Testun llawn:
I would expect a 'high level appraisal' to contain accurate facts. With regard to one of the sites mentioned, a neutral rating is given by Enfusion including an assertion that the site is close to a GP Surgery (within 1.5 miles). It is not. The closest GP surgery, is more than twice that distance away (3.3 miles), and a single phone call would confirm that that particular surgery is closed to new patients. The next closest is 4.7 miles away.
A 'high level appraisal' would compare like with like. One site is given a positive rating for travel and transport as there is access to a bus stop. Another site is also given a positive rating for having access to a bus stop. One of those bus stops however is in an overgrown grass verge in a rural location on a dangerous road, with no pavement or street lighting. The other is sited on a far safer road, with a pavement. On the surface they are comparable, but in reality they are far from it.
Having only been involved with looking in detail at one site, I cannot comment on any other inaccuracies that may be contained in the document, but I am not filled with confidence that there are not more basic errors in the report, or that comparisons are uniform across the different sites.
I do appreciate that at this stage the appraisal cannot be more detailed but I would expect 'like' to be compared with 'like' in order to make an informed comment with regard to relevant factors. And I would certainly expect basic facts to be correct.
In my particular area of interest alone, there has already been one lost house sale and a demonstrable loss of future business as a direct result of this small element of the Local Plan. There are also many of those most directly affected whose lives have been thrown into complete chaos by the proposals, and this effect will undoubtedly multiply out across the various proposed sites, whether they are Gypsy and Traveller related or simply with regard to proposed new housing.
Whilst this will always be a predictable consequence of any such report, I would have thought that, given the devastation that is currently being caused in the lives of many local residents, the Council and its chosen supplier(s) would at least have due regard for its effects by ensuring the highest possible level of accuracy.
However this, coupled with the council's blatantly misrepresentative brochure, would suggest that sadly that is not the case. The local taxpayer deserves better.