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Chalfont St Peter Parish Council announces a Public Meeting to present the results of the Village Survey and discuss the proposed developments in Chalfont St Peter at Holy Cross. Date : 13th February 2010 PLEASE NOTE : NO PARKING IN PINETREE CLOSE 24th November 2009 The VDS Working Group was set up by the parish council in August 2009 with two key objectives:
Most of the ground-work for the Village Design Statement has now been completed, including two public meetings attended by hundreds of residents and an audit of existing features and facilities. The VDS itself will now be completed by a small team working under David Pamington, with publication due in Spring 2010. The web site www.villagedesignstatement.com will henceforth be used primarily in relation to the VDS itself rather than for any campaigning. Work on the second objective is also now nearly done. The response to CDC’s proposals has been prepared, based on the huge amount of work by several volunteers. An intense campaign has made sure residents are fully aware of the proposals for major new housing developments threatening the nature of the village, and the residents consultation survey is well under-way, with reports due in January 2010. The survey findings will be used by the parish council and other local organisations to inform further responses in respect of development proposals, and to help the implementation of a Parish Plan. Separately, and acting outside the parish council, an Action Group has been formed, SENSE4CSP, to fight pro-actively against any and all proposals for inappropriate development in Chalfont St Peter. The group is run by people who successfully campaigned against development proposals at NSE, and you are urged to join the SENSE4CSP campaign by logging on to their website and registering interest: www.sense4csp.org.uk As elected representatives, the parish council will continue to represent residents of the village, dealing with official communications with CDC and BCC and utility and service providers – see www.chalfonfontstpeter-pc.gov.uk Parish Council Chairman Richard Allen comments: “The parish council would like to express its sincere thanks to all the volunteers who have given so much of their time working on the Village Design Statement and investigating the various issues to enable an informed and firm response to CDC. This was simply invaluable.” The Chalfont St Peter Parish Council Residents Consultation Survey has now been delivered to all homes in Chalfont St Peter and returns are already encouraging. This survey seeks to give all residents a say in how the village is managed and developed, and covers all aspects of living in the village. It will form the basis of a Parish Plan – a sort of ‘Business Plan’ for the future. Naturally, a particularly important aspect is the section covering some of the options for proposed new dwellings in the village – your responses and opinions will drive the parish council’s actions. This is your big chance to have your say, and we need your input, so please take the 10-15 minutes to complete the questionnaire and return it freepost. The aggregated findings will be published in January. If you have not received the questionnaire (red printed envelope containing two questionnaires, one per adult), or if you know someone who hasn’t, please let us know as soon as possible: by e-mail or by telephone: 01753 891582. AGENDA 10.00 Arrival
New people are invited to do “Landmarks” (see below) Survey teams will prepare to display / present their findings The presentation at the first Open Day will be shown at various times during the day so that those who are new to the VDS project can see what happened.
10.10 Welcome and Introductions – Richard Allen and John Hatton report on action on the proposals for housing in Chalfont St Peter that are in the Chiltern District Core Strategy and the ways in which the people of the Parish can respond to influence the development plan (Local Development Framework).
10.30 Questions
10.45 Survey Teams present their findings - 10 minutes each team plus questions / discussion Teams tell us what they have found out about the character of the landscape, buildings and spaces in and around the village – using a selection of the photographs they took at the last open day plus any new shots.
11.45 Discussion of Landmarks (displayed on screens)
12.00 Writing the Design Statement Phil explains what can be done to write character descriptions and draft the guidance so that it accords with the local plan and can be understood in plain English
12.30 Group exercise – Devising the Guidance Several groups devise wording on flipchart sheets: a. Descriptions of character b. Examples of guidance 1.00pm Lunch available
1.30 Report back by Groups
2.30 Discussion 2.45 The next steps
3.00 Workshop ends
LANDMARKS AND FAVOURITES You are invited to think about one or more of the areas of Chalfont St Peter, noting your favourite landmarks and features. Please take several Post-Its and write, in big letters, a landmark on each one. If you want to draw a diagram, map or sketch you may take a large sheet of paper.
The brief is: The Village Design Statement will give guidance to everyone – local authorities, developers, designers, planners, landowners, tenants and householders – on how to respect the essential character and distinctiveness of Chalfont St Peter. What makes a village truly distinctive from other places? What landmarks are important to the character of Chalfont St Peter’ roads and spaces? Using your own knowledge and experience, you are asked to think about buildings and other features which are prominent and which help to tell you which village you are in, and which part of the village. For example, trees, slopes, walls, spaces, a decorative sign or even a unique garden / feature. Some of those features may not be prominent as landmarks, but are your personal favourites. They help you to find your way about the village, and remind you of why you are happy to be there. You should consider the many different positions from which the feature can be seen, and which of those viewpoints is / are the most important. When changes occur to buildings or spaces, an important view of a landmark or other feature could be blocked, changed, or forgotten. The aim is not just to preserve the landmarks and favourites, but to point them out to anyone who is thinking of making changes to the buildings and landscape, and encourage everyone to respect them. Your Post-Its (or large sheets) on Landmarks and Favourites will be displayed and discussed soon after 11.00. If you use a large sheet of paper, you may use any technique you like: A written list with descriptions of the important viewpoints Poem or prose A sketch map Quick sketches or cartoons The second Village Design Statement workshop will be taking place this Saturday, November 7, at a new venue – Chalfonts Community College, Narcot Lane, Chalfont St Peter – starting at 10am. This will be your opportunity to have your say in the development of the Chalfont St Peter Village Design Statement and Village Plan, outlining the characteristics of our village and how it should be developed in the coming years. The latest news on the development of the Holy Cross site will also be discussed, with a representative of the developer’s agents present. A full agenda will be posted on this site in the next few days. We hope to see you there. The Chalfont St Peter Village Design Statement and Village Plan working group would like to meet with you to see how you could best assist our cause. In essence, we want to ensure that Chalfont St Peter becomes an even better place to live in than it is now. This is especially important now as we have the opportunity to create a development on the Holy Cross site that everybody can be proud of, or succumb to the whims and greed of developers and be stuck with a mess than blights our village forever more. In case you are not fully informed of the issues, we can clarify these for you and at the same time seek some of your time and expertise to make the chances of building a successful future for our village even greater. There is already plenty of work under way, including plans for a village-wide questionnaire in the coming weeks, but we need volunteers in the following areas: • Copy typing – to type out an existing village design statement or two, to enable us to amend it to suit Chalfont St Peter Please come along to the next meeting of the Chalfont St Peter Village Design Statement working group at the Chalfont St Peter Parish Council office on Mill Meadow at 8pm on Tuesday November 3 and join our team of existing volunteers. I look forward to seeing you there. John Hatton There was sewage contaminated flooding in the village again last week – in Cordons Close and School Lane – which caused great concern and discomfort to the residents. Thames Water was called and they eventually cleared up the mess, but this is yet another example of how the sewer struggles to cope with its current load. We can only imagine what will happen if we get another 700+ houses discharging in to it as proposed by Chiltern District Council for CSP, plus whatever load is imposed upstream by additional building in Chalfont St Giles and Amersham. Thames Water still insists that their pipe can cope with the increased building in Chalfont St Peter and the District Council claims it is powerless to question this. The Parish Council letter to Thanes Water is still unanswered. The Village Design Statement and Parish Plan Working Group is lucky to be able to access the services of John Norris, David James and Peter Abel, all very experienced in water and drainage matters who will continue to challenge Thames Water. We have also made contact with the Environment Agency and expect to meet with their Regional Manager for our area, Nigel Copelin in the next week or so. If anybody has photographs of flooding and sewage contamination, we would be happy to receive these in order to support our case. Please get in touch using the ‘Contact Us’ panel on the right of this page.
Do you live near the Holy Cross site? Have you seen any badgers, bats, owls, kestrels or other wildlife? If so, the Village Design Statement working group wants to hear from you. We’re gathering evidence of endangered species living on or near the Holy Cross site. If you have any photos or dates of sitings, we need to know. Please contact us using the form on the right of the page. Thank you The Chalfont St Peter Village Design Statement working group is made up entirely of volunteers from your community and we need your help! Specifically, we’re looking for help with: If you can spare any time, please contact us using the form in the right hand column of this page. Under the subject heading, please put HELP followed by how you can help us: Delivery, IT, Graphic Design, Law, Planning, Meetings or Minutes. Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you. We have invited a representative of the property developer to be present at the next Village Design Statement public meeting/workshop on the 7th of November 2009. While the day will be devoted to developing the Village Design Statement, it is of great importance for the developer to be aware of the huge groundswell of opinion on the future of our village. Please check back on this website for venue details and time. |
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