ONE OF THE MANY LETTERS SENT TO RESIDENTS REGARDING DEVELOPMENT IN HOOK

Dear Mr Webber,

I'm happy to detail the facts with regard to what's happening in Hook with respect to development and not add to the misconceptions that are being spread by certain people.

Yes the District Councils Local Plan was failed by the Government inspector and it's general belief that it was intentional so that more housing can be built as the Local Plan would have capped housing numbers for the next 15 years. 

So what can we do? .....certainly knee jerk reactions will not help the situation and the best way forward is to help the current District Councillors with their work to deal with these difficult times we currently face. Support and not criticism is required!

Thank you for requesting that District Councillors support your concern but we are already ahead dealing with the concerns you have already highlighted. I summarise below:-

1. TRAFFIC

The Highways Authority is the Hampshire County Council and they are a consultee on every planning application. When a planning application comes forward which involves vehicle movement or junction loadings they assess each element of congestion, junction safety and safe vehicle movement and includes pedestrian safety. This analysis determines also the vehicle movements from all roads and all junctions taking into account planning applications already passed. As the Authority it's they who have the final word on statutory Highways policy. As your planning member for Hook I ensure along with fellow Councillors we firstly check that the Highways Authority have covered all aspects of safety and question all decisions made. An example of your Councillors good work is the £1.7m being spent on the Griffin North/A30 roundabout to alleviate the extra vehicle movements which Sainsbury's will bring.

2. SEWERAGE

It's common knowledge that the Crooked Billet sewerage Pumping Station fails when Hook experiences heavy rain fall and Thames Water accept that this problem is due to surface water permeating  into their pipework systems causing the pumps to overload and fail. This results in a Thames Waters "fire fighting" technique sending tankers to empty the pumping station sumps. This is unacceptable and causes flooding problems to residents nearby. So what has been done about this ? Your District Councillors have placed a Grampian Clause, which is a very restrictive condition, on the Sainsbury's, Reading Road and Browncroft's ( and will soon do so to Hop Garden planning application) which ensures no work can proceed unless Thames water resolves the sewerage problems. Thames Water accept they cannot at present accept further loading to their sewerage system and what's required is extensive engineering works.

3. HOUSING NEED

The District Council is currently working very hard on the new Local Plan and so that we can accurately bring forward the correct housing number needs for the District the housing 'need' is being OBJECTIVELY assessed. This analysis looks at the evolving resident growth, the young that are living in parents homes and want to move but not out of the area, older residents that want to move into smaller homes locally and those on the Housing Register waiting for rented dwellings. The retail industry growth in the area is also taken into account along with the growing workforce. This arduous work will produce an accurate objectively assessed housing need for the District. This figure is equality shared around the district and these decisions include the disruptive "Independent" Councillors in Fleet who push as much development away from themselves and towards rural villages. 

The last Local Plan used housing numbers from the now out of date 'South East Plan' (236 houses to be built per year for the next 15 years) but after much of the work for the new local plan had been carried out the numbers appear to be more around 400 houses to be built by Hart each year for the next 15 years.

This will increase the amount of houses being built by everyone in the district. For Hook this will probably mean that the developments in the NE of Hook, Reading Road, Browncroft and Hop Garden will more than likely be part of the new Local Plan and this is one of the reasons why they are so hard to turn down.

Therefore coupled with the Government's progressive National Planning Policy Framework planning policy which favours " Presumption in favour of Sustainable Development" and the probability of new housing numbers being raised to around 400 it's difficult to actively object to granting the current developments. The Local Plan should reach the Draft proposal stage by the end of the year which will give more protection to further development. Therefore if a site is deemed sustainable then it could be developed upon (subject to restrictive conditions)....but if it's not sustainable then It can't.  Sustainability is something I've been challenging Hart with recently and using a test case I have deferred the Reading Road development for some weeks now because of this. There are other subjects that have a restrictive value to any further development which may present itself like the Thames Heath Special Protection Area capping policy Hart is looking at and viability of any development site as 40% of new dwelling built have to be affordable homes.

As you can see planning is a complicated subject and a good deal of experience and knowledge is required to understand the process and manage the way ahead.

I'm sorry this has been a long reply but there is much work being carried out on behalf of all Hooks residents and I wanted to ensure you your worries are being looked at and dealt with the best way possible.

Regards

Mike

Mike Morris BEM

Hart District Councillor

Hook and Rotherwick