Like this:

Yesterday I attended the Planning Policy Advisory Panel. I do not usually attend this meeting but wanted to do so on this occasion. This was because they were to debate a vital piece of work that will be very significant to the St Austell area.

The policy was entitled -

Eco Communities Vision Statement/ St Austell, China Clay and St Blazey Regeneration Action Plan.

I won’t bore you with all the details now, if you want to know more you can view it here http://democracy.cornwall.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=663&MId=2769&Ver=4

The key element for me was to establish a policy for St Austell and the surrounding area that means that any applications for development that come forward will have to meet certain criteria. These are:

To deliver the Community Strategy’s vision for Cornwall in the St Austell, China Clay and St Blazey Regeneration Action area development must demonstrate it;

• Is transformational regeneration of the area:
• of a large enough scale to bring about significant change.
• achieving the highest environmental standards and quality of design.
• raising communities’ aspirations and behaviour change.
• maximising the number of trips by non-car means.
• Delivers new jobs and economic growth at a minimum of 1 job per house;
• Delivers infrastructure that meets the needs of existing and proposed communities, including affordable housing;
• Delivers development that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable;
• Productively reuses previously developed or despoiled land;
• Safeguards critical minerals reserve;
• Maximise the opportunities to connect communities to the coast.

Basically this means that if this policy is adopted, any planning applications in the future will have to meet these standards before they will be considered.

Throughout all of my lifetime St Austell has suffered from development that has almost exclusively been about housing and little else. As a result the East part of the town is one of the most densely populated parts of Cornwall, yet we do not have the roads, jobs or community facilities to cope. Developers have been able to get away for too long with just building more and more houses without investing for the benefit of the people who will live there.

I was allowed to speak on behalf of St Austell and urged the panel to support this policy, however, I was quite disappointed that some local councilors where less than enthusiastic about this policy and at one point seemed to be arguing against it. But I am very happy to say that in the end the panel voted to recommend the policy to the Cabinet for adoption. This will now hopefully happen in January.

Clearly the background to this policy is the Eco-Town. But it does not mean the Eco-Town developments will automatically happen as each application for the numerous sites will have to be determined on their own merits. But what it does mean is that once in place we can put an end the endless building of houses without the investment in jobs, infrastructure improvements and facilities that we so desperately need. And that has to be good news!

Advertisement