Meeting documents

Appx 4

Statement by Simon Petter of Greenway Lane Area Residents' Forum to Council Executive 06-Sep-06.

I represent the Greenway Lane Area Residents' Forum, a residents' association in the south of Bath which has around 200 members and supporters, and of which I am an officer. We are neighbours of Beechen Cliff School, and we have been dismayed by the school's attempts to dispose of a significant part of its playing fields, which we believe to be in the interest neither of the neighbourhood nor of the school. We wish to support the officers' report to the Executive in two important respects.

Firstly, we support the proposal that the Council should proceed to formal adoption of the Local Plan, subject to such modifications as seem fit. We agree with the implication of the report that if the Plan is not adopted there will be no firm planning base, and developers will be able to drive a coach and horses through the Council's scrupulous efforts over many years to protect both the World Heritage City of Bath and the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

However, our main concern is the present report's recommendation to reject the Inspector's proposal to reallocate the Beechen Cliff School playing fields for housing development. We approve this rejection unreservedly, along with the supporting arguments made in the officers' report. As it says, the traffic levels on Greenway Lane are already well over the levels acceptable to traffic professionals, and the consequences of such development would be contrary to the basic principles of town and country planning, causing accidents, pollution and nuisance to local residents, and delay and congestion to the travelling public. Moreover, the substantial engineering operations which development would involve would destroy the character of this part of the conservation area.

We would add one further key point which the officers' report has not covered. This is the question of the school's own need for the playing fields. The Inspector was impressed by the fact that they had received permission from the DFES to dispose of the land. But she did not take into account that OFSTED had already reported that the playing fields as they stood were too small for the school, and that the DFES tightened their own criteria for such disposals only months after granting permission. We have no doubt that if DFES were to consider an application now they would refuse it.

There are other sound planning reasons for rejecting this site for development. Some, such as the effect on the setting of the listed Devonshire Buildings, or the needs of local people for recreational space, were not taken into account by the Inspector at all. Others, such as the effect on wildlife, or on the footpath network, were taken into account, but accorded insufficient weight.

However, I will not elaborate. I represent a local community which is united in opposition to this proposal, not on NIMBY grounds, but because we have examined it in detail and know what serious damage it would do both to the amenity of the local area and to the effectiveness of our local school. We ask the Executive to uphold the officers' report and reject the re-allocation of this land.