SEDLESCOMBE NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN 2016 REPRESENTIONS – COLIN C RAYMOND
There are many reasons why it is very difficult for a lay member of the community to comment
wisely and effectively on the Sedlescombe Neighbourhood Plan (NP) as it is a series of voluminous
and complex documents and clearly has a lengthy and chequered history.
Nevertheless, I strongly resent being presented with a fait accompli misleadingly headed
“consultation” (Revised Draft Pre-Submission Sedlescombe Neighbourhood Plan – 2016 Consultation
Form) and feel it completely wrong not to have had a reasonable opportunity to have any say in the
choice of sites in the second Sedlescombe Neighbourhood Plan.
The Parish Council (PC) has, from the outset, mounted a resolute campaign against any building
whatsoever on the Street Farm site. Sadly, from even a cursory study of the history and
documentation of this Neighbourhood Planning exercise it is clear from its heavy bias that the NP
has been used as little more than the main tool in this campaign. I believe this is supported by a
paragraph in the Parish Council chairman’s introduction to the Sedlescombe Parish Council Annual
Report & Directory 2013 which states:
“In September last year we saw the start of the real threat of a large development on a
green field site attached to the village which is an ongoing serious concern. To address this
the Parish Council in consultation with our community will be creating our own
Neighbourhood Plan which will allow residents to say where and what scale of development
can take place in our Parish.”
But despite greatly changed circumstances no dissent has been tolerated and it has been extremely
frustrating to see the Neighbourhood Planning process so clearly abused without any repercussions
and with recourse only to the perpetrators.
In the NP’s first guise there was at least an opportunity to make a selection of sites however much
constrained and heavily prejudiced against the inclusion of the Street Farm site (please see a copy of
the form attached to the email) which shows that Street Farm was at the outset being presented as
“Not acceptable by parish survey results” which were in turn based on a number of leading
questions). Objectively, the same survey results would exclude all the newly proposed Church Hill
sites That plan ultimately failed because the Parish Council adamantly refused to respond to District
Council advice on the need for conformity with the core strategy and because the PC decided to
ignore comments by the examiner.
Despite the NP in its present guise being completely different to its first e.g., a significant change to
development plans at the Street farm site and three brand new proposed sites I can recall no
attempt at consultation on the new sites. In fact, just the opposite. Apparently, the opinion of two
commissioned experts (briefs unknown) was considered of greater importance than that of mere
parishioners. Worse, judging from the bias that clearly pervades the NP including the incomplete
and directing nature of information distributed by the PC and its attempts to ignore or stifle any
discussion, it is hard not to conclude that the prime objective of this NP has been predetermined
from the start, i.e. “to keep Street Farm free from development of even one house”. This regardless
of the effect on the rest of the NP or Village.
This view is supported by the statement made in an email widely circulated to residents as early as
03 December 2012 which states in bold underlined text that:
It’s not about allowing even one house on this site which if allowed would be the thin end
of the wedge.
SEDLESCOMBE NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN 2016 REPRESENTIONS – COLIN C RAYMOND
My earnest request is that ideally this NP should not be accepted until the PC has carried out a
consultation correctly based on an objective assessment of the pros and cons of each potential site
rather than the recent undignified rush aimed at stopping one particular development. Thus, the
plan could finally become a true reflection of the will of a well-informed Parish as a whole, rather
than that of a stirred up and very localised minority that has been carefully kept on message. Or,
that as a minimum, the PC is asked to amend the NP to include the Street Farm site and to remove
one of the Church Hill sites to save overdevelopment of this part of the Village.
In addition to having been excluded from any consultation in the selection of sites, it is my assertion
that there has been no opportunity whatsoever for those members of the public who were not fully
in support of the prime objective being given a chance to contribute effectively to the NP. Contrary
to encouraging debate or being open to comment, suppression of alternative views and humiliation
appeared to be the order of the day. To illustrate, I describe below incidents from three meetings
that I attended recently that I believe fully support this assertion: a PC Neighbourhood Planning
Committee meeting followed immediately by a full meeting of the PC, both on 27 September 2016
and a meeting of Rother District Council’s (RDC) Planning Committee held on 13 October 2016.
The Neighbourhood Planning Meeting started in typical style with attendees being softened up with
the usual flood of statistics presented as “useful background” supporting the PC’s case as if to dare
anyone to challenge. It worked on some of the newer members of the council whose only
contribution to the “debate” was to quote the mantra of ”the people have spoken” albeit usually
with one voice, pretty much at the same time and strictly in accordance with the SPC’s prime
objective. Nevertheless:
One brave councillor suggested that maybe the PC could have handled the consultation better but
was told that he could wear a hair shirt if he wanted. He sought to get his concerns recorded in the
minutes but inevitably this was not allowed. I extract two of his comments (verbatim):
-
I think we ought …, I don’t think your draft reply went quite far enough. I think we ought
to recognise that some of these comments were avoidable. I think I talked to you about
um. We had a chat outside the PC didn’t we? It is clear to me that we were a little bit
open to criticism long before these complaints came in because of the prescriptive nature
of the consultation in that it did not allow any direct comparison of new sites and old
sites and I think this is one of the things one of the correspondents brought up. I know
why you have done this because you have got to come up with a complete plan. But
nevertheless it’s never been raised with residents that the street Farm proposal and the
similar proposal in Church Hill has never been able to be compared and I think this was a
mistake of ours, all of us really, because we did not allow that to happen.
And
SEDLESCOMBE NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN 2016 REPRESENTIONS – COLIN C RAYMOND
-
But at that time they didn’t know anything about the northern sites, the Church Hill sites
so they weren’t able to compare, none of them were able to compare the two sites
together.
This dissent is well concealed in the minutes.
Unsurprisingly, this councillor no longer serves on the PC.
A second councillor was also audacious enough to express dissent with the NP as presented and
seemed had only very recently become aware of the latest offers that had been made by the
developer for the Street Farm site. He was told by another councillor to “Beware of Greeks bearing
gifts”. A clear example of a closed mind. This dissenting councillor too no longer serves on the Parish
Council.
Ironically, these are the only two councillors that feature prominently on the cover page of the
consultation statement shown discussing the NP with attendees at the July 2016 exhibition at the
Village Hall. What advice and guidance did they give?
A person referred to as “a resident of Chapel Hill, attended the same PC meetings as myself. This
resident had submitted a motion attempting to give councillors an opportunity for reflection. So
what happened to the motion? It had been cunningly placed on an agenda in a position that meant
it could not be discussed because of decisions on an earlier agenda item. In effect the horse had
already bolted and any possibility of discussion within the PC effectively suppressed. Skulduggery
indeed!
The same person had written to the PC asking who had authorised a councillor to write to people
asking them to withdraw the support they had registered on a DC website regarding a Street Farm
development proposal. To do this is surely putting pressure on an individual attempting to
communicate with the DC, which is obviously wrong. There was no such authority. The unbelievable
response from the PC was that the councillor was writing as an individual and the clerk did nothing
to correct the incorrect opinion that a councillor could flip flop between the two states of parish
councillor and member of the public. This is a crafty stratagem if councillor actions have not been
authorised at a formal PC meeting. Worse, the clerk seemed more concerned with excusing herself
for not having written the letter on behalf of the Council (as one would normally expect a clerk to
do) - instead, offering excuses about being in Norway at the time. Why she thought she should be
the one to answer messages not sent to the PC is totally beyond me. Resident effectively silenced.
There was a clear haste in this meeting to get the NP approved for submission prior to the DC
Planning Committee’s consideration of the Street Farm application RR/2016/1837/P. Quality of the
NP or public participation was clearly a secondary consideration to getting it to a stage where it
could be used to block planning approval. It is worth adding that after this meeting the PC quickly
introduced a vexatious complaints policy in a clear attempt to stifle any further dissenting
comments.
All in all, the meeting was a revelation which is more than can be said about the carefully crafted
minutes which portray a somewhat different picture to a verbatim record made at the time.
After my experience of the SPC meetings I found the Rother District Council meeting really
refreshing in that it was not dominated by any one individual and in the event, rather naively,
SEDLESCOMBE NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN 2016 REPRESENTIONS – COLIN C RAYMOND
perhaps, councillors clearly felt free and unconstrained to fully debate the application - not that they
could avoid the inevitable flurry of letters from the Parish Council beforehand attempting to
influence District Councillors before they considered the planning application. OK, normally a
perfectly acceptable practice but only if accurately informative rather than, as in this case, rather
misleading. It is difficult not to be in total agreement with a statement made by a District Councillor
as reported in Rye and Battle Observer. (Please see
http://www.ryeandbattleobserver.co.uk/news/councillor-threatened-before-controversialsedlescombe-homes-approved-1-7628055 )
“What I’m totally mystified at is why did this (the Street Farm site) not become a part of the
neighbourhood plan.”
“It seems to be a complete nonsense to not help the village get what it wants and not to have the
security of this piece of land forever. I just don’t understand it.”
Neither do I. Bizarre indeed.
Another District Councillor observed that some of the proposed affordable housing types were as
“rare as hen’s teeth”.
Luckily for Sedlescombe the District Councillors seemed more in touch with the future of the Village
than its own PC and the application was granted delegated approval.
But, woe betide any dissenters. That the RDC Planning Committee had the temerity to allow a
planning application for building on the hallowed ground was clearly counter to the prime objective
and certainly contrary to the thrust of the PC’s campaign and thus ensued a display of outrage that
resulted in:
- an absent parish councillor describing the meeting as “disgraceful”;
- two DCs rightly or wrongly being immediately made the subject of Code of Conduct
investigations;
- a request being made for the planning application to be called in for decision by the Secretary
of State;
- another unauthorised flurry of emails being dispatched to other PCs undertaking Parish Plans
using the by now familiar modus operandi of pleading for their clearly misinformed support by
writing letters to the Secretary of State and other senior government figures with clear
instructions on how it should be done and exactly what should be written.
This kind of extreme reaction all adds to the climate of fear that exists in the Village and
certainly discourages the frank and open involvement one would hope for when developing a
NHP.
This kind of extreme reaction all adds to the climate of fear that exists in the Village and
certainly discourages the frank and open involvement one would hope for when developing a
NHP.