Dear Petitioners,
Happy New Year!
Firstly we hope once you’ve read the following, you’ll understand and forgive us for using the Chawton Park Farm Petition to get the word out to you about a petition whose aim is to protect the landscape setting of Alton as a ‘literary landscape’ based on Jane Austen’s connection with the town.
https://www.change.org/p/securing-jane-austen-s-literary-landscape-for-the-nation
You need to be aware (if you are not already) about the 3000 houses in total that are predicted by EHDC as coming our way as a result of the increase in the government housing targets for the East Hampshire District Council (EHDC) planning area.
It is hoped to get Historic England to designate this area as a ‘literary landscape’, in what is Jane Austen’s 250th anniversary year.
The campaign has been promoted by the Daily Mail, and the Daily Express.
You will know that 57% of the EHDC planning area is covered by the South Downs National Park (SDNP) and therefore EHDC has no influence over how many houses get built there. Only 30% of building land remains available to EHDC (because of heathland protections and MOD land etc).
The SDNP in our area, is currently planning for only 60 homes per year! Down from c110. The area outside the SDNP will have to provide c1172 homes per year! – up from c474! The SDNP have their Regulation 18 Local Plan public consultation scheduled for sometimes in Jan to March this year. We can all comment on it!
The Land Availability Assessment (LAA) still includes Chawton Park Farm (CPF) so we need to be aware of this as it is still there as a possible building site. Especially as EHDC doesn’t have a 5 Year Land Supply (5YLS) so is almost unable legally to fight off speculative planning applications. EHDC is penalised (i.e. us) but the 5YLS is under the control of the developers.... crazy but true.
Here’s a link to the LAA – do have a look at the map overview of where the sites are that could be built on around Alton and inside its settlement boundary.
Land Availability Assessment (LAA)
By the way the Chawton Park Farm facebook page has been suspended & unpublished (for reasons we don’t understand) and it has been impossible to get it resurrected. So we are unable to use that to inform our community, and the CPF petition is all that is left as a method of communication to you all. Unless we recreate the CPF facebook page....which we may have to!
Thank you for reading this and let’s all unite behind this initiative to preserve the setting of our town for future generations! It’s surely worth a try?
saynotochawtonparkfarm@gmail.com