Parish Council and Supporters Update as at January 11th 2021

Covid-19 and Tier 4

We trust everyone remains well and coping with the Tier 4 challenges and wish everyone all the Very Best for 2021.

We continue to maintain very close contact will all our Parish, District and County Councillors and are grateful to them for their on-going help. We will continue with these monthly newsletters until such time as we can arrange a further public meeting and rely on reactions from everyone to help keep us up to date.

Please do let us know if there is anything you become aware of which would be helpful. Our general e-mail address continues to suffer an access fault so please feel free to contact me direct: iain.muspratt@hemingfordsactiongroup.co.uk

Astro Turf Site – Planning Application Reference FMW/072/19

On 4th January I received a further update from CCC regarding their consideration of the points we made at our informal meeting on 28th October which resulted in senior CCC and HDC Officers visiting the site on 27th November.

Amongst other matters a particular point is that this application exceeds the perimeter ‘red lines’ set out in the original application approval in 2000. CCC have written to MGL but are still waiting to hear from MGL to determine what works have been undertaken and for what purpose, so that we can determine if this is a county matter or one for the district council. As promised, the case officer wrote to colleagues at Huntingdonshire District Council on 16th  December 2020 to raise this matter with the enforcement team so that they are aware of our discussions and that we are currently seeking further information on this. It is our view that this concerns both authorities – CCC regarding the Planning Application and HDC in regard to the widening of the access road.

CCC have also  confirmed that the traffic sensors placed for a short period of around 10 days (until around December 7th) on Rideaway Drive both before the bridge and before the entrance to the Golf Club and Range were for work being undertaken on behalf of Mick George Limited (MGL) by their traffic consultants. This was in relation to information that has been sought by CCC as the Highway Authority. As such, they did relate to this planning application and CCC have promised us that the implications the substantial reduction in traffic due to COVID-19 restrictions will therefore be taken into account. 

We continue to regard the objections we raised to be both entirely valid and critical to the long term activities on the whole site. CCC will update us further towards the end of this month.

We intend to leave the remaining large banners in place until this matter is resolved.

HEMINGFORD ABBOTS GOLF RANGE, SHOP & CONFERENCE CENTRE

American Golf’s new venture remains closed during the most recent lockdown. We await a response to our request for a meeting, The greatly enhanced facilities have proved very popular and we wish the venture every success.

NEW DRAFT WASTE AND MINERALS PLAN

We await a reaction to our response to the amendments made following the Public Examination. As HM Inspector suggested these are intended to take into account the following points which we made viz:

  • The requirements for extensions to existing sites should be subject to the same criteria as new sites
  • We do not believe that the plan should contemplate ‘local’ sites being permitted as an adjunct to local housing developments
  • We wish to see the ‘Astro Turf Site’ omitted from the list of current sites on the basis that it does not have an environmental permit or exemption nor has it been properly operational for some years and should not therefore be included as existing Waste Management Areas on the Policies Map which forms part of the draft plan

We submitted our acknowledgement of the changes made on 10th November but asked for the following further change to the co-location policy :

‘Proposals for co-location which neither complement nor materially benefit from synergies with an existing waste use will be assessed against the sequential test set out on this Policy 4’.

We appreciate the details are complex but we do believe that the changes will ensure a much more rigorous and constraining approach to applications including those seeking to expand existing facilities.

The deadline for responses was 15th December 2020

HEMINGFORD GOLF CLUB CAR PARK

There has been no change since my previous update on December 7th.

SUB_COMMITTEE TO ASSIST WITH THE PROCESS OF PREPARING A DETAILED PROPOSAL FOR THE HEMINGFORD GOLF CLUB TO BE GRANTED THE STATUS OF COMMUNITY ASSET et seq

This matter remains outstanding and will not be progressed until we have established a dialogue with American Golf.

COMMUNICATION

A link to these updates appears under our listing as an Organisation on the HA Website and a Summary is sent to HGPC for incorporation in their regular newsletters.

E-mailing lists

We are rationalising these to minimise duplications. If you know of anyone who would like to be added please e-mail Audra Green at audra.green@hemingfordsactiongroup.co.uk. Please also let us know if your e-mail address has changed

Can you help please?

We still wish to strengthen our Board and would be pleased to hear from anyone who has experience in local planning and land development matters. If you are interested please e-mail: iain.muspratt@hemingfordsactiongroup.co.uk

Stay Safe and Keep Well everyone

Iain Muspratt  – The Hemingfords Action Group

 

11th January 2021