Chawton Park Farm – part of A31 ‘Growth Corridor’. Consultations and Petitions - do Residents have ANY impact on the decision-making process?
Taking you back in time.... Chawton Park Farm was one of the sites in East Hampshire District Council’s (EHDC’s) Large Sites Consultation in 2019. At this consultation, what did residents feel about Chawton Park Farm being included? 98% of the comments about it were unfavourable. It attracted the largest % of these.
Further details and a breakdown of responses for each of the six questions asked, can be found at this link - https://tinyurl.com/SayNOAnalysis
What did EHDC do? They made Chawton Park Farm the ‘preferred site’ for development! Thankfully, this status was removed on 23rd September 2021 due to, we would surmise, Alton Town Council’s Barrister’s Opinion, work behind the scenes by our District Councillors, and we hope, our Campaign.
What didn’t EHDC do? They didn’t publish a summary of the results of this Consultation. Residents were denied a simple comparison of the perceived pros and cons of each site. Why was this? We don’t know but we felt that all residents should get the chance to see a Summary hence producing the one above.
Petitions - How much weight do they carry? We don’t know but nearly 25% of Alton’s population signing the ‘Say No to Chawton Park Farm’ petition should send a very strong message!
See attached photo for an analysis of the petition comments up to February this year showing that people in Alton have had enough of their precious rural location being built over, with any development on Chawton Park Farm being the last straw.
A31 Growth Corridor – no consultation on this The results of the 2019 consultation show overwhelmingly that residents did NOT support development of any of the sites along the A31 corridor west of Alton. And yet what do we now discover? EHDC stated in a document prepared for their Full Council meeting on 20th January 2022 that ‘significant growth is planned along this corridor’. The following paragraph is taken from the “Withdrawal from Joint Management and Shared Staff Arrangements” at 3.7 d. – see the bit we’ve highlighted in bold.
“From a Housing perspective, residents live in and work along the same axis of the M3 and A31 corridor with access to the southern part of East Hants through the A3 corridor. This obviously links to the Solent Housing market Page 4 of 12 area but planning for new housing in East Hants is predominantly along the East/ West A31 axis. The significant new sites which will take East Hants housing in the new Local plan will consolidate this functional area. Significant growth is planned along this corridor and links to the regenerated Whitehill and Bordon.“
Specific ‘large sites’ now seem to have morphed into a ‘growth corridor’ with no consultation on this at all.
Current Large Sites being Investigated We have been trying since the EHDC meeting on 23 Sept 2021 to establish which sites remain under consideration by EHDC – without success. Here is the list taken from the “East Hampshire District Local Plan: Spatial Strategy Preferred Option” which was presented at that meeting:
- · Approximately 819 dwellings at Whitehill & Bordon
- · A selection of ‘other sites’ – White Dirt Farm (Horndean), Land at Five Heads Road
- (Horndean), Whitedown Lane (Alton) and Land east of Old Odiham Road (Alton);
- · Land at Chawton Park Farm (Alton)
- · Land at Neatham Down (Alton)
- · Two South Medstead large development sites.
Meeting with the Director of Regeneration and Place at EHDC. We have now asked for a meeting with the Director. If there is anything you’d like us to ask him please email saynotochawtonparkfarm@gmail.com.
Our letters to him and the Leader of the Council, at EHDC, have been unanswered which is disappointing given their promise in September 2021 to be ‘open and honest’ in dealings with our Campaign, and the fact that they even sought to establish channels of engagement with us. Their News Release of 28th September said:
''We recognise the fundamental importance of evidence when allocating sites for housing…. we can involve people through consultation and provide the evidence that will help people understand the decisions we take”.
We hope to see this involvement of local people taking place sooner rather than later.
The next public consultation on the EHDC Local Plan will be in ‘the Autumn’ and we hope that Chawton Park Farm will no longer be a part of it!
Thank you to everyone who signed up for emails from our Petition and thank you for your continued support!