Dear Supporters,
The Alton Society and the ‘Say NO’ campaign would like to wish all of you a very Happy New Year!
It will be definitely be a happy year for our Campaign if EHDC takes Chawton Park Farm out of their spatial strategy/Local Plan! We must keep the pressure up!
Thank you, as ever, for your support and for your comments on the Petition itself. We anticipate using an analysis of these for publicity (all anonymously), so they are very useful. Do share and comment on this petition if you haven't already.
Public Consultation on the Draft Local Plan (Regulation 19) has been put back 6 months, to Autumn 2022 (from March/April 2022). So we have more time to publicise and repeat the arguments against any development on Chawton Park Farm (Access, Transport, Infrastructure, Biodiversity etc).
EHDC say the reason is because “additional evidence and research will be required for more site options and in relation to the topic of climate change”*. We can only hope that this is good news for our campaign! (*See below for EHDC Consultation on 2 policy documents which ends on 2nd Feb).
The petition has attracted over 4000 signatures now, representing 20% of Alton’s population, and we need to get to 5000 so that Change.org sends an automatic email to Cllr Angela Glass, Planning Policy Committee Chair at EHDC. This number shows the massive strength of feeling in opposition to the development proposals at Chawton Park Farm.
A brief Recap of last year’s Campaign:
- Public Protest on The Butts, on 18th September attended by c300 people
- Public Protest on 23rd September outside EHDC offices and engagement with Senior Officers and Councillors
- Campaign Group formed – meeting every 6 weeks
- Facebook group formed https://www.facebook.com/SayNoChawtonParkFarmAlton
- Letters in the Alton Herald
- Research and resultant articles in the Alton Herald about the Medieval Deer Park Pales; Transport Chaos; Landscape, Biodiversity – more to come
- Letters to EHDC (as yet unanswered)
- Letter to and response from, Damian Hinds MP
- Petition on Change.org 4021 signatures
We have more subjects to cover and more work to do! If you have anything to suggest that you think we could/should be doing, do email thealtonsociety@gmail.com .
Thanks for being there, in the background, ready to come out and support any new initiatives/protests, it is a great comfort to know so many people are against this destructive and devastating development proposal.
May all of us make the progress we are aiming for in 2022.
*EHDC has launched a Consultation on a ‘Draft East Hants Climate Change Supplementary Planning Document (SPD)’ (which the Alton Society are in support of), and a further Consultation on their Statement of Community Involvement (SCI). It ends on 2nd February 2022.
The consultation can be accessed here: https://easthants.oc2.uk/
You will need an account with EHDC in order to comment.
Attribution link as per license for the Happy New Year template: <a href='https://pngtree.com/so/happy'>happy png from pngtree.com/</a>