23rd August 2007

 

 

I wish to respond to one or two of the issues that have been raised in your coverage of the Sports facilities planning application at Eastington

 

Firstly, it might be worth mentioning that the refusal of this application was a unanimous decision by all planning committee Councillors, basically because it contravened the Stroud District Local Plan, that took over five years to prepare and a further year going through a full public inquiry by a Government inspector. Whilst preparing the Local Plan we were directed to look at the sustainability aspect of all our policies. Further, as your correspondent, Terry Barnes rightly points out, it also went against national guidelines for new sports facilities, insofar as they now have to be within urban locations.  Any new location has to have good public transport links for players and supporters, which this site clearly didn’t have.

It was interesting to note that, only two of the letters of support came from residents from Eastington, this however was not surprising as the commercial  “Sports Partnership Ltd” company could have operate on a 24/7 basis on the 27 acre site. Completely changing the rural aspect of Eastington.

 

Councillors do take all planning applications seriously and this was no exception. In this instance, with the great pressure from the sporting fraternity, the easy option would have been to approve this application.  However to have done so would have set a precedent, opening the flood gates to other major applications in the Industrial Heritage Conservation Area, and would make any future application virtually impossible to refuse .

Instead of talking of bankruptcy, it may be worth both the Stroud RFC and the Stroud Squash Club either to reconsider their current venue or look at other potential sites. One of which is in the urban area, not a million miles from Ebley Mill. Possibly the developers profit margin might not be so great there, needing more infrastructure requirements than a greenfield site but may fulfil the wishes of local people who enjoy sport and at the same time cut Co2 emissions.

 

Yours,

 

John Marjoram - District Councillor