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Chalfontonian
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 June 2010 at 11:39am
Originally posted by Flyboy Flyboy wrote:

No they are not. As you have stated the Secretary of State has said they are turning the decisions over to the local councils. The Chiltern District Council have decided to continue with their plan. How is that "going against the wishes of central Government?" That is not arrogance at all, it is good governance. How many local residents have had their wishes gone against, is it the majority of local residents.
It seems to me that now the government aren't forcing housing quotas on local councils and, whilst the majority of C.S.P. residents don't want a new housing development in the centre of the village, that maybe C.D.C. should finally take action and stop the Holy Cross over-development.

Incidentally, I use the term 'majority' as it is fairly clear that there are more people against this development than are supporting it. From my experience, most of the support comes from either a grudging acceptance that something will inevitably be built and that we'd better try to manage it as best we can, along with a few people who are going to make money from it.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 June 2010 at 1:03pm
But, despite the insistence of this unelected body, there is no verifiable account of how many approve or disapprove. The results of the "survey" are inconclusive and unaudited. There is no clear majority and the data has not been independently verified. It is a little like the argument about who "won," or "lost," the General Election.
 
The people that I speak to are more worried about their children's futures and what their prospects are, when they grow up. This includes the issues of housing. Most people don't want to see their families broken up, because some anonymous, arrogant NIMBYs don't want them living in the village.
 
I know several single parents, unemployed people and some who struggle with a mental illness; some are all of these. They find it disgusting that they are being held up by SENSE, as an example of what is most undesirable about society and that they are being used to prove why a housing development scheme is a bad idea. I have friends who also find it as abhorrent that it is being assumed that they would somehow object to foreigners, the unemployed, victims of mental illness and single parents families living in the village. The people I know who live in social housing also resent being accused of being low life, workshy drug users, vandals and criminals. The vast majority of whom are hard working, law abiding citizens, who respect  their environment and regard the village with pride.
 
These self-appointed guardians of, "our way of life," have decided for you, me and the rest of the village, that we should object to this development on the most tenuous and bigoted grounds and are assuming the we, the rest of the village, are as bad as they are.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 June 2010 at 2:49pm
So, a survey by the Parish Council, conducted by an independent body results in "inconclusive" data? Pffft.

http://www.sense4csp.org/files/CSP%20presentation.ppt

Links have been provided where you have asked for them, yet you don't appear to have bothered to read them.

The building of houses in a village of 13,000 people will not provide homes for all the children of the village in the future. People will have to move away - that's just life. There is no right to live in the village; if you can afford to, great, if you can't you move to somewhere you can afford.




Edited by DanW - 30 June 2010 at 2:59pm
I used to be with it. But then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems scary and weird.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 June 2010 at 3:06pm
Why would the Parish Council conduct a biased survey? The questions were all there for everyone to read, the data was processed in the correct manner by a professional body. None of CDC surveys are scrutinised by any other bodies, so why the suspicion over our village's survey? Is it so painful to realise that the majority of the village would rather see a school than 600 houses, does that sound so hard to believe? I believe that is the normal reaction of a village under pressure to expand. Nobody likes change, it is inevitable, but we are doing our best to control it, it is not constructive to have an argumentative misinformed individual smearing our good name when we are working so hard to save our environment.

And yes indeed it is life, people live in this area because they have worked very hard to create a comfortable existence for their families, some bitter and jealous people would sooner see this environment ruined to appease their anger towards people who have bettered themselves, fortunately we only appear to have one of these people in our village.

Even if we concreted all over Gold Hill Common, Austenwood Common and all of the other green spaces in CSP, we would still not create enough dwellings to house all of the people who want to live here.

Thank you Dan. Smile


Edited by SENSE - 01 July 2010 at 12:56am
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 July 2010 at 1:33am
The Parish council members have a vested interest, seeing as many of your members have a connection, either with the PC or those who are members of that council. As far as I was aware the village is not in dire need of a school, but is need of additional housing. On the one hand, you espouse the fact that these houses will not satisfy the housing needs of the people of Chalfont Saint Peter in the long term, but then on the other, you say that the amount of affordable housing planned for, is twice of what is needed. How do you come up with figures like these?
 
Again you fire insults and disdain at the good people of this community, by calling them embittered and jealous. You suggest they have not worked hard to maintain their families' place in society and by implication that they are lazy and ungrateful for their lot. When will you get it that you and your members do not have grasp on reality, when it comes to understanding the real needs of this village. By suggesting that there is only one person who objects to your campaign, only serves to prove that you are not listening to those whom you seem to detest so much.
 
 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 July 2010 at 8:49am
Hello Flyboy...

You've written about people of this community that aren't being represented but I have never heard anyone support the development other than you.

SENSE has been good enough to supply data and back it up, as well as having a demonstrably high support for his work by a great many people in the community.

I believe that it is you who needs to back up your arguments now. You need to prove that you actually represent some group of oppressed Chalfontonians.

I totally respect that there is a counterpoint to this argument but until you've proven that you have some support within the community it's difficult to take it seriously.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 July 2010 at 12:10pm
Then I suspect that you don't mix in the same circles as I do. Perhaps I ask people different questions, perhaps more relevant ones than SENSE do.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 July 2010 at 2:43pm
Holy Cross: some success, but work still to be done


Overview:
As you may have heard, a new revised planning application has been submitted for the Holy Cross site at the heart of our village.  With your help, we have had some success in getting the number of proposed houses reduced considerably, and the new plan also retains the playing field for public use and keeps more of the trees.
 
Please see application no. CH/2010/0293/OA on the CDC planning portal to view all of the details.
 
However, we are seriously concerned that the new plan does not in any way satisfy the views of residents as expressed clearly in the village survey.  There are still far too may new houses and flats proposed, at too high a density, and being an outline application, the plan leaves a way clear for increasing the volumes further after 'approval'.

We must continue to object because we need a full application - which would fix the number and type of new dwellings - and not an outline application. We must also object to the three accesses they propose since they have not been properly researched and do not take proper account of the considerably increased traffic volumes, and the principle of any development on the site until CDC and Gerald Eve make clear attempts to fulfil the requests of our village.
 
 
Some of the key details:

-       The dwelling quantities have been reduced by 34 units - not enough in our view and densities are still too high in comparison to the surrounding properties. It's still a village within a village and would fundamentally affect the amenity of Chalfont St Peter, putting unsustainable pressure on our services, and local facilities.
 
-       Loss of The Grange Manor.  Considering their detailed intentions, irrelevant though they may be, they really have done little to appease the village. They have offered us the chapel as a token gesture, a step in the right direction maybe, though the Grange Manor is a more significant building which holds more local historic interest, they can save the chapel for the community, but this would have to be in addition to the Grange. We would not want to lose the historic Grange manor in preference to the salvation of a chapel.
 
-       Unfair distribution. We continue to question why our village is being used as a housing dump for the Chiltern District: Great Missenden, Heath End and Prestwood are receiving no strategic development sites which would result in low cost housing, despite occupying a larger area and having a similar population to CSP. Great Missenden also has a good quality train link to London when we have no such transport links. CDC has still not undertaken an evidence based sustainability study of the towns and villages in the District as is the requirement of the Local Development plan. The reason CDC have not done this is because its favoured site for large scale developments - our village - would score very low on the sustainability scale effectively prohibiting developments of this scale here. We must insist that this evidence based study is performed to our satisfaction.
 
-       School land swap. Since this is the strong preference expressed by residents in the village survey, our main focus has always been to encourage a land swap deal with the middle school. This still has not been considered, despite all manner of pleas and requests from villagers, parents, the diocese, teachers and governors.  However, there are on-going negotiations under way to try to influence the planners in this direction.
 
-       Facilities for the elderly. The new plans include a care home with 74 beds.There is no hard evidence for the need for a care home in the village.However, the village survey did indicate a need for extra care housing, a half-way house between independent living and nursing/care homes.
 
We must therefore continue to object most strongly, and we urge you to help by recording your own objections.
 
 
How to object:
 
Please see the following bullet points which you can consider for use in your own objection letters.
 
• Policy: Saved policies CSF2 which stipulates retention of community facilities (schools) and R10 which stipulates retention of open spaces have both been ignored. Despite CDC's and Gerald Eve's attempts to override the saved policies, there are no alternative policies that have superseded these saved policies.

• An outline planning application is not suitable for such a large site. Developers will ultimately attempt to increase numbers once the principle for residential development has been approved, we need the application to be a 'full' application, listing all the details exactly as proposed ensuring that the deal that we agree to do is the deal that we get and not another long battle with a greedy developers and their legal team.

• Access: The proposed new entrance at the top of Market Place is very dangerously located next to an already hazardous junction and is unsuitably sited.

• Traffic: The build out on Lower Road is still wholly unsuitable for such a busy road, the traffic along this section is already problematic with cars and trucks not being able to pass each other. The prospect of a build out which further narrows the road is a ridiculous proposal.

• School: Prefer to have a school on the site, one with improved facilities for our kids, since the existing schools are over-crowded and lack basic amenities.

• The wishes of the village's residents as outlined in the village survey have still not been taken into account. We voted for less houses, lower densities and favoured a land swap deal with the middle school which have all been completely ignored. Both the previous Labour administration and our new Secretary of State's instruction specified that local opinion be built in to any local planning schemes, yet we have experienced nothing but stonewalling. We have had an almighty battle to even get a handful of our local District Councillors to meet with ourselves and the Parish Council's planning consultant.  As our elected representatives, they are all obliged to hear and consider our opinions, this still has not happened. There is no legal or ethical reason why they should not do so.

• Still too many houses.

• Still too high a density.

• Grange Manor: There is a strong feeling that the historic old Grange Manor building should be saved, yet Gerald Eve still have not considered this.

• Care home: We don't want or need a care home. The village survey had a majority request for sheltered accommodation for a more dignified lifestyle for our seniors.
 
Please post your letters to:
 
Planning Department
Chiltern District Council,
King George V Road,
Amersham,
Buckinghamshire.
HP6 5AW
 
Or e-mail to:
planning@chiltern.gov.uk
 
Please ensure that you receive a reply, if you do not it is likely that your details have been ignored or lost and it is important that you call to ensure safe receipt.
 
NB: It says on the letter and Chiltern District Council's website that they will publish your correspondence and personal information on the website. Whilst CDC insist that they must publish your name and address, there is no reason why they need to publish you e-mail, phone number or signature, therefore we advise that you ask that this information should not be published. They are required by law to remove this text before uploading to their website.
 
Thank you for your continued support.

With kind regards
 
 
SENSE4CSP

www.sense4csp.org
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Chalfontonian
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 July 2010 at 10:21am
Originally posted by Flyboy Flyboy wrote:

Then I suspect that you don't mix in the same circles as I do.
OK, fair point, but you still haven't demonstrated who supports your view.

I believe you are nothing but a lone voice on this one.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 July 2010 at 12:48pm
Originally posted by Flyboy Flyboy wrote:

 
The people that I speak to are more worried about their children's futures and what their prospects are, when they grow up. This includes the issues of housing. Most people don't want to see their families broken up, because some anonymous, arrogant NIMBYs don't want them living in the village.
 
The problem of course is that the more people coming into the village, the more will want their children to grow up here. And so it goes on, building on more and more areas and squeezing people in, usually without increasing the infrastructure of Doctors, Dentists, Schools and so forth, which do not give the developers as much return on their investment. I know from the experiences of another village not too far away, how this crowding of housing lifts the tension and sets neighbour against neighbour as dogs barking, children playing and cars being parked on streets not wide enough become major issues.
 
The best solution is the shared ownership scheme in the village, which was aimed at local people and created a number of low cost accomodation. Although the downturn in the economy hasn't helped, there should be a point where these people move on to a small house, larger house and eventually one of the big detached houses, each in turn freeing up a sliding scale of available housing.  Along with that, there are a number of flats for sale which can get people on the ladder.  This is then a natural development of movement up the housing ladder at a pace which doesn't damage the village.
 
To dump high intensity housing which brings thousands of people from outside will damage the village and do nothing to help the young of the village.
 
 
 
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