New Planning Application

OK, we've now had the opportunity to study the new application in more detail.  Here is the gist of it.

The decision to approve the last application was granted subject to a number of conditions being met one of which required the owners to submit full details of road construction, street lighting and drainage and that these should be acceptable to the Local Planning Authority.

The key point is that this should be done BEFORE THE PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT COMMENCES. The owners now want to change the wording so that they don't have to do this until PRIOR TO BUILDING THE FIRST DWELLING.

As with most of the proposals concerning with this project, this application gives us cause for concern.  It means, for example, that the owners could undertake all manner of construction/ deconstruction activities without having acceptable plans in place for road construction, street lighting and drainage.  And who knows how long it would take for them to get around to actually building the first property.  Given their track record so far, it could take some years.

For your convenience, we've attached the relevant documentation:  letter from SBC in case you haven't seen it and a copy of the relevant part of the original decision notice which SBC omitted to enclose with their covering letter.

The section in question is paragraph 19.  They want to change the wording from "Before the proposed development commences" to "Prior to the erection of the first dwelling".

Some good news.  The Parish Council has already discussed the matter and sent in an objection on the grounds that the original wording is the best way of ensuring that the correct work is undertaken.

Closing date for comments is 11th November and you can do it online at www.staffordbc.gov.uk/planning or by letter to:

Mr A. Lynch
Planning Services
Stafford Borough Council
Civic Centre
Riverside
Stafford
ST16 3AQ

Don't forget to mention the planning application reference, 11/16147/FUL

Here We Go One More Time

It had to come and now it has: another planning application.  We have just received notification of it but have not yet checked out the details.  More of that in a later post.  For now, if you want to take a look at it, the application reference is 11/16147/FUL.

View online at the usual site www.staffordbc.gov.uk/ planning but we've had problems with this tonight so you might have to try www.staffordbc.gov.uk and navigate to the planning portal from there.

New Local Plan

Not really a G&D issue, this, but one which might have similar implications for the future.  You may know from the Parish Newsletter about the draft Local Development Framework which is currently out for review.

If you want to find out what they have in store for us, it might be a good idea to take a look at it!  There's some more about it on the Voice of Rough Close website.  We'd sooner restrict The Blog to G&D matters so click here to access relevant web page.

It's Official

We've now had a letter from SBC giving us the official line on the confirmation of the TPO.  Here are some extracts from what they said.

"The trees ... are visually prominent ... and contribute to the overall treescape ... [and] have a high public amenity value."

Other trees " contribute to the treescape in the street scene."

"The trees in the woodland area ... are valuable as a wildlife habitat and will have an increasing amenity value after the development of the site."

So there you have it, folks, and hopefully that's the end of this particular saga but we doubt it's the last we're going to hear about the site and its development.