IMPORTANT: These should be used as a guide only, and are to assist in writing your objections. Please amend or rewrite as appropriate to reflect your own views. This is important because identical responses may be identified and recorded as a single response, so please do change them . The consultation process ends on 26th February 2020.
Dear Sirs,
BDC Draft Local Plan 2020
On reading the draft Bassetlaw Local Plan 2020 I see that it is proposed that each Small Rural Settlement (SRS), into which category Lound falls, has its Housing Requirement doubled from the previous 10% to 20% of its size in 2018. I feel that this is too many and that Bassetlaw District Council’s own figures demonstrate that this number is not required.
The evidence collected by our Parish Council’s Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group over the last 4 years shows that there is a general acceptance of 21 new houses (10%) but that a doubling of this is unsupportable. The number of houses required by your Draft Plan is 1090 in the SRS category, yet the 20% requirement shown in Policy ST2 will provide 2124 houses, a 100% over-provision. If, as your presentation at the Bassetlaw Rural Conference states, many villages are already using the 20% requirement then there is no need for other SRSs to struggle to supply an unpopular increase in their requirement.
In Lound the infrastructure, drainage, power supply, etc, will not support such a large increase. Our village has infrequent public transport that is essentially unusable, and thus new houses will depend on private transport. This is against several of the stated aims of the Draft Local Plan, i.e. to increase sustainability and to mitigate climate change.
The Local Plan emphasises the provision of smaller/starter homes, which SRSs like Lound are unlikely to provide.
Your Draft Plan Policy ST2 states that for Large Rural Settlements that ‘Unless otherwise promoted through Neighbourhood Plans…” they will provide 20% growth. SRSs do not have this reference to Neighbourhood Plans, and this apparently diminishes the importance of Lound’s Neighbourhood Plan.
I suggest that the requirement for a 20% increase within SRSs be reduced to 10% with a provision for more development if their Neighbourhood Plan supports this according to local needs. This will still provide your requirement and will produce a fair result.
Yours faithfully,