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Defence of the Green Belt
Your Parish Council agrees with the verdict of over 80% of the residents (Parish Plan Survey) that West Parley could find room for about another 100 houses. On top of our present 1530 houses this would be a sustainable addition, and our fair share.
The East Dorset District Council proposed in their Oct 10 to Jan 11 Consultation to build 3 - 400 houses in the large New Road and Dudsbury Heights green belt fields to the SE and SW of the village. This would effectively put paid to the character and identity of West Parley as we know it and turn us into Ferndown South or Bournemouth North. Moreover there are no plans or funds for the large scale infrastructure improvements that would be necessary.
Your Parish Council will oppose these plans with every democratic means at its disposal. The Government has said it wants to end the kind of top down planning we have been subjected to, and put in its place a system whereby planning starts at the neighbourhood level with the communities aspirations and only then goes to the professional planners in the higher Councils. The Localism Bill embodying this is expected to become law at the end of 2011, giving Parish Councils the powers to make Neighbourhood Plans. The Parish Council will seek to take advantage of this at the earliest opportunity.
the current proposals in brief:
East Dorset District Council's preferred options for housebuilding are essentially in the same locations as earlier green belt plans made by the last Government in the Regional Spatial Strategy (which has now been scrapped by the Coalition Government). To see the plans and supporting documentation in full, click here. Go to page 177 of the 365 page Core Strategy 440 houses are proposed in West Parley which would increase the housing stock by an unsustainable 25%. Forty percent of the proposed houses are planned to be affordable housing, that is to say social renting from housing associations or shared equity finance.
In summary, there are 210 houses planned at Dudsbury heights, 85 at Holmwood Park, 45 at Coppins Nursery. In the New Road field it is proposed that at Parley Cross opposite to the present shopping parade there should be a new West Parley centre, with shops - the whole complex hopefully to be brought up to the standard of West Moors. Behind the new centre stretching down to half the fields there would be another 100 houses.
