The fate of dozens of acres of green fields surrounding our village now lies in the hands of the Government following last month’s submission by Rushcliffe Borough Council (RBC) of its draft Local Plan Part 2 to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
The Ruddington Green Belt sites earmarked by RBC for housing development were decided upon after years of consultations with residents, businesses and other organisations involving both the Borough Council and Ruddington Parish Council. The end result was a proposed allocation of 350 new homes over three sites – 100 more than originally mooted – shown on the map below (in blue). However, even BEFORE the plan was submitted to the Government’s Planning Inspectorate, RBC’s rejection of a fourth site for 175 homes off Asher Lane (not included in their final plan) was unexpectedly overturned by Chief Planning Inspector Nick Fagan after a successful appeal by the landowners. With this fourth site (shown in red) now included, and already approved, the spectre of 525 green belt houses having to be accommodated in our village loomed large. At current occupancy rates that’s around 1,200 new residents (and their cars) being added into the equation!
Councillor Roger Upton, Portfolio Holder for Housing & Planning at RBC, then told RUDDINGTON.info: “The issue of whether this has any impact on the proposed new housing sites for Ruddington will need to be discussed.” Despite this, RBC decided NOT to remove any of the previously allocated housing from the plan before submitting it. This has led to claims by residents and village campaign groups such as Ruddington Action Group (RAG), Ruddington Community Association (RCA) and Protect Ruddington that their views and concerns about the size and location of Green Belt developments in our village have so far been largely disregarded by planning decision makers at all levels – with now just ONE stage left to go.
That stage is the “Examination into the soundness of the Rushcliffe Local Plan Part 2: Land & Planning Policies” and The Secretary of State has just appointed Philip Lewis BA (Hons) MA MRTPI of the Planning Inspectorate to conduct it. The Inspector is said to be “giving thought” to the hearing sessions that will be required during the Examination. It is anticipated that these hearings will be held during late November/early December 2018 and may reconvene in January 2019. Everyone who made representations seeking a change to the Plan at the Publication Draft stage should by now have received a letter from Rushcliffe’s Programme Officer Carole Crookes asking them to confirm whether or not they wish to take part in the hearings and present their case orally. Unfortunately for anyone without this invitation it is now too late to get involved in the process.
Ruddington Parish Council has already responded to the letter to indicate that it wishes to send a representative – and members of the village campaign groups say they will also be keen to attend. Chair of RAG, Mike Ader, told us: “We were hugely disappointed that Rushcliffe Borough Council did not amend its final Local Plan Stage 2 submission regarding the proposed number of houses in Ruddington, in light of the surprising Asher Lane outcome. This Examination gives the village an opportunity to put its case directly to the Inspector, highlighting that if the plan is approved it will be hugely detrimental to Ruddington which is already overly congested and amenities totally stretched………approving 520+ new houses on Green Belt land, in addition to all of the ones expected on ‘Brown Field’, is ill thought through and plainly ridiculous!!”
Ian Wilson of RCA commented: “We welcome this further consultation and hope that the views of the community are taken into full account. The wrong decision on Asher Lane should at least be counted as part of the previously agreed numbers of new houses on the Green Belt. The current position of Rushcliffe Council shows a lack of respect for the community’s views. We look forward to hearing our elected representatives commitment to not increasing yet further the number of new houses on our Green Belt”.
Campaign group Protect Ruddington Tweeted: “Very disappointed our three #Ruddington @Rushcliffe Councillors would not stand up for @RuddingtonPC nor their village constituents by getting RUD01 removed before submission. We’ll now have to rely on @PINSgov realising the unsuitability of this site from accompanying documents.”
The deadline for responding to Rushcliffe’s Programme Officer has been set at Friday 5th October. The hearings will then be exclusively about the three undecided Ruddington Green Belt sites shown below:
We’ll let you know as soon as the dates are confirmed.
{Top aerial image courtesy of Google Maps. Philip Lewis photo by Yves Salmon}
