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ILMINSTER: Hundreds pack into ballroom for unofficial local plan meetBy Marion Draper
DESPITE being listed as such on the Ilminster Town Council website, angry residents of Ilminster who turned up at the Shrubbery Hotel on Tuesday evening for what they thought was a public meeting about the Local Plan, were told it was not an official meeting.
Councillor Carol Goodall said she had been approached in her capacity as a South Somerset District Council (SSDC) member by a few concerned residents and had asked fellow district councillor, Ric Pallister to come along and meet them to answer a few questions, neither were expecting the 150 that filled the ballroom. She and councillor Pallister found themselves shouting down members of the public, angry at the changes in the preferred site for development from west to east, in order to explain that it was not a council meeting or a public meeting, and as such had no validity. It seemed the confusion, which also included a change of time from 7.30pm to 6pm had come from the town council administration due to the diary being booked for the discussion on a Tuesday, the normal night for their council meetings, which are held at 7.30pm. After a heated beginning, councillor Pallister was able to settle things down and take charge, insisting all that he and his fellows, SSDC planning policy officer Jo Manley and community regeneration officer Zoe Harris, could do would be to try and answer some of their questions about the final consultation period on the Local Plan, currently running until August 10th. The main issue the majority in the room had with the councillors was that the preferred development site had changed in October and that they felt the previous consultation period had not been adequate to inform everyone. Councillor Pallister maintained that Ilminster had been given more chances than most to speak out since the first consultation was made with the town council in 2009. He thanked the gathering for at least acknowledging that more housing was needed and only the site was the issue but expressed frustration that people were saying they had not been consulted. He said the SSDC had leafleted and held public consultations followed by due process throughout Area West, executive and then full council meetings, to pass the core strategy, now called the Local Plan. He said they could not have done more but they could not force people to read their leaflets or turn out to meetings. He urged everyone to use what time was left constructively as the deadline for the consultation was August 10th; he said they should send their objections to SSDC but they must be factual and not emotive. These would then be forwarded to the government planning inspector who would decide if the plan had been done correctly, or if it needed to be reviewed but he warned that to stop the due process now could lead to missing the government deadline of March 27th, and losing any right to a say in future development. The key point he tried to make was that the Local Plan was only a policy, not a master plan and that many of the fears they had about development would be dealt with if there was ever an actual planning application. He said: “We wouldn’t develop on a local wildlife site, there are other constraints which would stop that.” Ms Manley also pointed out that the seemingly excessive amount of housing referred to was a worst-case scenario, mocked up for the highways to do its transport survey, she said there was no relief road, only a residential road for the proposed housing – however, it would go from Townsend to Shudrick Lane. It was also mentioned that the new community infrastructure levy, which would force any individual development to contribute to a community pot,would not be available without the Local Plan in place. Athough the mood was calmer by the end, the disgruntled residents were not convinced that anything had been solved and maintained that the consultation process was flawed, allowing the change of preferred site to slip by unnoticed until it was too late. One brave resident from the Cold Harbour side of town, pointed out that there was an equal number of people who objected to the development at the original preferred site to the west. PICTURE: HAVING A SAY - The unofficial public meeting at The Shrubbery in Ilminster CommentsThere are no comments yet. Be the first to add one below. Add new commentReturn to news headlines | |||||||||||||||
 
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