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All posts for the month September, 2014

Chalk Hill Road Plans

Posted by Cllr Guy Shepherd on September 28, 2014
Posted in: Horndean Show Ground. 10 Comments

Lynn Evans PhotoTaylor Wimpey have held their community consultation on the ‘Chalk Hill Road’ plans for the land which is to the South of the field we know better as ‘Trickets Field’. To stress, Jack does NOT own this land, and the rumors that the current tenants who have horses grazing have been given notice to leave are NOT accurate. this came directly from the tenant – the ‘Horses Mouth’ so to speak…

Here are some thoughts from Cllr Lynn Evans who is the District Councillor for Murray Ward, and Chairman of the Parish Council. Lynn is most keen to hear your views on the development so she can ensure they are well represented at the planning committee when the plans are submitted. If Taylor Wimpey stick to their ‘end of October’ timescale then this planning committee would be in January or February 2015 at the earliest.

“The Public Consultation in March this year showed an over whelming community preference for Hazleton and Pyle Farms as the area to develop. This site could, if approved, accommodate all 700 houses needed and would be built out over a number of years.

Taylor Wimpey met with Parish Councillors to present their ideas and also held a Public Consultation on Tuesday 23rd September. No convincing arguments were offered as to why this land should be developed.”

The issues at Chalk Hill Road continue to be:

1) The development would be on land which forms part of the gap between Horndean and Catherington.
2) More houses would mean more traffic on already busy and congested roads.
3) Housing density on the built area would be 40 per hectare.
4) Land has been designated for “Open Space” which is of little use to the community as it slopes steeply.
5) The Catherington Lith Nature Reserve would become more isolated from surrounding wildlife affecting the ecology of the area.

The local residents are opposed to the building of 73 houses in this location and there is no good reason to build on this land and many excellent ones for not doing so.

Horndean Show Ground Development 1

Here is a link to the Taylor Wimpey website where they will post updates:

Taylor Wimpey Website

East Hants Sports Awards 2014

Posted by Cllr Guy Shepherd on September 28, 2014
Posted in: Local Issues. Leave a comment

EHDC-logo-300x132 (1)Now in its fourth year East Hants are encouraging nominations for the East Hampshire 2015 Sports Awards for sporting achievements for the year of 2014.

These annual prestigious awards are co-ordinated by East Hampshire District Council to publicly recognise achievement in various nominated sporting categories:
• Junior Sportsman & Junior Sportswoman
• Senior Sportsman & Senior Sportswoman
• Masters Sportsman & Masters Sportswoman
• Junior Disability Sportsperson
• Senior Disability Sportsperson
• Coach of the Year (Male or Female)
• Volunteer of the Year (Junior & Senior)
• Team of the Year (Junior & Senior)
• Junior School Team of the Year
• Official of the Year (Male or Female)
• Service to Sport (Male or Female)
• Club of the Year
• Outstanding Personal Achievement (Male or Female)

The deadline for nominations is Friday 19th December 2014 and elected finalists are invited to the awards evening on Thurs 12th February 2015 at The Old Thorns Hotel in Liphook. The evening is being hosted by ITV’s Fred Dinenage.

If you wish to nominate any members of your school, club, or organisation please select within the appropriate categories in accordance with the guidelines, and either nominate online or return the nomination sheet to Craig Stainton on craig.stainton@easthants.gov.uk

To nominate
1. Check the guidelines for nominations (Link Below) 2. Complete the appropriate nomination form – all available via links on the website. Please go to the following website page http://www.easthants.gov.uk/ehdc/ActiveLifestylesWeb.nsf/webpages/Sports+Awards and click on the hyperlink for the form you require.

For any further enquiries please do not hesitate to contact Kirsty Cope on 01730 234015 on Thursdays and Fridays.

Kind regards

Kirsty Cope
Sport & Physical Activity Officer

Guidelines-for-Award-Nominations-2014

Open Planning Meeting

Posted by Cllr Guy Shepherd on September 22, 2014
Posted in: George Hollingbery MP. 2 Comments

George_HollingberyBy now letters will be arriving across Horndean, Rowlands Castle and Clanfield from George Hollingbery MP conveying his concerns about development in East Hants, and especially South of Butser.

As District Councillors we work closely with George on certain issues and ensuring we join our efforts on key planning applications and work to protect our community as best we can are key. George is leading an initiative with a planning summit which will be supported by a barrister from London who has very current and relevant experience in structuring objections to applications. This will help to ensure we are making the best use of case history to oppose unsuitable developments. This will be attended by representatives from EHDC as well as District and Parish Councillors and representatives from community groups and residents associations.

This summit will be followed up with a Public Meeting on the evening of the 17th October. If you would like to take part in this meeting can you email George on george.hollingbery.mp@parliament.uk with ‘Planning Meeting’ in the subject line with your full name, telephone number and postal address of everyone who would like to attend and George’s office will send out formal details shortly.

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EHDC 5 Year Plan

Posted by Cllr Guy Shepherd on September 22, 2014
Posted in: Local Issues. 2 Comments

EHDC does not have a 5 year plan in place for housing and this is a key problem for preventing development on gap land such as White Dirt Farm or Chalk Hill Road. There are a number of articles in the press which note that EHDC are working to put this in place, and I am often asked why EHDC has not produced a 5 year plan yet.

The name of the ‘plan’ is perhaps a little unhelpful. The 5 year plan is a requirement to have a 5 year supply of housing in the pipeline so that we are able to ‘meet our own needs’ in terms of housing supply. For east Hants who need to build 582 new homes a year, this means at any time 2910 homes (582 X 5) need to be being built or have have planning permission. It is in fact slightly more than this as we need a 5% safety margin on top which makes the total needed about 3050 homes.

Having had a period of recession, the house building market has been slow and there is nationally a glut of new housing, so you will not be surprised to know that EHDC does not currently have this large amount of housing in the ‘pipeline’ and that we are not alone in this position. The good news is that the rate of applications that have been seen across the District is the same, or even more severe than Horndean. It will not be long before we have enough housing approved to achieve a 5 year plan, and this means that we can then enforce certain policies like the gap policy which will help to protect areas like White Dirt Farm, Chalk Hill Lane etc.

Hopefully this will make it clear the absence of a 5 year plan is not like a report EHDC were due to have prepared and failed to, but is developer driven.

The map below shows the national picture on the 5 year plan with areas in Green not having one in place and areas in Blue or Red with a 5 year plan.

East Hants expects with the current rate of applications to have a 5 year plan in place BEFORE the White Dirt Farm application gets to planning committee. This means that the gap policy will be in place, and will count massively AGAINST the application. Taylor Wimpey were clearly warned this would be the case at the consultation they held in Clanfield.

5 year supply map sept 2014

60,000 Visitors Milestone

Posted by Cllr Guy Shepherd on September 21, 2014
Posted in: Local Issues. 3 Comments

This weekend the blog has passed the 60,000 milestone, and this is the 300th article posted on http://www.horndeanmatters.com Thank you to everyone who has written a post for the blog, and all of you who have visited and commented on the articles.

At the moment the blog gets up to 5,000 visits a week and the most popular articles have been about White Dirt Farm which had 8,000 visitors in the first weekend the topic was posted.

It is fascinating to see how links to the blog from Twitter, Facebook (WDF Action Group) and Nigel Stewards excellent Catherington Village News Letter feed into the blog with spikes in traffic when articles are posted. Anyone who lives in or close to Catherington is very welcome to go on the email list for The Catherington Village Newsletter, to subscribe simply email your contact details to:- VillageNewsLetter@Fullbore.Org

Finally the blog has been accessed from 93 countries around the world in the last 18 months including Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Israel and Korea. The USA has been the second biggest readership. The table below is the number of visitors by country and frequently matched hits when people were known to be abroad. Click on the photo below to enlarge the table.

60,000 readership

Homelessness in Horndean

Posted by Cllr Guy Shepherd on September 20, 2014
Posted in: Local Issues, Local People, Old Horndean Photos. 12 Comments

William Gladstone PMAnd now, unusually, a blog which has nothing to do with housing. In this article I am going to tackle poverty, homelessness, disability and how this was a major problem in our community. It will refer to ‘previous governments’ but on this occasion though the timescale is 1881 in the Union of Catherington (prior to the Parish of Horndean).

William Gladstone (right) was the Prime Minister of a Liberal Government in the reign of Queen Victoria. Topically as we have just had the Scotland Independence referendum, it is wroth noting that in 1881 the United Kingdom government of the day decided to create an act of law preventing the sale of Alcohol in Wales on Sundays. Nowhere else, just Wales. Imagine David Cameron PM laying down legislation to do this in Glasgow tomorrow for the health and good of the population. Alex Salmond would burst with fury. Godalming was the first town to have electric street lighting installed and we were in the middle of the First Boer War.

1881 was a census year, so the records are very good. They show that Clanfield had a population of 219 (now 4,637) and Catherington itself 944 (now Horndean with 12,942) Old records show that spending on the poor was £1.8s.8d per head (One Pound, 8 Shillings and 8 Pence). Such was the extent of financial hardship that workhouses were built extensively for the poor. A new workhouse was built in Catherington in 1835 to accommodate 80 inmates and the Poor Law Commissioners authorised a sum of £1,050 on its construction. (Photo below taken in 1977)

Catherington Workhouse

From the map below you can see the T Shaped building was opposite ‘The Good Intent’ on London Road. I wonder how ironic the naming of the public house was with a workhouse opposite…

Catherington Workhouse Map

The 1881 census has a separate listing for the occupants of the workhouse, and at that time there were just 30. This included the Master and Matron of Union House (James and Letitia Westbrooke) with their son George as a teacher, and the inmate residents. If you know anyone on the list then please comment on the article to share any knowledge you might have!

Catherington Workhouse Inmates

Current day figures are from the 2011 census.
Source data from:
Catherington Workhouse
Catherington Workhouse Census 1881

A Modern Day Update.

A few months ago you may have seen a homeless man under the Motorway bridge between Hornean and Clanfield. His name is Nigel and he was there for 3 nights having also spent some weeks on the streets in Portsmouth, Southsea, Havant and then Horndean. During the 3 nights in Horndean he was given food, non alcoholic drinks, money, blankets, pillows and a sleeping bag, all by Horndean residents who took the time to stop and speak to him.

On the third day he was taken to ASDA by a Horndean resident for new clothes, toiletries and other essentials while other residents contacted homeless charities, hotels and hostels to ensure he came off the streets that night, even if it were in a hotel until proper support could be found. While accommodation was being organised he bathed, shaved and dressed in new clothes. The local authority you have lived in and paid Council tax in has the legal responsibility to house you in emergency, so this was Portsmouth and Southsea. A homeless shelter in Portsmouth had one space free and took him in that night. He was driven there by Horndean residents and given some money to support himself over the next few days. The shelter took him to the right council officers to get the right support the next morning.

We have since heard from Nigel, about 6 weeks on. He is grateful to the people of Horndean for the compassion, support and generosity they gave him when in other areas like Southsea he was spat on and had rubbish thrown at him by youths. He was immediately housed in a shared home where he is getting the support he needs for finding work and rebuilding his life and feels very optimistic about the future.

He has not been on the streets since.

I am proud to live in Horndean.

Cllr Tickell – NPPF Select Committee

Posted by Cllr Guy Shepherd on September 14, 2014
Posted in: Local Issues, Useful Information. 2 Comments

Elaine TickellDISCUSSION FORUM: COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT SELECT COMMITTEE.

By Cllr Elaine Tickell, Horndean Parish Council

Earlier in the year, I made a submission as an individual to the investigation by the Communities and Local Government Select Committee into the impact of the first two years of operation of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). I was absolutely thrilled to receive an invitation to participate in the discussion Forum of the Committee held last Monday on the 1st September at Portcullis House at the House of Commons.

There were in the region of 60-70 delegates from around the country. The discussion was a little like speed dating. We were divided into tables of seven and an MP or representative of the committee then sat at each table with a note taker to take views on specific questions. The four questions asked were

1) An overview of the NPPF,
2) The provision of housing,
3) Local Plans and
4) The effectiveness of consultation.

Each table had 20 minutes to give an opinion and air concerns. After each 20 minute slot, the MP/ representative then moved on and we got a different person. I think that it worked very well and that MP’s were surprised and sometimes shocked to hear the reality of the impact of the NPPF on communities. I spoke to Clive Betts, the Chairman of the Select Committee, Mrs Mary Glindon MP, Kelvin McDonald a lecturer in Planning at Cambridge University and Glenn McKie, the Clerk to the Committee.

In my view, Horndean is an ideal case study into the operation of the NPPF. The Parish has a large site that not only could (if approved) deliver the 700 homes required for the period up to 2028, but also would deliver employment land, a care home for the elderly, housing for the elderly, a school, allotments, many community facilities and infrastructure. It is supported by the majority of the Parish. It is a showcase for sustainable development as required by the NPPF.

The aim of the NPPF was to provide for effective planning inter alia to deliver housing. Sustainability lies at its heart with a core principle of empowering local communities to give input into development in their areas. The three elements of economic, social and environmental should be sought jointly to achieve sustainable development. The planning and appeal decisions that are coming through are clear that the five year land supply (see next paragraph) is one matter in the planning balance.

The planning authority for Horndean Parish is East Hampshire District Council. EHDC does have an adopted Local Plan but at present does not have a Five Year Land Supply. The effect of this has been discussed in previous articles on Horndean Matters. The reality of the operation of the NPPF in Horndean is that developers have manipulated the provisions of the same to their own ends and tried to drive through planning applications on a “first come, first served” basis with applications on inappropriate sites outside settlement policy boundaries, out of character with the area, in the Countryside and in Local Gaps without the support of the Local Population. Public Consultation has been flawed and what is reported by the developers as part of their applications flies in the face of the Public Consultation carried out by EHDC and now embodied in LIPS and in separate polls. The result has been the complete antithesis of the effective planning envisaged by the NPPF.

Hopefully, the evidence given by the individuals on the 1st September will form an important part of the evidence presented to the government that will lead to changes to the NPPF to ensure an effective planning system that is balanced and not just driven by special interest groups.

The Parish Council represents the views of the residents of Horndean. Please let us represent you better – let us have your views on contact@horndeanpc-hants.gov. The more evidence supplied to us, the better the input that we can have into the planning process with a better outcome for Horndean.

A lot of work is being carried out by Parish and District Councillors and it is important that readers know that we are doing all that is possible to achieve a good planning outcome for Horndean.

Cllr Elaine Tickell. Horndean Parish Council.

Note from Guy – That Elaine as an individual made the effort to write to the select committee raising concerns, and delivered a sufficiently robust set of views to have been asked to meet with the Select Committee is a very big deal. Bloody well done and an excellent narrative to share with the community. Thank you. Guy.