Dear Supporters,

I hope this finds you all well and enjoying the warmer weather!

Do please keep sharing our petition – we’d like to get to 5000 signatures – currently at 4495!

The next important date is November 2022 when a formal consultation on the Draft Local Plan will take place.  The Examination of this plan will be in Spring 2023.  We don’t want Chawton Park Farm to be in it!

East Hants District Council (EHDC) Councillors’ letter sent to Damian Hinds MP

Their letter is reproduced below and is referred to in the Alton Herald article also below (and our update header).  Four Marks and Medstead District Councillors also wrote to Damian.

The Councillors’ letter is not part of the Say NO campaign but if Damian is successful in getting ministers to agree that East Hampshire’s district is a ‘special case’ regarding housing numbers (over half of it being within the South Downs National Park) then it could mean 1200 houses do not need to be built at Chawton Park Farm.

Meeting with the Head of Regeneration and Place at EHDC

The Campaign have been trying to get a meeting set up for months.   In March we finally got a positive response but no meeting has yet been arranged.  Now that the Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill has been published we will be chasing again.

Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill published

The changes it brings to our Planning System will be implemented in 2024.

It will repeal the Duty to Cooperate(DtC) - and replace it with a ‘flexible alignment test’ – what is this?  We’ve written to the Levelling Up office to ask for details.  The DtC affects East Hants because EHDC have to build the South Downs National Park’s (SDNP’s) housing requirement quota that the SDNP won’t/don’t have to build.  This could mean that our housing numbers can be reduced.

The Community Planning Alliance (CPA) has written a commentary https://tinyurl.com/CPAlevellup and the Government’s web page is here 

The Government says that the Bill will enhance local democracy and engagement and allow neighbourhoods to shape their surroundings. https://tinyurl.com/govtlevellbill

However the CPA says the Bill gives more power to central government, and contradicts the empowerment message embodied in the Levelling Up concept, and that our civil rights to object and be heard in person at the Examination (see above) will be denied. 

The Campaign is writing to Damian Hinds for clarification on this.

Alton High Street’s Air Quality – more houses mean more pollution! https://tinyurl.com/altonair

This link shows how air pollution levels for the 3 main airborne pollutants are above WHO guidelines for 54a High Street, Alton (randomly chosen address) https://tinyurl.com/altonair A further c.2000 cars from Chawton Park Farm development would mean an INCREASE in these pollutants and cardiovascular and respiratory mortality & asthma etc in our area.

Letter to Damian Hinds MP from EHDC Councillors

Dear Damian,

All Alton District councillors are united in sharing a growing sense of frustration with the huge numbers of new houses which our town is having to shoulder along with our neighbours in Four Marks and Medstead.

This is simply because we are in the 43% of East Hampshire which is not within the SDNP.

It’s important to state that none of us are against new homes in the right numbers and in the right location.

The standard housing calculation used to calculate local housing need does not reflect the unique position we find ourselves in here in East Hampshire where 57% of the area falls within the planning curtilage for the SDNP. This has far-reaching consequences for our town and its community.

Alton’s population was 17,816 in 2011. Our Neighbourhood Plan sets out an expectation that 1,731 new dwellings will be built here between 2011 and 2028. In the five-year period 2016 – 2021, there was a net gain of 657 dwellings in the town and, as at 1 April 2021, there were 688 dwellings with outstanding permissions. By any standards this is a very large number for a town which has held a unique historical status as a small market town. There has been very little new infrastructure to help absorb the impact. Against this backdrop, it is hard for residents to accept that East Hampshire District Council is now considering the allocation of another greenfield site near Alton in its emerging Local Plan for 2017-2038 as potentially suitable for an additional 1,200 homes.

Transport links are already stretched at peak times around the town with little room for further improvements at road junctions such as Chawton Park Road and Mill Lane.

New development has tended to be on prime greenfield sites away from the town centre leading to a culture of car dependency and placing pressure on already very full roads. This is neither sustainable or climate and environment friendly. Public transport which could provide a solution is dwindling and struggling with low passenger numbers since the pandemic and we are a rural area which means a car is a necessity.

By comparison the SDNP has seen very little new housing and, as a consequence, house prices are disproportionately some 30% higher within the SDNP in comparison to Alton and surrounding areas, making it totally unaffordable for any young families wishing to remain in the area and furthermore this skews the housing need calculations for the area of East Hants not in the SDNP. What hope is there for the younger generation who aspire to home ownership?

Not only this but the high prices within the SDNP skew the effect of the Affordability index on the housing numbers needed, i.e. they increase the numbers, which then have to be built outside of the SDNP - a vicious cycle with no current resolution and certainly not with the desired effect of making homes more affordable. Most of the new homes being built are being occupied by folk moving to Alton from outside of our local area, they are particularly attractive to ex Londoners who are attracted by the rural location and more affordable non-London prices.

The current Duty to cooperate with the SDNP means that c 90% of new housing needs from within and outside of the park have to be built outside of the 57% of land which is in the park. This is an intolerable situation and one which the Government must act on in the interests of fairness and as part of the levelling up process. Altonians feel that the essence of our town’s unique character is being lost by the constant pressure on housing numbers and planners are under enormous strain to manage the balance between government targets and the planning balance.

One possible way forward to achieve a more equitable balance may be for the areas inside and outside of the SDNP to be treated as two separate entities when it comes to calculating house building numbers. This would be a much fairer system.

East Hampshire is a very rural district, which means there is very little brownfield land available. We are in a climate emergency and the environment pays a high price as green fields are swallowed up for housing leading to further pressure on biodiversity, Ancient woodland and increased risk of flooding and further stretched water and waste management.

The demographic within the SDNP is shifting with younger families forced out by high prices with very little social or affordable housing being built and only an increasingly older and wealthier population moving into the park, this must be addressed.

We do hope that your conversations with ministers will find a sensible and practical solution to the problems we face here in Alton and the surrounding area and that a sustainable solution can be found moving forward as a matter of urgency.

All Alton District councillors would be happy to meet with you if this is helpful,

Best Wishes,

Cllr Ginny Boxall (Liberal Democrat)

Cllr Steve Hunt (Liberal Democrat)

Cllr Richard Platt (Liberal Democrat)

Cllr Suzie Burns (Liberal Democrat)

Cllr Paula Langley (Independent Socialist)

Cllr Graham Hill (Conservative)

Cllr Stephen Dolan (Independent Socialist)

With thanks to the Alton Herald here is the article about Damian's lobbying & the EHDC Councillors' letter from 21 April 2022. 

MP Campaigning for Cut in District Housing Target

EAST HAMPSHIRE MP Damian Hinds is again pressing government ministers that the region should be treated as a ‘special case’ when it comes to setting housing number targets.

Local councillors from multiple wards, and from across the political spectrum have joined the call.

It is argued that because the district is part in and part out of the South Downs National Park this is set to cause an ‘imbalance’ in housing provision either side of the park boundary.

As Mr Hinds has said in Parliament the current system causes two sets of problems.

·       Firstly, in the area of East Hampshire outside the park, in areas such as Alton, Four Marks and Bordon, there is a great deal of pressure to build, meaning it will be difficult to keep up in terms of infrastructure provision and there is a real risk of urbanising rural areas.

·       Secondly, inside the park, in places such as Petersfield and Liss, housing will become more and more unaffordable overtime.                                                 

New data produced by the Office for National Statistics in 2021 in response to a parliamentary question from Mr  Hinds showed that, in Local Authority areas bisected by a national park boundary,  properties in the park cost an average £100,037 more than those outside.

Mr Hinds has recently written again to the Secretary of State, bidding for Government planning reform to include a solution to this problem. District councillors have provided cross-party support to this move.