MEETING WITH COMMUNITY COUNCILLORS 2/2/06:

PROPOSED MEETING WITH PLANNING COMMITTEE COUNCILLORS

Outline Planning Application [05/P/11806E] for LLANFRECHFA GRANGE

Rob Crowshaw – Friends of Llanfrechfa Action Group (FLAG)

Time/date/venue to be confirmed

Introduction

Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today about the Outline Planning Application for the first 400 out of an expected 600 residential properties to be built on the site of the Llanfrechfa Grange Hospital.

My name is Rob Crowshaw, and I live in Llanfrechfa. I’m a member of FLAG - the Friends of Llanfrechfa Action Group – which is an organisation of concerned members of the community who are worried about the detrimental effects that the proposed development might have on the villages and communities surrounding the Grange Hospital site and further afield.

You’ll be glad to hear that I’m not here to moan about the usual things you probably hear every time you deal with a planning application – the same issues apply to this application – but I’m sure you’re already very well aware of what they are.

Instead, I’m simply here to highlight for you some of the more interesting and important issues that surround this initial outline planning application. I’m here to present you with a fair and balanced overview of the application - which I’m sure you’d like to be aware of in advance of any decisions to be taken.

I’d like to cover just two topics.

First, I’d like to give a little background to the application itself, how it sits within the wider context of the Torfaen Local Plan, and what this might mean for the future.

Secondly, I’d like to touch briefly upon some of the more important areas of public concern surrounding the proposed development, and what we can do about them.

My talk will last just under ten minutes. I’ve written down what I am going to say – in order to be as brief and as clear as possible. You can each have a copy of the talk, if you want, to take away with you. I’d be happy to answer any questions or comments you might have at the end.

So, first of all, a brief background of the application

A number of years ago, Gwent Health NHS Trust determined, for their own reasons, that they would no longer need part of the land on the Grange Hospital site.

Even though there are acres of beautiful parkland at the Grange, which some may think would make it a greenfield site, there are a handful of hospital buildings on the site, which makes it a brownfield site. So, as you know, when the present Torfaen Local Plan was put together, part of the site was earmarked for 400 residential housing units, which was agreed by an Inspector, after considering any objections which might have been raised against it back then.

So the situation we now find ourselves in is that the land at the Grange has transferred in ownership from Gwent Healthcare NHS Trust - because they were deemed to no longer need it - to an organisation within the National Assembly for Wales called Welsh Health Estates who are tasked with the disposal of the land – in other words selling it for the best possible price to developers. That’s why the National Assembly for Wales and Gwent Healthcare NHS Trust are both named as applicants on the outline application.

At the Grange, the number of resident patients at the hospital is down from several hundred to around 40 at present. We understand that the Trust intends to relocate these remaining patients into a number of special purpose properties around Gwent within the next 12 months. Their treatment and wellbeing is, of course, a major concern to many of us.

We also understand that the Hydrotherapy pool, funded and built by the community and currently used by hundreds of people each week, will be ‘reprovided’ – which we understand to mean that a suitable alternative will be provided somewhere else without loss of care provision to the present users. But there is concern about this, too.

Whilst there is a local belief that the hospital land had been left in perpetuity for the benefit of the community, Welsh Health Estates tell us that they are not aware of any restrictive covenants on the land. We’re still looking into this as a separate matter.

On top of all this, there is ongoing uncertainty as to whether the site is still currently being considered as a potential location for a new hospital under the Clinical Futures programme. We understand that whilst this is unlikely, the Trust has not yet ruled it out.

So, what land will be affected?

If you look at the handouts, you will see a map of the local area. This is taken from the Torfaen Local Plan. In the centre of the page you’ll see the Grange site, with the dark areas labelled S1/9 and S1/10, sticking out into an area of countryside designated in the Local Plan as Special Landscape Area.

The total Grange site is around 70 acres in total.

The dark areas labelled S1/9 and S1/10 is the land that the present outline application actually relates to – which is around 40 acres in total – and has been allocated in the Local Plan for 400 residential units.

Just to the right of the areas labelled S1/9 and S1/10 on the map is a white area bordered by a thick, black line - which is the Urban Boundary line. This white area [see map] is around 20 acres and includes the Grange house and walled gardens – which is a Grade II listed building – the laundry and some woodland. This area has not been allocated for housing in the current Local Plan because there was a longer term need for the laundry – but there is an intention to relocate the laundry and have this part of the site allocated for more housing in Torfaen’s forthcoming LDP (Local Development Plan), currently under preparation. There is talk of another 200 houses going on there. So that’s where the figure of 600 houses comes from.

The Grange site also includes two adjacent fields just to the north of the Urban Boundary line [see map] – around 10 acres – which falls outside the Urban Boundary in an area of Special Landscape. We suspect that there may be developer interest to build houses there too.

The WDA (The Welsh Development Agency Land Division) own all of the fields surrounding the site [see map] – which also lie outside the Urban Boundary in the area of Special Landscape – and we understand that they have already made tentative enquiries into the possibility of developing that land in conjunction with the proposed Grange Development.

We also understand that other developers may already have options on the land all the way up to the Crematorium [see map]. All this land falls outside the Urban Boundary and is currently designated as being Special Landscape Area.

Can you see the emerging picture? DTZ – the consultants acting on behalf of the applicants - help paint this picture by actually spelling out the following points in the Outline Application:

They suggest that any forthcoming proposals for the Llanfrechfa Grange should take account of changes in thinking in terms of housing development and density. Are they suggesting that we should expect future developers will be asking, at the detailed planning application stage, for an increased amount of housing to be built on the site?

In the application, DTZ state that the site is able to accommodate in excess of the 400 units originally proposed in the Local Plan and talk of nearly doubling the housing density that is proposed for the site.

They point out in the application that the Local Plan allows residential development on sites not identified in the Local Plan. Could this be a reference to the unallocated part of the Llanfrechfa Grange site – the white area on the map. Do they want to build houses on there in advance of the next LDP?

DTZ also point out in the outline application that the Gwent Structure Plan states the following:

Firstly, that the Structure Plan allows for developments to be located in, or immediately adjoining, urban areas. Could this be a reference to the top fields to the north which form part of the Llanfrechfa Grange site but which fall outside the Urban Boundary line?

And secondly, they point out that the Gwent Structure Plan allows development to take place in peripheral rounding off areas [see map].

If you look at the map, you can make up your own minds. I think the picture it paints is frightening.

Taken together, these statements in the outline application could mean that up to 1400 houses could be built on the whole of the Llanfrechfa Grange site alone, with the potential for thousands more if rounding off allows the WDA to build on adjoining land as well.

And where does it all stop?

There’s developer interest in the land across to Ponthir and all the way up to New Inn [see map].

This is what concerns us.

Its big business and this outline application could be just the thin end of the wedge.

We have a duty to act responsibly to make sure that developers don’t drive this wedge right through our countryside and through our communities.

If we give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.

It becomes apparent that it is extremely important for us all to make sure that we keep a close watch over the current development proposal put forward in this outline planning application – in terms of housing types and density, road and drainage infrastructure, open spaces, amenities and schooling - because what goes on here will set the standard for all the rest.

It needs to be done right.

Because if it goes wrong now, it will go wrong big time in the future.

So, what have we all been up to?

FLAG has been working closely with the Torfaen Planners, Ecologists and Highways Departments by helping to take the burden of work off them. We are acting as a conduit of communication between them and the local communities – distributing leaflets, holding public meetings and liaising with Community Councils to ensure that all interested parties are properly informed and consulted on what is going on, and then channelling their feedback to the Planners and the applicants.

We have even gone to the extent of helping Highways by submitting viable alternative highways proposals, in the form of detailed drawings which support Torfaen’s preferred highways option of taking new traffic off Caerleon Road and the surrounding road network and routing it through the development itself – which is an option the applicants refused to consider, in favour of their cheaper but more chaotic proposal of overburdening the existing, but already near-capacity road networks.

Duncan Smith and his team of Planners really only have extremely limited resources when compared to the cash-rich, multi-million pound property developers they are up against.

We must make sure that we give them the support and backing of the Council and the local communities so that they can stand up to the developers and make sure that things are done carefully, professionally and properly, to insist that an adequate infrastructure is put in place by the developers and to ensure that we can maximise the planning gain that should be expected from prime, lucrative development opportunities such as these.

We can’t afford to let the developers get their hands on our communities’ prized assets too cheaply.

And up until now, the applicants - who are asking us for planning permission to allow them to build 400 houses on this prime location in a beautiful countryside setting - have offered us nothing of any consequence in return.

In fact, the way its going, it may well end up costing us all in the long run.

Liaison Group Meetings have been held between the applicants (The NHS Gwent Health Trust, Welsh Health Estates & DTZ) and Torfaen CBC Councillors, Planners, Highways, the Community Councillors and community groups such as FLAG. These meetings have discussed:

– Ecology, Landscape, Trees & Drainage

- Highways, Transportation & Access Routes

– Overall Design, Layout & the Amenities required (which fall within the so-called Section 106 agreement).

However, these Liaison Group Meetings have not gone too well, as you have probably been informed. The Applicants don’t seem to want to listen to any of the concerns raised (such as potential highways, drainage and environmental problems) and appear to be trying to steamroller the application through against the positive and constructive planning issues that have been highlighted to them. They have brought nothing of any consequence to the table. And in these meetings they have given no concessions at all to Duncan Smith or the Ward Councillors.

We are concerned that not enough care and detailed consideration has been put into the proposed development by the applicants – and that it could go horribly wrong, leaving us (that’s you, me, Torfaen County Borough Council and the local residents) to suffer the consequences long after they have gone.

And when it does go wrong, the community will be straight on the phone to you (I’m already regularly receiving phone calls about the proposed development from concerned people in and around the Borough) – and they’ll be complaining to you and demanding to know what you’re going to do about it. But by then, it will be too late. The developers will be gone, and the damage will have been done.

It could be a nightmare situation.

But if done properly, and in full and proper consultation with Torfaen County Borough Council professionals and the communities - who know this area and the needs of the communities better than they do - it might just be that we could help prevent a development disaster - and we may even come out of it with a sustainable development we can all be proud of.

So, what happens next?

We have seen from the various meetings that the consultants still have a lot of work to do and that the proposed development is still a long way from being acceptable. They have been asked by Torfaen Planners to prepare a Development Brief or Framework, under consultation, for submission with their Planning Application. We’re expecting this to be put out shortly for consultation.

The application, as it stands, seems to have been put together to purely maximize the profits for the land owners, the National Assembly for Wales and Gwent Healthcare NHS Trust, when they sell it off to developers. It is not in the best interest of the Public.

Make no mistake - the applicants do not care about Torfaen or its communities - they’re selling up, shipping the patients out, and leaving.

And worst of all, the developers will care even less about Torfaen and its communities. They will show us absolutely no mercy when they start up their chainsaws and move their bulldozers in.

They are all in it for the money. It’s all about making as much money as possible.

And this is big business.

None of them will give us a second thought - unless we all act together now to make them sit up and listen. We cannot allow this outline planning application to go through unopposed because things will only get worse if we do.