THE
Minutes
of the Meeting held in the Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House,
Present Mrs T Villiers MP, President
Mr R Smith, Vice-President (Potters Bar Society)
Mr T Simpson, Chairman (Elstree &
Borehamwood G B Soc.)
Mr L Holt (Secretary) (Chislehurst
Society)
Mr S Smith, Treasurer (
Mrs G Oliver, Assistant Secretary (
|
Mr R Liffen,
Carshalton-on-the-Hill Residents Association Mrs J Habib, Chiltern
Society Mr C Hancock, CPRE Mr M Hope, Croydon Society Mr G Myers, Croydon Society Mr P Jeffryes, Denham
Parish Council Mr P Barker, Mr R Atkinson, Elstree
& Borehamwood G B Society Mr A Walker, Epping Society Mr D Favre, Epping Society Mr L Bull, Friern Barnet & Whetstone Residents
Assoc. Mr H Bitten, Friends of Mrs A Swinson, Hatch End
Association |
Mr D Price, Hatch End
Association Mr H Davidson, Headstone
Residents Mr P Daymond, Ickenham
Residents Association Mr C Hoptroff, Leighton
Buzzard Society Miss M Dewing, Mill Hill
Preservation Society Mr R Parsons, Mr C Beney, Open Spaces
Society Mr G Butler, Ramblers
Association, Mr P Rogers, Sevenoaks
Society Miss C Pudsey, Mr G Quantock, Mr G Belsman, Stanmore
Society Mr K St Pier, Tewin Society |
Apologies for Absence Brindles Wood
Residents Association, CPRE Surrey, Kent Federation of Amenity Societies, Oak
Farm Residents Association, Old Coulsdon Residents Association, Pembury
Society, Pinner Association,
Matters arising from previous minutes
265(1)
347(4) Sale
of field strips in Green Belt The
Chairman said that sale of Green Belt land in small plots was stiil an issue in
his area. The President said she would
consult Oliver Heald MP for an update on the progress of his campaign on the
subject. Mrs Oliver said that she had been told by Mr Maurice that a stall at
the Ideal Home Exhibition selling plots had been shut down by the DTI for
misrepresenting the situation. Mr
Daymond said that it had emerged that a field near Ickenham, leased by a farmer
from a bank, had been in divided ownership for 20 – 30 years. He added that in another case, an Article 4
direction had effectively prevented division.
Miss Pudsey had responded to an advertisement, expressing interest in a
land bank scheme. In this case, plots
were not fenced off individually; instead investors acquired shares in the
whole property.
353 50th
Birthday celebrations The Chairman
will liaise with Mrs Habib and Mr Liffen.
355(4) Green
Arcs The statement in AGM
minutes, that Mr Bitten’s worries about the Green Arcs appear to have been
unnecessary, overstated the case. He
still had concerns that promotion of the Green Arcs would draw attention from
the serious incursions into Green Belt proposed to the north-east of
It
was noted that, to add to possible confusion, there were, in different planning
contexts, Green grids and Green chains.
Mr Myers observed that these designations crossed boundaries between
local authorities and would avoid some of the anomalies that can arise on
boundaries with Green Belt which is defined by individual authorities.
Members
were not able to respond to the Secretary’s query on how Green Arcs were being
treated in the new Local Development Frameworks. He added that as far as Green Belt is
concerned, authorities seemed frequently to take over wording from the
preceding plan. This should not present
a problem.
363(2) East
of England Plan The Examination in
Public of the draft Plan has been going on over the winter. Mrs Oliver attended on the day the Green Belt
was dealt with. It was a long day and
the Green Belt came near the end. There was not a lot of discussion but the
point did come across that if Green Belt was lost and other land designated in
its place, the land designated had to have an appropriate relationship to the
land lost. Mrs Habib wondered whether the water shortage in the south east had
been referred to. The President said
this was one of the bases on which she had objected to the Government’s housing
proposals.
Item 367
Treasurer’s report The Treasurer said that about
two-thirds of the subscriptions had come in and he would follow up the
rest. Membership stands at 126, a little
lower than in previous years; seven names were removed for non-payment at the
end of 2004 and two new members have joined.
At the beginning of the year the funds stood at £7,810 and are now
£7,979. Expenses paid amounted to £860,
including £320 for the hire of The Abbey Community Centre for the AGM.
Item
368 President’s Report The
President congratulated LGBC on its work and said that she strongly supported
the Green Belt. She wanted the focus to
be on redeveloping previously developed sites and reforming the planning system
to ensure more local participation in decisions. She wanted to reduce the number of empty
houses and do more for first time buyers by promoting shared ownership. Nothing that George Osborne had said should
be construed as weakening her party’s support for the Green Belt.
Item
369 Appointments
1. Vice Chairman
The Chairman
stressed the need to elect a Vice-Chairman.
He invited anyone who would consider taking on the job to contact him
(020 8953 3421 or Simpages@hotmail.com)
2. Assistant Secretary Mr Quantock was appointed
as Assistant Secretary to cover the
3. Education Liaison Officer The
Chairman introduced Mr Bob Atkinson of the Elstree & Borehamwood Green Belt
Society. Mr Atkinson explained that his
Society had been concerned by its aging membership and that fact that people
only became aware of Green Belt issues when a particular development threatened
them – by which time it was too late to do anything about it. They had decided to approach schools to see
whether they could get pupils interested young.
They have three schools involved, two with year six pupils and the other
with the whole primary school. The local
Rotary Club have given their support and will donate a prize for the best
school project. It was hoped to produce
a Powerpoint package on CD for all schools to take advantage of. The Chairman proposed that Mr Atkinson be
appointed LGBC’s Education Liaison Officer and this was agreed. Members can contact Mr Atkinson at
ackyboy@fsmail.net .
Item 370
Barker Review of Housing Provision The Chairman referred to the current
reconsideration of Kate Barker’s Review and said that one problem was that
there are some 800,000 empty houses and requested members to lobby their MPs
about it. He thought the Housing
Associations were not sufficiently accountable on the issue Mrs Habib added
that the Government set rents on Council Houses at levels which did not allow
Councils to maintain them properly. The
President said that she wanted to see more control for local councils. Mr Butler considered that another factor
contributing to overcrowding in the South east was that immigrants all wanted
to locate there rather than spreading out all over the country.
Item 371
Officers’ reports on new business since the last meeting
1.
The Chairman reported that
it had been a busy period and thanked the Vice President, Secretary and Mr
Hoptroff for their assistance. The Chairman said that thanks were also due to CPRE
who had attended throughout the Examination in Public of the draft Plan and
circulated reports.
2. The Chairman said that the LGBC website was difficult
to find using search engines. At present
it is part of the North Mymms District Green Belt Society website and he felt it would be
better if we had our own site. Mr Beney
agreed. He offered to help set one up if
someone was prepared to commit the time to maintaining it. Mr Hoptroff observed that LGBC did have its
own domain name (www.londongreenbeltcouncil.org.uk)
and was not convinced that having a separate site would make LGBC any more
visible to search engines. He suggested
that members should include a reference to the LGBC website address on their
websites. They can also be included
their website’s address on a part of the LGBC site containing links to members’
websites. At present this is seriously
underpopulated. With more cross
referencing, search engines would give the LGBC and members’ sites more prominence.
3.
The Secretary said that it had been a relatively quite period for
him. He had
(i)
objected to a application for residential/travellers accommodation at
(ii)
objected to a rail freight interchange application at
(iii)
responded to questionnaires etc. relating to Framework Papers from a
number of Councils
(iv)
corresponded with Thurrock Development Corporation about various
developments.
4.
The Vice-President drew attention to an article by Graeme Bell,
Vice-Chairman of the Town and Country Planning Association in the RTPI magazine
‘Planning’ on 24 March, arguing, yet again, that Green Belts are outdated and
should be replaced by some other policy. [I undertook at the meeting to précis
the article in these minutes but have found in practice that it is impossible
to do so – underlining the fact that it has no coherent argument; just a series
of non-sequiturs based on unsubstantiated assertions. - C.H.] The Chairman said he would write to Planning
with a rebuttal. The Magazine’s address
for correspondence is
5.
Mrs Oliver reported that outline permission had been given for a new
hospital building and housing at the
Item 372 Other
matters raised by members
1.
Mr Liffen sought
clarification of how to respond to consultation papers on behalf of LGBC where
questionnaires were provided which seemed inappropriate, for example where LGBC
considered the assumptions or whole philosophy behind a question were
wrong. The Secretary said that it would
be obvious from our title that the focus of our interest was the Green Belt and
it was appropriate to make the relevant points.
It was agreed that a questionnaire must not be allowed to be a
straitjacket; if the view we wish to express does not fit into the questions
then appropriate text should be added.
2.
Mr Liffen
reported that, on a recent appeal, the local Residents Association had wished to
make points backed by the UDP but the inspector stopped them on the grounds
that the UDP had been superseded by the Mayor of London’s Plan. Other decisions had now shown this to be a
wrong approach and the Association was asking the Deputy Prime Minister to
overrule the inspector’s decision.
3.
Following a
discussion between the Secretary and Mr Liffen about who was to look after
cases arising in
4.
Mrs Swinson
reported that there is concern that the RAF is intending to sell Bentley Priory
to developers. The site is of importance
in the history of the Battle of Britain and the Chairman considered that it
should be dedicated to the memory of “The Few”.
5.
Miss Pudsey said
that there were proposals for a rail freight interchange at Radlett Aerodrome
providing some 3000 jobs. There were
concerns about the traffic implications in the surrounding area. The Secretary asked whether the site was
designated as a Major Developed Site in the Local Plan. Miss Pudsey thought not (the current Local
Plan is unusually long in the tooth).
She thought the site was designated for recreation.
THE DATE OF THE NEXT MEETING It is
intended to hold the next meeting in July 2006.
The date will be announced in due course.
N.B. Don’t forget to
lobby your MP to get Bentley Priory preserved as a memorial to The Few.