'Disappointing' park & ride
Progress on Guildford’s Park & Ride has been “disappointing” and public consultation “inadequate” according to CPRE Surrey chairman Tim Harrold. (December 2007)
Speaking at a meeting of the Guildford Local Committee (comprising Guildford Borough and Surrey County Councillors) in September, Tim Harrold said that the division of responsibilities between the different local authorities and the Highways Agency was “too complex for timely decisions to be taken.”
“So far it has taken 11 years for the original Park & Ride strategy for Guildford to be updated”, he told the meeting. “The new draft, whilst welcome, still does not provide the promised ‘clear vision for the future of Park & Ride’ as part of an integrated traffic management strategy for the town.”
The strategy was supposed to cover all major routes into Guildford but no plans have been announced for the two A3 sites needed for the North East and South West corridors. If work were to begin tomorrow at the site earmarked for Park & Ride at the University of Surrey campus at Manor Park it would still take 5 years to complete by which time the Hindhead Tunnel would be already open.
Priority has been mistakenly given to the Merrow development where the access roundabout was completed on its own in October 2006. “The whole Park & Ride was due to be finished by October 2007”, said Tim. “But now we are informed that the remaining construction won’t start till 2008 and that it will last for five months… Frankly, the whole viability of the Merrow site remains questionable.”
Proposals for the selection of a new site in Worplesdon to the North of the town have now been made public and consultation is beginning on this immediately. A further loss of Green Belt land is inevitable.
Following this meeting, Surrey County Council announced plans for implementing Guildford’s role as a “transport hub” with an investment package of £33 million, mainly to improve local bus services. A major aim is to cut traffic congestion in the area. The scheme will not be completed until 2014. Government funding will underpin the whole initiative.
Polytunnel vision (December 2007)
The problem of polytunnels continues. In December last year, the High Court upheld Waverley Borough Council’s enforcement notices against the use of polytunnels at Tuesley Farm by the Hall Hunter Partnership.
This was a landmark case that the Council brought to preserve the beauty and character of an Area of Great Landscape Value (AGLV) within the Green Belt. HHP took the case all the way to the High Court because they contested the validity of the Inspector’s decision to refuse their appeal. Judgement at the High Court went against them conclusively.
HHP has now filed a new planning application in an attempt to avoid the enforcement notices to remove all polytunnels and caravans by the end of the year. Both the Tuesley Farm Campaign and CPRE Surrey have submitted well argued objections to this new proposal to continue with polytunnels on Green Belt land within an AGLV that is overlooked by the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
Evidence from consultants illustrates the harm that is done to the openness of the Green Belt and the damage to countryside of both county and national importance from obtrusive development of this kind.
CPRE has also indicated that the application is incomplete because it does not include information as to where the seasonal workforce will be housed.
This is not a campaign against agriculture but in support of the best of Surrey’s countryside against the threat of degradation.
Waverley Borough Council has joined with other local authorities across the county in defence of the AGLV and of the nationally important Surrey Hills AONB. It would be inconsistent of them to change their position now.
No waste of time (December 2007)
The last issue of Surrey Voice reported on the initial stages of the Examination in Public of the draft Surrey Waste Plan. The Examination concluded in late September. CPRE Surrey attended the great majority of the public sessions and contributed to most of the discussions. These dealt both with the generalities of waste disposal in the county and also with individual site proposals.
In addition to the sites suggested by the County Council in the Surrey Waste Plan itself, including Capel, Longcross, and Shepperton, the Examination also had to consider various additional proposals for waste facilities, including incinerators, proposed by developers at locations such as Dunsfold and Wisley.
Throughout the sessions, CPRE Surrey consistently argued that, given that there are, and should be, major constraints on building waste management facilities in the countryside, the starting point of the Plan’s location policies should have been the assumption that all waste residues should be treated in industrial buildings in urban areas, preferably on industrial estates. Recent advances in waste management technologies make this a feasible and viable proposition. This, in turn, should dictate the choice of waste management technologies, but the choice of technology should not dictate siting choices, as in the draft Waste Plan.
Using urban industrial areas to accommodate waste facilities not only protects the countryside. It also satisfies the proximity and “polluter pays” principles; it also reduces the number of waste-related goods vehicle journeys, and, if energy were to be produced at the site, it would reduce transmission losses. CPRE Surrey argued at the Examination in Public that Surrey CC should be prepared, proactively, to assemble sites by purchasing properties, using its compulsory purchase powers if necessary. Five or six sites throughout the county would be needed, each of about one to two hectares, which could handle the 270,000 tonnes of waste residues that have to be treated each year once the county’s 60% recycling target has been achieved.
We have not advocated a particular preferred technology for waste management. However, it is most unlikely that mass burn incineration or other more advanced thermal technologies, such as gasification and pyrolysis, could be satisfactorily accommodated on urban industrial estates. There are, however, a number of alternative technologies available, including mechanical biological treatment (MBT), anaerobic digestion, and autoclaves.
CPRE branches are working together to set up a South East Waste Policy Group. Future editions of Surrey Voice will report on the group’s deliberations and on the Inspectors’ findings on the Surrey Waste Plan, as well as updating members on other waste-related developments that affect the county.
Tim Murphy
CPRE Surrey is also concerned that a new application has been submitted for an incinerator on the Capel site before receiving the Inspectors’ report on the Surrey Waste Plan. CPRE will be responding to this application and monitoring its progress.
Plane truth (December 2007)
Aviation is widely acknowledged as a growing source of CO2 pollution leading to further global warning, but in spite of the government’s supposed commitment to reducing carbon emissions they seem prepared to expand aviation by allowing new developments to go ahead.
Indeed, the fact that the regional assemblies are to be abolished and their planning work transferred to the regional development agencies – in our case SEEDA – will negate democratic planning decisions by elected bodies in favour of the government being allowed to push through its airport expansion plans unchallenged.
This could mean the green light for BAA’s scheme to build a sixth runway at Heathrow, just north of the Bath Road. This involves the destruction of some 700 houses near Sipson and further-more a possible Terminal 6 to be built.
To the north of Crawley, a large scale mixed-use development (comprising 2,200 homes, 5,000 square metres of office space, shops, a community hall, schools, and a park and ride facility) has been rejected by the Secretary of State on the grounds that it could frustrate the construction of a second runway at Gatwick Airport. The government inspector agreed that even though the prospects of a second runway at Gatwick were unclear, and government policy did not favour it, the Aviation White Paper explicitly required the option to be kept open.
The Secretary of State agreed that the site was sustainable, but noted that any second runway would generate noise that was likely to cause community annoyance. He therefore held that noise concerns justified him dismissing the appeal.
Other points looked at by the CPRE Surrey aviation group include:
Noise monitoring
BAA have introduced a new web site: www.baa.com/noise where the public are able to track flights landing or taking off from Heathrow or Gatwick and the flight paths they use in case of any noise complaints.
Redhill Aerodrome
The owners of Redhill Aerodrome are under intense pressure to abandon their scheme to turn the site into a 2,000-home village-style settlement. More than 60 residents and politicians attended the aerodrome’s annual general meeting to question bosses about their future plans for the site and voice objections to the proposals.
At the meeting, held at Nutfield Village Hall, Redhill Aerodrome Ventures (RAVL) revealed it still intended to push ahead with the project and another application to improve facilities at the aerodrome. The confirmation drew a furious response from East Surrey MP (and Shadow Environment Minister) Peter Ainsworth, who branded the public meeting a “complete fiasco which made it hard for the audience to decide whether to laugh or cry.”
Helicopters
CPRE Surrey took part in an initial meeting at the AEF (Aviation Environment Federation) office in London with the Helicopter Noise Coalition’s founder, David Shufflebotham, and other interested parties. Battersea Heliport is a shared concern for us all, as flights from there cover a wide geographical area. The group needs to demonstrate the number of people who are affected by helicopter noise and will have help on this from the Environmental Law Foundation. For more information on the campaign, please visit the website or call 01494 883728.
www.helicopter-noise.org.uk
Lawrence Hole
Gatwick pollutes (December 2007)
The booklet Gatwick – wrecking climate change targets, published by the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign (GACC), has created widespread interest and ensured that Gatwick Airport is now recognized as one of the main polluters
in the South East.
Even if return flights are taken out of the equation, GACC’s study shows that aircraft from Gatwick create 17 times as much CO2 damage as the whole of Crawley. If return flights are included, Gatwick’s carbon emissions are more than the total for Surrey and West Sussex put together.
Saving the AGLV
The value of the county designation of Area of Great Landscape Value (AGLV) has had to be “robustly justified” as required by the government’s Planning Policy Statement 7 by means of a consultants’ report commissioned by the Surrey Planning Officers Committee.
A request has been sent by the Surrey Hills Partnership to Natural England to review the boundary of the Surrey Hills with a view to incorporating AGLV land into the AONB. Natural England has indicated that consideration of such an issue could not take place until the end of the year, so in the meantime GOSE has agreed that all Local Plan policies safeguarding AGLV land will be saved for use in Local Development Frameworks across Surrey.
CPRE Surrey and the Surrey Hills Partnership are continuing to fight
hard to convince the government of the importance of AGLVs. These and other county designations have been threatened with abolition.
Quarry fight
CPRE joins the Quarry Observation Group (QOG) objection to the new obtrusive Tarmac plant application at WBB's North Park Quarry in Bletchingley.
This application has been made despite outstanding infringements of an Environmental Impact Assessment and planning conditions relating to an earlier gravel extraction plant development. The new proposal further damages AGLV landscape and is highly visible from the Surrey Hills AONB. For more details please consult www.qog.org.uk
South Downs National Park
The future of the proposed South Down National Park is still unclear. Public consultation on the revised plans closed in September, and the government will issue its response in the new year.
The inspector examining the proposals gave unequivocal support to the National Park in principle, but recommended removing from it areas such as Lewes,
Steyning, Ditchling, Arundel, Petworth and Midhurst in Sussex, and Petersfield and Liss in Hampshire. There has been a strong campaign for the creation of this new National Park, backed by CPRE and other environmental groups, and reinforced by a BBC survey showing 95% public support.
CPRE is disappointed by the inspector’s attempt to leave so much of rural Sussex and Hampshire out of the Park, including a large part of the western Weald, and we will continue to press for these areas to be restored to it as was originally intended.
Un-Natural England
The new quango Natural England, successor body to the Countryside Agency and English Nature, has proposed “revisions” to the Green Belt to allow further housing development.
Responding to this, Kate Gordon, senior planner at CPRE national office,
questioned Natural England’s motives in wishing to surrender a key plank of countryside protection. She said that the proposals “risk unleashing an American-style swathe of car-dependent sprawl that would change the face of
the country, undermining the clear separation between town and country.”
Housing Green Paper
CPRE has responded in detail to the government’s Green Paper – discussion document – on “Homes for the Future”.
While supporting the Paper’s emphasis on environmental quality and meeting the need for affordable housing, CPRE has expressed concerns about the lack of attention paid by the government to providing the infrastructure investment needed to support any new housing developments. So far, the government has committed to some £19 billion of investment in infrastructure across the South East, whereas the region’s local authorities say that £89 billion is needed.
The Green Paper appears to take no account of the infrastructure deficit in the South East.
New lights will ease ‘night blight’
Following pressure from CPRE, Surrey County Council has put forward a bid for Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funding to replace the county’s existing street lights – which exude a bright orange glow – with less obtrusive, downward-pointing, ‘white lights’. CPRE Surrey has been working very closely with the Street Lighting team at Surrey CC to develop a bid that, if granted, will provide significant environmental benefits, both in terms of removing “night blight” and giving us darker skies once more, and reducing wastage of electricity.
