Up to 15 minutes are allowed for public participation. Participants are restricted to 3 minutes each.
Minutes:
The Chairman stated that there was one registered speaker under the Public Participation Scheme, Mr Chris Thomas, who was invited to address the Committee as follows:-
“I am here representing the Ryland Residents’ Group which represents a large group of people in Welton. Having been excluded from the Central Lincolnshire Local Plan (CLLP) consultations and ignored during the examination hearings, we have grave concerns regarding the excessive level of development planned for Welton.
With the development in the current plan and the draft plan, Welton will see a growth rate in excess of 50% - 1000 homes. Sharing critical infrastructure with Dunholme, where another 400 homes will be built, there will potentially be 8 sites under construction at the same time. This will be more than any other area in West Lindsey. To cap it all, the site owners have stated that they intend to build out more sites within the next 5 years.
Welton will be one giant building site and there will be nowhere for families who move into these homes to send the children to school. William Farr School is full and there are insufficient primary school places for the developments currently taking place.
There will be no local doctors – the GP surgery is already so overwhelmed that it is considering closing its patients list.
There will not be any green spaces and the sites will become soulless identical housing estates. There will be few parking spaces and yet all of these developments will be dependent on cars. It is a complete mess which you cannot allow to happen.
The CLLP team proposed developments to be phased over the plan period of 20 years. The trajectory is laid down in Appendix 1, Matter 9 of the hearing statement. However this intention has now been torpedoed by the developers who have persuaded Inspectors to remove phasing because the Council’s Prosperous Communities Committee was misadvised and voted against it back in May last year.
We have been assured in writing by the CLLP team that this was overridden by the Joint Committee decision to impose phasing which Inspectors have now supported. I spoke at the Prosperous Communities Committee last night but the Chairman shut down any discussion. Therefore, I would like to know what you are going to do to ensure that these sites are built out over the 20 year period and not crammed in to a short period of time.
This is a matter of great urgency as a final window to make representations on the draft plan closes on 25 February.
We the residents of Welton and Dunholme, whom you represent, demand that you act immediately. Thank you for listening. I am happy to clarify any particular issue.”
In thanking Mr Thomas for his contribution, the Chairman indicated that it was not possible under the Council’s Constitution to discuss any of the points made during the period of public participation. The Chairman stated that he would refer the matter to the Development Management Manager for a full response on behalf of the Council as a whole (given the references to the Prosperous Communities Committee) to be prepared as soon as possible, bearing in mind the deadline for representations on the CLLP mentioned by Mr Thomas.