In this month’s Civic Matters column, chair of the Vale of Evesham Civic Society Gill Pawson explains the importance of the South Worcestershire Development Plan and why people need to get involved in the review process that kicks off again this autumn.
By Gill Pawson
HOT on the heels of the very welcome announcement about Wychavon District Council’s purchase of the Riverside Centre comes a flurry of planning documents. Plenty to get my teeth into as a retired planner!
This month, I am concentrating on the adoption of the South Worcestershire Development Plan (SWDP) Review. This lengthy document has been nearly a decade in the making.
It has been co-created by the three councils (Worcester City, Malvern Hills and Wychavon) to take forward policies and land allocations to meet the region’s needs up to 2041.
It covers everything that must be considered when preparing and deciding on a development proposal.
Why is the SWDP important?
Because all planning applications must be decided in line with it, unless there is a very good reason not to do so.
Until the end of March this year, many planning applications had to be determined against national rather than local policy, especially for housing schemes, because the existing local development plan was so out of date.
This has meant that Wychavon District Council could not demonstrate a five-year housing land supply, which is a national planning requirement.
Unfortunately for us, many housebuilders took the opportunity to submit planning applications for sites that had not been identified as suitable for development in the development plan.
The result is that local villages such as Badsey have come under considerable pressure for housing development, resulting in village services now bursting at the seams.
In recent years, Evesham has been protected by its river floodplain, the A46 by-pass, and the designated historic battlefield, to name some of the geographical constraints on new housing development.
We need to remember that most of the new housing off Abbey Road and Cheltenham Road has been built on sites formally allocated in the previous version of the development plan. In other words, they have been in the pipeline for the best part of 20 years.
Will the existing brake on development in Evesham, provided by the constraints, hold when the newly adopted plan is reviewed?
Will the already over-full villages be safe from further major schemes?
The next review has to start in October and be completed by March 2029.
Why so soon, you might ask?
The current Government has announced a much higher housing growth target for Wychavon, so additional sites must be identified to meet this target.
If we in the eastern part of the district are not to see yet more large housing schemes putting huge pressure on infrastructure and communities, we have to hope that the proposed development of Wychavon Town (based near Worcestershire Parkway) takes shape and that another new village/small town can be found a suitable site for.
We should all get involved in the consultation about new sites when the next review starts.
The Vale of Evesham Civic Society will remind you when to do so, so why not follow us on Facebook for updates, or better still, join us as a member?
Visit: https://www.valeofeveshamcivicsociety.org.uk/Home for more information.
Membership costs £12 per individual, and the group meets for monthly talks at Ecgwin’s Club, 117 High Street. Evesham, starting at 7.30pm unless otherwise indicated.
This Tuesday, April 14, the guest speaker will be Lise Evans, the Evesham Observer reporter, who will talk about her work as a local news journalist. All welcome.
