Residents' Association Forum

Three new applications for developments on this site, for the a wider audience to consider and comment on

2013/2439; 2013/2435; 2013/2433

http://www2.elmbridge.gov.uk/Planet/ispforms.asp?serviceKey=SysDoc-PlanetApplicationEnquiry

The plans all seem very sensible to me.  Whilst I would prefer to see a single house on the Speer Road plot to fit the existing housing stock better, I don't see 2 as being an overdevelopment.  Both the Summer Road and Speer Road sites have always seemed to me to look like 'missing teeth' in the street scene, and filling them with a small number of houses would result in an improvement.

The Summer Road and Speer Road plots have little other potential use, other than access to the main Pauline's/ Colets site, which we know is under threat of development following its inclusion in the Draft Settlement Investment and Development ID plan.  Building houses on these plots would block easy access to the site from these roads, and hence make any further development a lot less likely.

The St Nicholas Road development is simply a replacement of the existing with something slightly more up to date.  No real comments on that front - again, it seems entirely reasonable to me.

I agree these seem sensible.  I have been told at Colets that they and the Paulines did not support the proposal for terraced houses on the playing fields that appeared in the draft planning docs for EBC.  I replied that if that was the case, which would be welcomed by residents, it would be helpful if both wrote to EBC (even at this stage) making it plain that they did not support the proposal.

But whether they will or not remains to be seen.

The application 2013/2439 for 'Summer Road' goes against responses to recent SIDP & DMP Consultation Documents in support of the identification of the Old Pauline's Sports field as Local Green Space. 

Drawings for the Summer Road  'gap site' at http://www3.elmbridge.gov.uk/WAM/showCaseFile.do?appName=planning&appNumber=2013/2439 show buildings located in the playing field area at the rear of the garden fence-line. This would make a significant change to the pattern of buildings set along the roadside (not addressing any conception of 'missing teeth'), will set a precedent for 'backland development' and take land from the area of green space that is enjoyed.

The application 2013/2435 for Speer Road (see http://www3.elmbridge.gov.uk/WAM/showCaseFile.do?appName=planning&appNumber=2013/2435) goes against significant opposition to the promoted construction of housing in the area (wrongly described) as 'Land Behind 74-128 Speer Road' ( which also incuded an equivalent area of land on the Old Paulines Sports field and the gap site). 

Specifically in relation to this Planning Application, TD & WG RA Cllr. Sandra Dennis has advised me that "I think what is important in the context of this application is the amount of people in TD who did respond to the SID and specifically mentioned this as a site stating its importance and that it should be kept as greenspace. This supported the RA response to the consultation and also the contributions made by those who attended the discussion group last September."

I suggest being consistent with this in responding to these applications.