Question
In the Topic Paper Local Green Space January 2020, prepared by Council officers to accompany the Draft Local Plan Update consultation, the site LGS09, Site name, Land between Thames Valley Business Park and Napier Road, known locally as Kennet Mouth is recommended not to be designated as Local Green Space. In justification for this recommendation the following statement is made:
“The presence of overhead electricity cables and pylons has led to some visual intrusion in the open landscape, which is not considered to be local in character, and therefore does not warrant further consideration as a Local Green Space designation.”
Does the Member agree that, as the photographs I have provided to you show, any visual intrusion is insignificant, and is not a sufficient reason to refuse the designation of Local Green Space.
Personally, walking in this pleasant area, I never notice the cables. What I notice is trees, bushes, flowers, grasses, the river, water fowl, other birds, insects, fungi, lichen, people on the water and the land, dogs, boats, fresh air and the weather. It is both restful and interesting.
Will the Council ask the Officers to strike out this statement on the basis of its lack of accuracy?
Minutes:
Question
In the Topic Paper Local Green Space January 2020, prepared by Council Officers to accompany the Draft Local Plan Update consultation, the site LGS09, Site name, Land between Thames Valley Business Park and Napier Road, known locally as Kennet Mouth is recommended not to be designated as Local Green Space. In justification for this recommendation the following statement is made:
“The presence of overhead electricity cables and pylons has led to some visual intrusion in the open landscape, which is not considered to be local in character, and therefore does not warrant further consideration as a Local Green Space designation.”
Does the Member agree that, as the photographs I have provided to you show, any visual intrusion is insignificant, and is not a sufficient reason to refuse the designation of Local Green Space?
Personally, walking in this pleasant area, I never notice the cables. What I notice is trees, bushes, flowers, grasses, the river, water fowl, other birds, insects, fungi, lichen, people on the water and the land, dogs, boats, fresh air and the weather. It is both restful and interesting.
Will the Council ask the Officers to strike out this statement on the basis of its lack of accuracy?
Answer
The Draft Plan considered only a handful of areas that were put forward at the time. As a further step in this process, we invited the Town and Parish Councils, together with other community groups and organisations, last year to identify other areas of green spaces that they considered important to their community. As a result of that we received suggestions for a further 100 additional Local Green Spaces.
Different views have been put forward to extend the area that might merit designation as well as differing reasons. In addition to the original promotion, you refer to as the ‘Land between Thames Valley Business Park and Napier Road’, a wider area has now been promoted and encompasses the larger area of open green space at the Thames Valley Park. The promotion includes further supporting information to explain its suitability for designation.
As you are aware, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the merits of an individual proposal at this time. However, I can assure you that the view of all respondents, even where the information is provided in a different format (i.e. photographs as you mentioned earlier), will be considered as a way forward and how we make our assessment. Where necessary and justified, our proposals will be amended and recommendations on the merits of areas across the Borough will be reported back to Executive as part of a future report on the Local Plan.
As an assessment of each promoted area of green space this will be documented in a future update to the Topic Paper. The document will be available to view and comment on as part of the future consultation on the Local Plan later this year. I would estimate that should be around the Summer.
Supplementary Question
I understand that but in order, in the meanwhile, to remove doubt would Councillor Smith ask the Planning Officers to issue a revision of the Topic Paper on Local Green Space that corrects the errors highlighted by SOAR to avoid the possibility that it remains on file with the potential to mislead future consideration of this area by Councillors?
Supplementary Answer
What you need to consider, and do not take this as me being blunt, but whoever put forward the first proposal they put forward a very small area and the way I can describe it, it was almost the landing base to the MRT. What has now been put forward is a much stronger assessment that carries much more weight and as I said it would be inappropriate for me to tell you whether that is going to go forward or not. But what I would say is it is a much stronger paper than what you put forward originally because I think what you were trying to do on your original piece was to try to almost avoid the MRT happening but not encompassing the whole riverbank, which would have been a far better way of doing things.