Written evidence from Leckhampton Green
Land Action Group (LEGLAG) (ARSS 104)
SUMMARY
This submission supports the Memorandum submitted
by Save The Countryside, Cheltenham, and gives details of how
the SWRSS (The South West Regional Spatial Strategy) affected
the Planning Status of the "Leckhampton Green Land",
and Planning Applications on it.
The Land (which we now
call the "Leckhampton Green Land" for reasons that will
become apparent) that we wish to save from inappropriate large
scale development has a long and complex Planning History.
In the 1960s
The County Council created a Green Belt between Cheltenham
and Gloucester,whose main purpose was to prevent the two towns
merging into one another, but also to discourage "sprawl"
around each of the towns. It is not now clear how the boundaries
of this Green Belt were determined. As a result of this .exercise,
some undeveloped land was left between the boundary of the Green
Belt South of Cheltenham and the then built-up area of Leckhampton.
This land was then officially called the "Leckhamprton White
Land", as it was at that time all in the parish of Leckhampton.
(since then, about one quarter of the land has been transferred
to Shurdington by boundary changes). This land, formerly the "Leckhampton
White Land", is what we now call the "Leckhampton Green
Land" or just "The Green Land" and is the land
we are mainly trying to save.
In 1993
The Inspector to the Inquiry into the Cheltenham
Local Plan recommended that this land should no longer be considered
as "white land" but as land that should be conserved
because of its accessibility and varied interest, and value, and
further recommended that it should not be considered for development
until a comprehensive study of all possible building land ion
the outskirts of Cheltenham had been carried out by Cheltenham
and Tewkesbury Borough Councils in order to find the least damaging
option (if indeed such building land were required). The Cheltenham
Local Plan duly included a policy to protect this land for its
countryside value.
In 1995 Tewkesbury Borough
Council (TBC) tried (but failed) to get the part of the Green
Land that then lay in Tewkesbury reclassified as "Green Belt".
In 2000
LEGLAG wrote to both TBC and CBC asking them to carry
out the comprehensive study of potential building land on the
periphery of Cheltenham that the Inspector to the Inquiry to the
CBC Local Plan had called for in 1993. There was no response from
either Council.
In 2001
TBC put in a proposal for 360 houses on the Tewkesbury
part of the Green Land , as part of their Local Plan.
In 2002
LEGLAG objected to this proposal at the Inquiry.
In 2003
The Inspector to the Inquiry to the Tewkesbury. Local
Plan supported LEGLAG's objection to building on the Green Land,
and suggested using land at Longford instead.
In 2007
After a series of changes of mind, TBC produced a
Local Plan including the site that was part of the Green Land,
but with the proviso (insisted upon by GOSW at the request of
LEGLAG) that development here should be consistent with the SWRSS
and also that Cheltenham and Tewkesbury should work together on
plans to develop the Green Land.
In 2008
The Draft RSS for the SW included an urban extension
of 1,300 dwellings to the S of Cheltenham, but insisted that the
two Borough Councils (Cheltenham and Tewkesbury) should work together
in planning it.
In 2008
The Inspector to an Inquiry to an Application to
build 350 houses on the Green Land in Tewkesbury agreed with LEGLAG
that the application was premature, because the conditions laid
down by GOSW were not fulfilled.
CONCLUSIONS
The effects of the South West Regional Spatial Strategy
on the planning History of the "Leckhampton Green Land"
have cancelled each other out. On the one hand, the consequence
of the very (we would say ridiculously) high overall housing target
was to make it inevitable that almost every scrap of developable
land would be put into the 20-year plan; but on the other hand,
the insistence on good joined-up planning has forced a delay in
getting approval that now looks likely to scupper the developers
plans for the forseeable future, because the new localism pronciple,
combined with the high level of community feeling about this land,
will stop any immediate danger of development here. In the longer
term Country Park status for the land will be sought.
We therefore support the memorandum submitted on
behalf of "Save The Countryside" because we believe
that, despite its good intentions, the South West Regional Strategy
took insufficient notice of local conditions and would—if
it had not been revoked—have eventually forced undesired
and undesirable development on land that is much valued by our
local community as it is.
September 2010
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