling a ‘nimby’ attitude but, in a vote at the end of the meeting, those present made it clear that while they were opposed to the Winslow Green development the vast majority accepted that Winslow should take some further growth in the future.

This development proposal will be discussed by the AVDC Strategic Development Committee at a meeting on either 11th March or 1st April with the latter date looking more likely. Watch this site for an update on this.

WINSLOW GREEN – Planning application for 3,300 homes New Town

After several years of talking about it there has now been a formal application submitted to Aylesbury Vale District Council for the building of 3,300 houses plus retail and commercial development on land centered on Little Horwood Airfield but extending right down to Winslow itself. Indeed the application is billed as ‘a sustainable extension the Winslow’. This application will be considered by the Strategic Development Committee of AVDC rather than the normal Develooment Control Committee and they have sixteen weekd from 29th December to make a decision.

Winslow Town Council have just received copies of the plans and related documents and have asked for a second set to enable local residents to see them more easily. Details of the viewing arrangements will be distributed by Winslow Town Council to every houshold and all business premises in Winslow and Shipton towards the end of week commencing 12th January. A public meeting will be held at Winslow Combined School , 7.30pm, Tuesday 27th January to enable local residents to ask questions and make comments. Members of the Development Committee of WTC will spend considerable time over the next three weeks studying more than thirty plans and documents which make up the application. They will meet on the 28th January to make a recommendation to Full Council which is expected to consider this at its meeting on 5th February. Winslow Town Council can only comment on this application and the decison will be made by Aylesbury Vale District Council.

WHY MORE HOUSES?

The South East Plan calls for Aylesbury Vale to provide 26,800 new homes in the period up to 2026. These are to be made up of 16,800 in Aylesbury, 5390 to the South West of Milton Keynes and 4700 in the rest of the District. Those for South West of Milton Keynes are to be built close to Newton Longville which will bring Milton Keynes ever closer to us in Winslow.

Aylesbury Vale are currently preparing their Local Development Framework (LDF) which will decide where the houses are to be built and there have been public consultations in Aylesbury about the prefered locations for the houses to be built there. At this stage AVDC have no plans for public consultaion about the locations for the 4700 to be built in the ‘Rest of District’ which would included Winslow. Llew has raised this with Liberal Democrats on AVDC and they have tabled a motion criticising this decision.

The Core Strategy Document, which is the first part of the LDF, made it clear that AVDC did not see the need for a ‘new settlement’ in order to meet requirements for house numbers. Winslow Town Council endorsed this view in its response to the Core Strategy. On this basis it seems that the proposals for Winslow Green would fall outside the emerging LDF and would have to be refused. However, developers have the right to put applications forward which, in effect, challenge the LDF and if they are refused they would almost certainly appeal and the application would end up in a Public Enquiry. A spokesman for Winslow Green has already indicated that if the application is refused they will go to appeal.

What do you think about plans to increase the size of Winslow almost threefold? Let Llew know your views to help him comment on the application.