The Public Hearing

The public hearings on the Stroud District Plan, in front of the inspector, concluded in the second week of June. The SPA team performed well and now we have to await the Inspectors decisions. He will obviously make recommendations for improvements to the plan. How significant these are remains to be seen.

The settlement in Eastington

The   ‘West   of   Stonehouse’   (WoS)   settlement   in Eastington of 1,350 houses has yet to be determined; the decisions have not been taken, and will not be taken for some weeks   yet.   

The   Inspector   has determined the housing need for the next 17 years to be 11,400. This is 200 higher than that proposed by Stroud District Council (SDC). This does not have any material impact on the plan as the additional houses are  easily  accommodated  within  the  flexibilities contained within the plan. This now secures the ‘five-­year-­Land-­Supply’  and  so will  make planning applications much easier to be refused by SDC on appropriate grounds. This is very positive news.

New Consultation

SDC will shortly go out for another round of consultation on these new numbers. It would appear extremely unlikely that these will be changed. We had one more opportunity to make representation at the beginning of July. Our final submission is on the SPA website for those wishing to read more (see: the website below). The Local Plan is likely to be signed-­off in October or early November.

Bath Road Planning Appeal

The Parish won this appeal. (See Tom Low’s report) The reasons for the appeal being dismissed are very interesting, but a key one was the need to secure the separation of the Hamlets, a very helpful decision, which will support us as we oppose other wholly inappropriate planning applications into the future.

 Congratulations to the many dozens of people who contributed to this decision including to Ian Stuart, the parish’s retained planning adviser, who prepared the Parish Council’s submission.

Forest Green Rovers

Many of you will have read in the press that a planning application has been prepared for a new stadium for FGR, along with a business park for 4,000 jobs on a one hundred acre site either side of the A419 between the ‘Little Chef’ roundabout and the motorway.

This application demonstrates just how much the parish is threatened. This, with the WoS scheme, will generate up to 18,000 more vehicle journeys each day on the A 419, with the associated increase though the rat-­run via Alkerton as people attempt to avoid congestion. Stroud Town will become almost inaccessible for large parts of the day and journeys to the secondary schools will take much longer. The centre of the district will start to move away from Stroud and towards this growing conurbation with further developments encouraged towards the Claypits and Whitminster.

Mr. Dale Vince will have received much encouragement for him to spend so much on a planning application, If approved this development will create a six mile urban sprawl from the motorway all the way to Stroud, almost closing this “gateway to the Cotswolds”. This is despite this site not being part of the Local Plan. We should not underestimate the risk of this plan being approved.

Residents in Westend and Chipmans Platt are organising opposition to this application and they will, I am sure, welcome all the help they can get

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