Draft of key points that will be made in the Parish Council’s response to the consultation on Vale of Aylesbury Local Plan.

To be discussed at: Special Parish Council Meeting on 8th August 7.30 pm Bernard Hall.  Everyone is invited to contribute.

The Draft Plan aims to find 33,300 new dwellings by 2033.  (An additional 12,000 houses from adjacent districts on top of the estimated need of 21,300 for Aylesbury Vale).  The Draft Plan allocates housing numbers using a four-tier settlement hierarchy based on sustainability indicators and a fixed % allocation for each tier i.e. a broad-brush, desktop approach to setting minimum targets for each settlement.

Cuddington has been re-defined, in the latest draft, as a ‘medium village’ with a 19% growth target and, as such, would need to accommodate 50 dwellings.  If it was defined as a ’small village’ it would need to find locations for at least 12 new dwellings.

The Draft Plan has not identified the potential sites for the 50 dwellings at Cuddington and AVDC officers aim to find ‘suitable’ sites through detailed site assessments for each settlement and consultation with parishes.  However, it is understood that this exercise may not be completed before the end of the consultation stage for the Draft Plan.  This consultation ends on 5th September 2016.

Cuddington Parish Council believes that the housing allocation in the Draft Plan is too high and should be based on all the criteria for sustainable development and should take account of the characteristics of each settlement and its capacity to accommodate change.  Therefore it is intended to seek a reduction in the housing numbers for Cuddington by :-

• Asking for Cuddington to be defined as a ‘Small Village’
• Objecting to the % allocation for each village type and replacing it with a more qualitative approach
• Strengthening the policy for the protection of the Area of Attractive Landscapes (AAL) designation that covers the village
• Questioning the need to accommodate so much housing from neighbouring districts.

The details of the objections to the Draft Plan are as follows: -

Settlement Hierarchy

The village does not satisfactorily meet the AVDC criteria for a medium village and should revert to its previous classification as a small village.

Cuddington does not meet 4 of the 5 criteria for a medium village: -

• Size – Population is 569.  It would be the smallest of the medium villages and less than half the average of 1152 (in a range of 680-2115) for the proposed medium villages.
• Connectivity – Whilst only being 1.5 miles from Haddenham, there is no public transport to Haddenham, no footway and the necessity to cross the dangerous A418 at an accident black spot.  The public transport to Aylesbury is infrequent.  This is not being ‘well connected’.
• Employment – None.  Insufficient weight has been given to the lack of employment – most of the settlements in the medium village group have some employment.  This is an important issue.
• Facilities –

Key services are: Food store, Pub, Post Office, General Practice, Village Hall, Recreation, Primary School

Non-key services are: Pharmacy, Library, Places of worship, Secondary schools

Cuddington is assessed to score 6 of the 7 on the list of key services.  However, the system gives one point irrespective of how many shops/ pubs etc there are in the village.  Various of the medium villages have greater numbers of each of these services but still the same score applies.  Further, there is no weighting between any of the ‘Facilities’.  For example, for a population with a high proportion of older people, a GP surgery might be more important than recreational facilities.

The Cuddington school site is not a full Primary School, in that Cuddington and Dinton School is located on two sites, the junior school being in Dinton, with infants in Cuddington.  The school is also heavily over-subscribed.  It serves not only Cuddington but also Dinton, Chearsley and Lower Winchendon and these primary pupils are bused-in or driven to school.

• Qualitative assessment – recommends, throughout, small village status.  The description of being ‘well connected to a service centre’ is very debatable.

In response to our querying the re-categorisation, Louise Anderson, Senior Planning Officer - Forward Plans, stated that, ‘The addition of the new medium villages category has meant that some of the smaller villages are now medium villages so as to better reflect their sustainability.’

This is not the case, as Cuddington was the only small village ‘upgraded.’

She further added that, ‘Cuddington continues to be relatively sustainable in terms of the number of criteria it meets, and so fits well into the new medium category.’

Cuddington Parish Council would dispute that statement, in view of the points raised above.

19% growth for every medium village.

The capacity for each medium village to accommodate sustainable development should be sensitive to local conditions and a ‘flat rate‘ of 19% increase is arbitrary and not appropriate in all cases.

For example, there is no consideration of other relevant local factors that restrict the capacity for growth. At Cuddington these include :-

• Much of its area is in a Conservation Area.  There is only one site identified in the HELAA (Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment) so far (for 6 houses) and this is in the Conservation Area.  In order to adequately protect the built environment, this proposal needs to be assessed against sites, including those outside the Conservation Area, that might come forward.
• The village is situated within an Area of Attractive Landscape (AAL)
• Proposals for major expansion at Haddenham could lead to the prospect of coalescence with Cuddington.

Strategic issues

In addition to the above points relating to Cuddington specifically, the Parish Council intends to comment on:-

• The inordinately high provision for possible un-met needs from neighbouring local authorities.
• The apparent disparity between the approach in Wycombe and Chiltern and South Bucks Districts, where, despite not having completed their plans, their bottom-up approach seems to leave a huge deficit.  This compares with AVDC top down approach to impose targets on all its settlements, at the outset.
• The crude mathematical division of development for settlements with little, or no, consideration of the character of the settlement, or its ability to find sufficient sites.
• The lack of specific planning policy for Areas of Attractive Landscape (AAL)

In the event that our arguments about the status of Cuddington are not accepted, there will be a further opportunity to make representations to an inspector, once the Final Plan is published.