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Tuesday 1 August 2017

The limits of neighbourhood planning: how developers can 'outmanoevre'

Budleigh Salterton's neighbourhood plan is progressing very well:
Futures Forum: Neighbourhood Plan >>> in Budleigh Salterton
Budleigh plan referendum - Latest Exmouth News - Exmouth Journal
Neighbourhood Plan - Budleigh Salterton Town Council

There have been one or two hiccoughs, though:

BUDLEIGH NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN GROUP APOLOGISES FOR BEING UNABLE TO SAVE HOSPITAL GARDEN AFTER BEING OUTMANEUVERED BY CLINTON DEVON ESTATES

29 JULY 2017




“A neighbourhood plan focus group has apologised to the Budleigh Salterton community after a bid to save the entire hospital garden from development failed.

The former hospital garden, in Boucher Road, had been listed in the draft neighbourhood plan as one of the key green spaces to be protected from future development. It had also previously been earmarked for health and wellbeing activities for a new hub being built on the site of the former hospital.

In February this year, landowner Clinton Devon Estates (CDE) put in a planning application to build two houses on half of the site, keeping the other half as a public-access garden.

An independent examiner assessing the town’s draft neighbourhood plan requested more information clarifying the importance of the hospital garden. Chartered town planners Bell Cornwell, on behalf of CDE, wrote a letter to the examiner confirming that the planned public access garden would be “more than adequate” for hub activities. One of the examiner’s alterations to the plan, ratified by the district council, was that the area of protected green space in the garden be reduced by half.

Nicola Daniel, on behalf of the Budleigh Neighbourhood Plan Built and Natural Environment Focus Group, has apologised for not being able to secure the whole garden for the town.

In a letter to the Journal (see page 20), she said: “By the time we saw this letter it was too late to challenge it. We were outmanoeuvred. Bell Cornwell was given more weight than the expert knowledge of the medical practitioners involved in setting up the hub, who know the full benefits of having the entire garden as a facility for the health and wellbeing hub and its success.”

In response, a CDE spokesman said: “CDE has for many years supported the NHS in Budleigh Salterton and, more recently, the Budleigh Salterton Hospital League of Friends, by making available the garden area off Boucher Road. We submitted proposals to East Devon District Council which include keeping half the garden, nearest the site of the new health hub, as a garden which would be open to the public for the first time. Our position has not changed since the application was submitted.”


Budleigh Neighbourhood Plan group apologises for being unable to save hospital garden after being outmaneuvered by Clinton Devon Estates | East Devon Watch

With the story now on-line:
Hospital garden neighbourhood plan - Latest Exmouth News - Exmouth Journal

The EDA site has looked into this a little more:
Clinton Devon Estates and Budleigh Salterton “health hub” have an unhealthy relationship | East Devon Watch
The strange case of Clinton Devon Estates and the hospital garden | East Devon Watch

Which casts doubt on the ability a community has to shape itself:
Futures Forum: "Eroding local confidence in neighbourhood planning" and "making a mockery of the efforts of the community to take charge of its own destiny"
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