The planning objection letters - some interesting things

Against the application: 713 letters representing approximately 1,000 people and/or organisations (see below).
For the application: 8 letters - including one which should be in the "against" file as it has only one "for" point and several "against" points. One of the remaining letters of support has as its main item that there might be a barber in the new development who will wash and cut hair instead of current barbers who only cut and one of them has as many objections as it has supporting items. Number of letters completely in favour: 6. The number of letters received does not reflect the number of people objecting as many letters are from two or more people - some of them have up to 19 names on them and others a list of organisations they represent. We took one of the files which had 146 letters and found that it related to 220 objectors - an increase of 36%. If this is similar for each of the files this would bring the number of objections to around 977 (with more letters coming in every day).
Specific points from the files (the first ten should also be on the EDDC website as they are from major consultees) others can be seen by the public in the files which are open to inspection (as long as you phone first so they have them available):

1. An email from the Environment Agency to Nick Wright (EDDC) copied to Lesley Rodway saying:
Hi Nick,

Please find attached our formal response to the above application following your letter of 11^th December 06.I want to flag our response following your letter of 11^th December 06 since with the advent of PPS25 (Development and Flood Risk) there is a big sticking point about the principle of acceptability of the proposed development that needs to be resolved. Until this has been done, we cannot comment further on the application details.
I’m not sure who the officer is that is dealing with this application at your end? I am including Andy Carmichael as a recipient of this email in case it is him given the “contact” name at the top of your letter …). Whoever it is, I’d be grateful if you could draw our comments to the officer’s attention please. I’d be happy/would like to have a chat with the officer to explain a little more about our concerns so if they would like to call me that’d be great (I’m in the office this afternoon, tomorrow pm and Friday pm.
On another matter, I’m acutely aware that I’ve not been in contact lately regarding how you are getting on with applying our Standard Advice … I just wanted to “touch base” with you on this and make sure you are not experiencing any problems? (I’m v.happy to come over and spend some time guiding staff if you wish?). Kind regards, J. L. Clarke, Devon Area Planning Liaison.

2.Streetscene – part of EDDC – has asked: who will own the car park? They have noted a loss of open space. They have noted that there is no specific flood protection for the car park and children’s play area and that the drain at the top of the site is too narrow and has a break in it for the tramway They ask why the flood channel cannot be east to west and discharge into the estuary and why the monsoon drain cannot be a covered culvert to be adopted by South West Water. They ask who is going to maintain the monsoon drain and who is going to pay for it. They ask for Section 106 money to bring the children’s play area up to date and say that perhaps too much Section 106 money is being given to the Wetlands project. They note that there are no public conveniences shown whereas some already exist on the site. They point out that the skateboard park will be near homes and it is likely that the homeowners will complain about the children using this amenity. They note the lack of public open space and ask who will be responsible for trees on the site.

3. South West Water were told in September 2005 by Jubb (the consulting engineers for the developers) that the developer was planning to build 400 houses, a SMALL supermarket and a visitors centre. Apparently no-one then told Jubb that this site alone was going to have up to 500 houses, an enormous supermarket, a large non-food store and a visitors centre and also that there would be another planning application for another part of the site that would have up to 150 houses and possibly a restaurant and small hotel.

4. One of the doctor’s surgeries asked whether, with Section 106 money, they could relocate to the Regeneration area and also build a gym. They were told that this would not be possible due to the “massive exceptional costs” of raising the floodplain and the surgery would have to approach the developer for a market price site.

5. EDDC keep saying that no-one has asked for a revised Transport Assessment. However, Peter Martin of Devon County Council asked for it.

6. There is an email from someone in EDDC’s building control office to the planning department which says “Thanks for the information on the outline planning application for Harbour Road, this flags up potential contacts for us, etc If you get the chance to pass knowledge of our service onto developers/applicants it all helps to show that we provide joined up services!...
Here is a general list of areas that may be of interest to developers,they are contacts and consultants we need to carry out and areas of work we control (it is also worth noting that the Building Control Surveyors have a great depth of knowledge of all things relating to construction, everything from Structural stability, through to Accessibility and of course all matters connected with Energy Conservation and Carbon Emissions.
Consultants we undertake and areas where we give advice are ….. [and here he goes on to list 18 areas in which they can give advice].
What’s interesting here is that a department of the council is bending over backwards to give useful information to a developer yet when we, as council tax payers, try to get some advice we are told that either we have to pay for it or they are too busy.

7. The Countryside section of EDDC says it is concerned about the landscape characteristics of the development where it is adjacent to the proposed Wetlands area saying they would want to see a gradual landscape between the two areas and not a line of properties on the boundary.

8. The Devon archaeologist makes the point that a lot of historical artefacts may have been preserved in the mud of the flood plain and says that excavation along scrapes, ponds and water channels could be archaeologically damaging and contrary to the Local Plan’s requirement of protecting the historical environment.

9. English Nature complain that they had not received the Environmental Impact Assessment and could not download stuff from the EDDC site – they kept being timed out. They asked for a CD (which I think they eventually got) but have asked for an extension due to the Napoli crisis (the World Heritage Coast team has also asked for an extension for this reason).

10. The Campaign for Rural England doubts that the degree of public consultation required by the 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act has taken place and without this the planning application must be ultra vires. They say the cost of raising the flood plain should be assessed by independent surveyors in a report that should be made available to the public. They have the impression that Section 106 money for the Wetlands project might be illegal as they do not have a practical and definitive plan.
And now a few bits and pieces from the letters of local people:

11. A letter which goes into graphic detail of the “tidal surge” that hit Seaton in February 1979. The writer mentions seeing his children in their bedroom which had 4 feet of water in it - one on the top of a wardrobe floating on top of the water, the other frantically trying to keep afloat in the water.

12. A letter from a Master Mariner saying that flood water is restricted by the railway line in the east, the Borrow Pit embankment to the north and the Underfleet to the west. He says this is a finite area with no means of quickly dispersing water over the high water period. He says that the new sea wall will not stop this happening again [as we saw last year when the flood gates were left open during a tidal swell] and that the infill would make the problem greater not less. He also mentions light and sound pollution from the development on the marshes.

13. Someone who belongs to the organisation which has fishing rights on much of the River Axe up to Forde Abbey. He makes the point that salmon are returning to the river and that waste water with impurities will cause problems.

14. A member of the Royal Town Planning Institute who says the supermarket is excessively large. The developers have not applied the sequential test to determine whether such a supermarket is required. That loss of the holiday camp is contrary to Section 6.6 of the Local Plan and there is a conflict with Policy TO3 which prevents the loss of holiday accommodation. He goes on to say that the Heritage Centre is too small, few jobs are likely to be created and the Centre should not be seen as a substitute for the holiday village.

15. A letter from a resident in Axmouth which states:…. “in Church Street Axmouth, not only is the road less than 4.5 metres wid but the village brook is conveyed in a large diamenter cementation pipe just 200 mm below the surface and running lengthways continuously along the roadway. Electrical services straddle this pipeline just 150 mm under the road surface.

16. A local businessman who says that his business will be destroyed if this plan goes ahead (and with a lovely alternative sketched out by an architect who was astonished when she saw the Liatris plan!).

17. A letter pointed out that walkers and cyclists will be endangered where there are no footpaths if up to 90 lories use the local roads to bring infill to the site.

18. Several people make the point that the “non-food” retail may not ever be a DIY store and, if not, what will it be.

19. Someone currently living in Axminster who says that he had been planning to move to Seaton but having seen the Liatris plans will now definitely not move.

20. Some choice phrases from a few letters: “not enough emphasis on leisure and tourism”, “the live/work units in the O’Rourke plan have gone” [not the only thing to go!), “division of the town” and “application by stealth"