Stream Walk Community Garden Open Day

The Stream Walk Community Garden Open Day is taking place this Saturday, the 19th October 2013, from 12-4pm.

There will be produce on sale and a woodcarver amongst other activities and it will give the public a chance to see what the garden is all about and meet those involved.

They also have a Facebook page – Stream walk community garden Whitstable. (Bear and Alan were our speakers at last nights members meeting).

Whitstable Museum

Many Whitstable Society members will be aware that the Council plans to cut the operating hours of Whitstable Museum. A public meeting has already taken place, where possibilities as to how the museum could be run in future were discussed. A further public meeting has been arranged for Friday 27th September at St Alphege Infants School, Oxford Street, commencing at 7pm, which organisers would like as many people to attend as possible.

A letter to the Council, from groups within Whitstable, is currently being formulated requesting a halt to the process and further consultation before the planned cuts take place. We have been asked to sign and hence we discussed the plans at this months members meeting and those present voted unanimously against the planned reduction in hours.

We are proposing therefore that the Whitstable Society’s stance should be against the planned reduction in hours. Can any Society members please let us know by Monday 23rd September 2013 at the latest, if your view is different to this, i.e you are for the reduction in hours.

Should you have any queries or wish to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Many thanks
Angela Boddy
Chair The Whitstable Society

Dog Control Orders

Dog Control Orders: the WS has submitted this request

‘We request that the dog control order is extended to the end of Tankerton Promenade where the promenade exits through the sea wall near the Continental Hotel; so dogs in the season are banned from the beach there and must be on a lead on the promenade.

This section is as busy if not more so that the middle section currently covered by the dog control order with large numbers of people(often picnicking), cyclists and especially children playing who are most vulnerable to being frightened by dogs’ beach activity and affected by their waste products: the deposit of which on the shingle is inevitable from some off-lead dogs . The western section also has the approaches to The Street where dogs are antithetical to the use of this famous attraction.

The dog control area ends where it currently does at the western end for no logical reason other than , we are told by officials, that this was the point at which the area ends for which the Council was seeking a beach award.

Dog walkers go from the road highway at the Continental to a non-control dog area and then into a control area with similar requirements to the road highway. Confusing.

West of the Continental, the beach becomes utilitarian with water craft landing and launching and no promenade. This is an area where dogs can be given more freedom for their swims and frolics on the beach itself without disturbing people for that beach is hardly used for the rest and recreation that typifies Tankerton Slopes promenade and beach. Dog owners can also take their dogs to the eastern end of Tankerton Slope’s promenade. Given the length of typical dog walk, a walk will likely take in one or both of such non-dog control areas.

Foreshore and CCC highways departments advise that they support extending the dog control area as proposed. In the case of highways, they consider dogs off leads are not consistent with a pedestrians/cyclist track (ie the promenade) especially when busy. Indeed the creation of an official 24/7 shared track increases the strength of argument for extension of the dog control order over the short western part not currently covered.’

Conduct of Meetings Regarding Interests

At this weeks meeting on Wednesday 19th June 2013 the topic is the Draft Local Plan.

In the light of events at recent meetings in Canterbury relating to the Plan, we draw to the attention of all members and other attendees of our meeting the following code of conduct.

Conduct of Meetings Regarding Interests

Meetings or parts of meetings on any planning matters are held to uphold the interests of Whitstable, whether development affects and/or can be seen by large or a small numbers of people (the objective). Meetings to decide policy must not be dominated by speeches from one lobbying group to the exclusion of contrary or middle-ground viewpoints; especially. On pecuniary matters, the WS is not authorised to hold court for the interests of property owners re matters which simply affect the value of that property or for landowners or developers unless they are invited to speak to aid the overall objective (eg by explaining advantage for Whitstable).

Pecuniary Interests.

  1. When a member or other person asks a question of a guest, makes a comment or otherwise contributes in discussion during a WS meeting on any matter, they will reveal any pecuniary interest. It is entirely in the discretion of the officer chairing that meeting or part of the meeting whether or not that person will be heard or continue to be heard.
  2. If members are advised in advance that a meeting will be covering a topic or area of interest, a member should seek advance permission to speak about anything in which they hold a pecuniary interest.

Other Interests.

If it becomes clear that a meeting is packed by people from one lobby group, the chair of the meeting reserves the right to halt contributions from people from one point of view so as to ensure fairness to other speakers wishing to make their views clear; just as effort is made to ensure less forward contributors get the chance to air their views.

We expect members to advise if they are personally affected by an issue (eg a development may block a view from a garden, a non-planning argument) as this may bias their views. It should be noted however that the WS does assist where development affects the interests of one or more people if there is unfair/unbalanced planning process/practice involved (eg a commercial unit threatens to take away light from a garden). This is consistent with our objectives and role as Official Planning Consultee for Whitstable.

Response to the Draft National Planning Policy Framework 2011

We are a local group with 239 paid-up members representing the voice of ordinary people over 50 years. Our main aim cover the amenity value of our neighbourhood, streets, buildings, green spaces, countryside, town centre and of daily life for the vast majority for the people of Whitstable;and in these respects act as the Official Planning Consultee for the town for Canterbury City Council.

There are difficult choices to be made between development and conservation, technology and tradition. Groups like ours, that keep a watchful eye on change and progress, have managed to help town planners and councillors balance some of these conflicting pressures. Our role is in working towards all of these things, whilst recognising the need for growth and development. We work together with Canterbury City Council for the benefit of local people and the environment. Yet current guidance, that the views of local communities should be heard about what really matters
in their historic development, is set to be lost. In the NPPF developing the evidence for planning and support for local listing of buildings and structures for example is to be dropped; denying a voice to people who know their area best.

The government insists there should be a presumption in favour of sustainable development, but it is cause of concern that there is no definition of “sustainable” which means different things to different people. It is hoped that the government will provide guidelines for “Sustainable”. Whilst we accept that there is a need to update planning guidelines we are concerned that the new guidelines are of insufficient content, which will give rise to unnecessary urban sprawl and not give sufficient protection to our countryside. The NPPF is wrong not to distinguish offsetting development effects . For example, retail can be sold as pro-growth but if it merely takes business from a struggling town centre (eg just because green fields can produce free parking), it is not necessarily pro-growth

The draft NPPF lacks a strong geographical rationale, which would set out the preferred locations for development, focus development where it can regenerate towns and cities, avoid sprawl, boost town centres for their economic and social role and reduce the need to travel. We fear a sprawling nature of new building that will result and add deadweight costs to the economy from increased infrastructure and travel costs.

The policies in Local and Neighbourhood Plans are to be drawn up to do everything to “support sustainable economic growth”, but the NPPF could “trample” the Local Plan and impose all kinds of requirements which may reduce the safeguarding against inappropriate developments.

The NPPF effectively sets up a new system. That is, a new ordering is created by which local plans are subject to the NPPF in both their approval and interpretation in operation. But since the NPPF is not a detailed manual, and PPGs and PPSs’ are swept away, there is great potential for inquiries and court cases to argue over poorly defined concepts in the PPF for both land allocations under the local plan and actual applications. This is primarily not the case in the present system.

The same situation will force local authorities to expand the size and complexity of their local plans to accommodate as much as necessary from a planning point of view into the local plan that is lost due to the removal of central planning guidance documents Simplification gained at national level will be offset by bulkier local plans (which may even differ by LA in definitions left open by the NPPF) and as the NPPF says, it is open season if an local plan is ‘indeterminate’ and local plans must provide a ‘high degree of certainty’. The absence of a definition of sustainability in the PPF is but one example of this problem.

The NPPF fails to take on board the reality that many developers, small and large, have the financial wherewithal and incentive to pursue appeals to any extent whereas local authorities(‘Las’) already cash strapped will be more so . Developers do to some extent already and will now be able to a much greater extent bully LAs into accepting schemes which are sub-standard by any definition because under the new NPPF system with it great uncertainties of detailed definition put LAs into a position where the gamble of defend cannot be justified. There would be a de facto presumption to any development in practice rather than to even the development that the government sees as acceptable.

The restrictions on Green Spaces designation (‘will not be appropriate for most green areas or open spaces’) will mean that neither community not local authorities will be able to protect open space whose visual aesthetic / tranquillity is crucial to the community and even economy (other than that which is agricultural land graded 3A or above). With the elimination of PPG 17 this is the worst aspect of the NPPF and had it been in place over the last fifty years would have seen many critical green spaces which are currently treasured to be developed.

This quote ‘‘Where practical and consistent with other objectives, allocations of land for development should prefer land of lesser environmental value” gives hope of sequential logic, but ‘environmental’ as used in the NPPF is specifically defined not to include any section of countryside that has great scenic value to the community but does not happen to have special protections that are recognised by the NPPF (eg: AONB or better than grade 3b agricultural land). It is therefore unacceptablely the case that the LA cannot distinguish ordinary countryside on a spectrum of attractiveness that was recognised under exisitng arrangements: eg protected open space designation (PPG17).

Large scale development of residential development should not be automically judged sustainable unless there are or will be with some certainty employment opportunities in the area or that the new housing will be primarily for retired people.

Usefully the document suggests that ‘statutory consultees will need to take the same early and pro-active approach to their involvement in development proposals ’. The document should state so there is no room for misunderstanding that this includes ‘official consultees’ that are recognised by local authorities as standing in for areas that do not have town or parish councils (‘unparished areas’).

17/10/2011

Beach Hut Pricing

A note on the determination of beach hut prices on sites rented from the Council

It has been said that the price of beach huts is just a market outcome and nothing to do with the Council. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The cost of a new beach hut is no more than £2000: even for the fanciest. When someone buys a beach hut for £10,000, they are not buying just the hut in their perception. They are buying primarily what they think is the right to rent the site from the Council in perpetuity (and indeed to pass on that right to their heirs) and the right to sell-on this ‘right’ in perpetuity : as that is the way things are run at present.

The excess of the market price of about £8000 over the cost of building a hut is caused exclusively by the practice of permitting existing annual license holders to have the Foreshore Office transfer the annual licence to anyone who the present lessee chooses automatically (ie to the person prepared to pay £10,000). The license clearly states that any transfer is subject to the approval of the Council and therefore the Department of Community Services has every legal right to restrict transfers in any way it chooses.

It is therefore the Council that is causing the high price of huts on Council owned land for the simple reason that if transfers were banned, there would be no market for the ‘right’ to rent in perpetuity. In such a case, all surrendered leases would be allocated to people in a queue or through some other mechanism determined by Councillors and owners of the wooden huts could sell the structures to the new license holders. The Council also has an indirect effect on the value of huts on private land (such as West Beach) according to the level of rent charged for council sites.

The practice of permitting lessees to request officers to transfer the annually renewable licences to anyone automatically side steps any queuing system the Council may have in place. As the price has rocketed, the effect of present policy is to effectively steer by auction council hut sites to people from outside the District, as most local people cannot afford such high prices.

A market could still operate, but probably at much lower prices, if transfers were limited to new license holders from the District or, if a long lease system (eg 10 years) were adopted, the sale and purchase on the residual period on such leases.

A revamp of the whole system is a political decision, but whatever is done must be considered in the realisation that it is Council policy, in today’s market, that has a large influence on the price at which huts on Council sites are sold or indeed if there is market for anything other than the hut itself.

Programme of Events & Membership Card 2013-2014

All members of the Society should shortly be receiving their Membership Cards for 2013 and if we have your email address you should already have received an electronic version.

The programme of Events for 2013-2014 has been finalised and is printed on the card – it can also be seen on the Events Tab of this website.

New members always welcome – see the Membership Page for details of how to join.