Scott Mann addresses Bodmin Town Council planning committee
North Cornwall MP Scott Mann addresses Bodmin Town Council planning committee
Transcript
00:00 Councillors and the people of Bodmin. I don't generally come along to planning meetings but
00:07 we've had so much correspondence on this particular application that I thought it was probably wise
00:13 for me to come along and give you a bit of a flavour of what we've had in our inbox through
00:21 email and from telephone calls from residents in Bodmin regarding the Howgate development and
00:28 I also appreciate that you are the decision makers here tonight and I completely value
00:35 local democracy and the way that town and parishes do their work. I'd like to make the
00:42 point that I'm not here to kind of tell anybody what to do but to just kind of put across the
00:49 points that have been made to me and I'm sure many of the Councillors here by the members of
00:55 the public around this particular application. I'd like to start by saying I'm generally very
01:01 pro-development but having served seven years on Cornwall Council and nine years as the MP
01:08 I think this development is probably the most inappropriate development that I've ever seen.
01:12 The reasons that I think that, first of all I'd like to talk about the
01:22 flood risk assessment and the sequential test. So I was looking through the national planning
01:27 policy framework this afternoon and it became abundantly clear to me that
01:32 sequential tests have to be followed for appropriate development and this particular site
01:39 I believe you know it's Marshie, it's Boggy, it's Inver Valley and there are many other more
01:47 appropriate sites within the vicinity of what we also in North Cornwall that could take housing.
01:52 So I genuinely do not think the sequential test has been followed on the national planning
01:59 framework. It says that inappropriate development in areas of risk of flooding should be avoided by
02:07 directing development away from areas at the highest risk. Where development is necessary
02:13 in such areas the development should be made safe for its lifetime without increasing flood risk
02:18 elsewhere and I don't think they can do that on this particular site so you know from my
02:22 perspective I think it's a contravention of that particular element of the national planning policy
02:27 framework. I wanted to mention as well the issue about nitrates and phosphates in the camel.
02:38 So we've been under an embargo for quite some time in North Cornwall regarding nitrates and
02:43 phosphates. I know that embargo has been lifted but I was speaking to one of my friends who's
02:47 an architect and he often deals with individual applications in North Cornwall on planning and
02:54 he has to put in quite large mitigation measures for one development on any development in the camel.
03:05 When you've got to make this kind of mitigation for one I just wonder whether having 500 in an
03:12 area that is very close to the watercourse is actually really completely appropriate.
03:18 So that's the second point I wanted to make. The other point I wanted to make was around the
03:24 wildlife. Many people have raised with me you know they hear the birds down in the valley
03:33 and they know that it's a wildlife habitat and you know from my perspective there's
03:39 policies in the national planning framework that basically talk about biodiversity net gain
03:46 and how you have to mitigate against that and if you take a big area like that out of
03:53 wildlife and put it into development you really have to mitigate that in another way. I'm not sure
04:00 this application has done that. It also contravenes one of the old
04:06 back in my North Cornwall days one of the old North Cornwall saved policies which is EMV1.
04:14 It says development this is in my opinion development proposals in the countryside
04:19 elsewhere will only be permitted where they are allowed under other policies in the plan that do
04:25 not have a significant adverse effect on the amenity or landscape character of that area.
04:31 Protection of landscape character will be particularly important areas of great landscape
04:35 value. So you know if that area isn't defined as an area of great landscape value and I'd be very
04:42 surprised but if it is then I think it's in contravention of the North Cornwall safe policy
04:51 EMV1. So in my humble opinion I think there are a significant number of reasons why this
04:57 application should be turned down and I'd like to ask the councillors this evening to consider those
05:02 in their deliberations. Thank you.