Testun llawn:
As a resident in the heart of the proposed development area i would like to go on record as to opposing the current consultation due to the following reasons:
Lack of disclosure and communication
In relation to the initial consultation of the proposed development of Kingswood/ Lapworth the manner in informing residents of Lapworth was not carried out in a open fashion. It was only during a conversation with a neighbour after the effect that we found out about the planned development in our village. We are led to believe that notices were put on the village notice boards but as I do not frequent these on regular basis I was not informed. I am surprise that an important topic of proposing to increase our village size by more than 25% could not be communicated in a more open fashion or through a bin hanger as all residents are informed of refuse collection changes in this manner.
Subsequently, I have regularly attended both the parish council meetings and the drop in centre that was held in the village hall and every time the topic comes up there has not been a consistent message or approach that the Council is taking in carrying out the consultation period. At the "drop in" centre we met with the planning officer from the council who was displaying a list of the proposed sites for development and a map showing the proposed sites under consideration. We were informed although the sites were listed they were not defined as some of the site owners had not been approached. How are residents supposed to made a judgement on information that is neither defined or qualitative. On requesting more information as the map was no bigger than A5 in size all those present we were asked by a planning officer to provide our email addresses on a piece of paper and he would send us all the information within 24 hours. As of the parish council meeting on the 8 July 2013 this information was not provided. I expressed my concerns to Councillor Caborn who was going to take this up with the planning officers and subsequently we have only been provided with the newer version of the information on the 19 July 2013 which has only provided all residents with 10 Days before the end of the consultation period to review it's contents.
I respectfully request that the consultation period be put on hold until full disclosure of the process and information is provided to the residents of Lapworth so that we are consulted rather than dictated to and kept in the dark.
Classification of Village Status
As expressed above I am not as informed as I feel I should be on the matter, however I am to believe that the village has been classified as a primary village which originally we were informed we were being allocated 80-100 houses. I am now being informed that this could increase to 150 dwellings of which 40 % being cost affordable housing.
We are informed by Councillor Caborn that the initial allocation was based on school, shop, railway station and post office. On paper that might be factual however I am informed that the school would not be able to sustain a increase to this proposed level. The shop has limited parking outside with a proposal for double yellow lines on one side of the road which will limit further parking. The railway station is not considered as a mainline usual stop and I personally travel to Dorridge to commute to London on a weekly basis. Lastly the post office, I have recently been informed that the wine merchant that houses the post office is up for sale and reliably informed that limited interest in the business could result in the post office closing. In addition the village does not have full services as mainline gas is not present in all parts of the village.
Given the above I would encourage the Council to operate on hard facts rather than paper facts when considering classification.