Subject: Cllr Derek Burt Letter
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 17:27:13 +0000
From: SWelsby@eastdorsetdc.gov.uk
<mailto:SWelsby@eastdorsetdc.gov.uk>
To: [Dick Heaslip]
Dear Mr Heaslip
As requested,
please find below a copy of the letter which was sent by Cllr Burt to
Hazel Blears, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local
Government.
Regards
Steven
Welsby
Communications Officer
East Dorset District Council
(01202) 639034
07931 429935
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Dear Madam,
I
am writing to you in capacity as Leader of East Dorset District Council to
express the Councils serious concerns over the Report of the Panel on the
draft Regional Spatial Strategy for the South West.
The Panel appears to have followed a course of
predict and provide, an approach which, for many years, has been
rejected by the Government as an entirely unsound basis for planning. The
Panel has proposed housing targets for areas of East Dorset on the basis
of the 2003 household forecasts.
This is a
simplistic response and fails to take into account the need for a
considered policy approach to direct future development, rather than to
respond to the mechanical process of projections. In this area, the
predict and provide approach fails to take into account the severe
environmental constraints, particularly those of biodiversity, which
requires a very different, considered and careful policy approach.
The second point is that the Panel appears to have
made radical proposals on the basis of inadequate evidence. For example,
the Panel has recommended an additional 1,000 dwellings be provided in
East Dorset on small sites, yet to be found. (We believe the Panel intends
these to be on what is currently Green Belt land, although on this, as on
a substantial number of issues, the Panels report is confused and
inconsistent.) It appears from the report that the Panel based its
conclusion on two points, firstly on the view of one participant at the
Public Examination who said that there was (unspecified) potential and,
secondly, on their brief tour of the area. I understand the Panel spent
just one day covering south east Dorset.
The
Council finds this level of evidence inadequate for what is a fundamental
proposal affecting the interests and environment of our Green Belt
settlements, and consider that these conclusions are very challengeable.
The impact of such a proposal, were it carried forward into your
modifications to the Draft RSS, would be highly damaging to the Green
Belt. In practical terms would create uncertainty over Green Belt
boundaries throughout the Council area, increase enormously the amount of
work necessary for the Local Development Framework and delay the
implementation of the other proposals in the RSS.
The Council has opposed, and continues to oppose,
three major urban extensions for housing in this District, at Corfe
Mullen, Wimborne and Ferndown (although the Council supports a fourth
proposed urban extension for employment west of Ferndown). It is
universally acknowledged that these residential extensions to the urban
area have severe environmental disbenefits, although the Panel report once
again appears to be defective in its failure to acknowledge the force of
these or to provide a balanced, argued consideration.
The Council, therefore, urges you to reject the
Panels recommendations on these issues, to consider the proper policy
approach towards development in one of the most environmentally sensitive
areas of the country and to provide, as your predecessors have done, a
clear policy framework for the control and management of development,
without the environmental damage which the Panels recommendations would
create.
Yours sincerely,
Cllr. Derek Burt
Leader of East Dorset
District Council