Not true, as this speech from local resident Peter Whitfield points out. It was delivered at the Development Management Committee Meeting which rejected the Outline Planning Application for Knowle last Friday, 1st March.

Ladies & Gentlemen,

One of my many objections to this application is that you have been seriously misled by the Officer’s report. He claims that Sidmouth has more Parks & Recreation Grounds than it needs according to standards but admits there is some dispute about this without saying what this is.

The Planning Support Statement which the Report quotes says that there is a Standard of provision of 1ha/1000 of population of Parks & Recreation Grounds for urban areas. This is wrong. The Open Space Study which this document purports to be quoting says no such thing. You will recall that at your June meeting last year this committee voted to adopt that Study (commissioned from Bennet Leisure & Planning) as evidence in future applications and as policy in the emergent local plan. You adopted the whole document, not just selected portions of it. It suggests a minimum standard of 1ha/1000 for urban areas as minutes of your meeting record, but then goes on to qualify this by a whole series of caveats which insist that it should not be a one-size-fits-all standard. (The economies of Sidmouth, Honiton & Axminster vary widely and the need for both quantity and variety of open space varies accordingly as the OSS acknowledges.) (My 3 minutes do not allow me quote them all here but can give examples if questioned.)

The Report ignores these important qualifications and therefore draws the wrong conclusion that Sidmouth has more Parks and Recreation grounds than it “needs” so losing a bit of the Knowle parkland won’t matter! Never mind that it would also change the whole character of the area.

Parks & Recreation grounds ( one of fourteen types of open space identified in the OSS!) are carefully specified  as “defined areas of green open space that have been formally laid out for public enjoyment. Typically they will include lawns, flower beds, paths, and occasionally facilities such as toilets or a food stand. (This includes public parks and gardens such as Connaught Gardens or The Knowle in Sidmouth, (as well as privately owned formal gardens that are open to the public such as Killerton Gardens in Broadclyst.”)

The officer’s claim that all 13+ha of the Byes fit this definition is wrong – (despite it being endorsed as he says by “professionals”.)  He claims that, because they are “managed” they must fit. The specification does not mention “managed”: it specifies being “formally laid out” and “will include lawns & flower beds”, characteristics notable by their absence throughout the area generically referred to locally as The Byes.

More than half of the area shown on the Council’s own map as The Byes is in fact owned and managed by the SVA as a wild flower area with woodland & pond and 2.25ha of Sid Meadow within the Byes are owned by the National Trust who have said that they are managed as natural grassland and are in fact recorded on your Asset Database as Open Space. The OSS has separate standards of provision for areas such as these.

Putting these sections of The Byes into their correct designation as natural & semi-natural green space means that there is no surplus of P & R in Sidmouth – in fact there is less than even the minimum suggested standard..

Other speeches from the same meeting, can be found at our earlier posts on 1st and 2nd March. More to follow.

Some more examples will be posted here, for those who could not attend the Development Management Committee Meeting which rejected EDDC’s Outline Planning Application to develop the Knowle.

Richard Thurlow’s speech can be found on 1st March post on this website. He was representing the Sid Vale Association on this occasion.

The speech reproduced below is by Jeremy Woodward, on behalf of Sidmouth’s Futures Forum.

Mr Chairman:

It is clear that in order to justify laying waste to Knowle, Officers in their Report have needed to undermine the quality and importance of the site: QUOTE “While the loss of part of the parkland and formal gardens is unfortunate, it is considered that the impact on any limited remaining historic interest of these areas would be minor.”

But this assessment is contradicted in the conclusion from the full Report from English Heritage, which states that, whilst the house and gardens do not QUOTE “meet the criteria for designation in a national context, … Knowle, with its prominent position overlooking the town of Sidmouth, and the remains of its landscape garden which is now a public space, have
clear local interest.”

The Victorian Society and SAVE Britain’s Heritage say the same: QUOTE:
“The loss of the Knowle and development of the park on the scale proposed would represent a devastating blow to the history and character of Sidmouth.”

And from the Devon Gardens Trust: QUOTE: “We consider that it would not be acceptable, in terms of the historic designed landscape, to build on any of the existing parkland” at Knowle.

So, why are we considering destroying all of this?

Mr Chairman:  you have stated that this meeting QUOTE “is only considering the Application put before it, and not the principle of whether or not the Council should, could or will relocate.”

However, your Officers seem to hold a different opinion, with the Communications Officer saying that the District Council wants this meeting QUOTE “to determine the Application as part of its aspirations to relocate.” And Officers in the Executive Summary of their Report declare in no uncertain terms that relocation QUOTE “weighs in favour of the development overall.”

This is the elephant in the room.

The only reason we are here considering this Application is because QUOTE “the District aims to move its main offices.”
In other words, we are about to about to embark on an enormous asset-stripping spree, simply to satisfy an unsubstantiated pipedream of relocating the District’s headquarters.

For, beyond the confines of the little-known Relocation Working Parties, there has been no proper consideration of these issues, whether it be the alternatives to demolition, for example converting the old Knowle into flats as it was in the 1960s, or considering the motion to postpone relocation which was jettisoned at last December’s Council meeting.

And yet we are now considering stripping these valuable assets to finance some grandiose scheme, totally ignoring the catastrophe next door at WEST DORSET DISTRICT COUNCIL, where the selling of old offices and the building of new has been highly contentious: QUOTE “The council just pushed on and now it has to try and limit its damage, with… many councillors bemused as to how it was ever allowed to happen.”  

Thank you.

More elephants in the room (or not) at SIN blog, 2nd March.

 Richard Thurlow, SOS Chair, writes:

There was great public support at the meeting at Knowle, on Friday 1st March. The chamber was full and a link was provided to another room for overflow public attendees.

Representatives of the Sid Vale Association (Richard Thurlow); Sidmouth Chamber of Commerce (Steven Kendall-Torry); Futures Forum (Jeremy Woodward); and Knowle Residents’ Association (Keith Northover) spoke,  as did Barry Curwen, Richard Eley, Alan Darrant, Fran Deegan, Michael Temple, Kelvin Dent and Peter Whitfield.

Sidmouth Town Councillors, John Dyson, Stuart Hughes, Graham Troman Francis Newth, and Sheila Kerridge spoke against , the latter four in their capacity as EDDC councillors.

I have been told by several councillors that they have never heard such well presented and cogent speeches in EDDC Planning meetings before.

Let us now see what EDDC do about the Knowle. We are always willing to talk to them, as we have said.

But I suspect that the Local Plan examination will come first…

A report of yesterday’s landmark DMC meeting can be viewed at

http://www.claire-wright.org/

Some speeches from the public, which helped overturn the Officer’s recommendation for approval of the Knowle plans,  will be posted on this SOS website over the next few days,  for your information.