Combs Parish Council has registered its objections to the proposed development of 160 houses to the east of Poplar Hill with Mid Suffolk District Council (MSDC).
A copy of the Parish Council's letter of objection to MSDC can be viewed here. (Click on the link).
If you are opposed to this proposed development then the Parish Council is on your side.
The Parish Council is aware that a potentially large number of people are planning to attend the Parish Council Meeting on Monday 9th July, in order to lobby the Parish Council to oppose the Planning Application. However, in submitting its letter of objection to MSDC the Parish Council has already done everything within its power to oppose this development. The Chairman of Combs Parish Council has written to those opposing the application to explain the situation in more detail. The text of his e-mail is reproduced below.
From the chairman of Combs Parish Council:
I understand that people are being encouraged through social media to attend the next meeting of Combs Parish Council and that it has been suggested the Gladman proposal for 160 houses East of Poplar Hill will be the main agenda item. That is not completely accurate.
While everyone is welcome to attend I should like to try to ensure there has been no misunderstanding, as I can imagine that if a lot of people feel they have wasted their time in attending a meeting much useful energy could be lost.
In the first instance the planning application will be considered by Mid Suffolk District Council, more particularly their planning department. The land on which it is proposed to build the 160 houses is in Stowmarket, not in the parish of Combs. Combs Parish Council is one of several local organisations who are defined as formal ‘consultees’. The planning department, in considering the application, is required to take into account the views of those consultees, however it is not required to respect those views.
Combs Parish Council voted in their meeting on 11 June to object to the application and a formal, detailed letter has been filed with the planning department and copied to those on this mailing list. It will shortly appear on the village website too.
Clearly the social media groups and the Parish Council share a common goal, namely rejection by the planning department of the building proposal. The only difference is that the Council is constrained to follow the formal process and we also believe that the detailed objection has the best chance of achieving the desired result.
In their capacity as councillors the members of the council are not in a position to organise protests and it is their view that a petition, while indicating strength of support, would be unlikely to influence the planning department, who make their decisions based on compliance with various regulations. That is not to say that the councillors are against any form of legitimate action that you and others may take and, when not wearing their council hats, some may well join you. However I hope you will appreciate that the council meeting is not the best venue from which to organise protest action. While the Gladman issue is a major concern to the council, ordinary issues still need attending to and you will see from the agenda that this issue is but one small part (item 10 (a) (iv)) of the meeting agenda.
From analysing the style of these developers we are aware that they usually expect to have their initial application rejected. Their technique involves selecting an area where there is no five year housing plan in place. They can then appeal to the housing inspectorate, to whom a housing plan seems more important than local issues. Sadly Mid Suffolk does not have a five year housing plan, hence the selection by Gladman of this area.
While we hope to maintain a fight against the application here, it has been suggested that the village should develop a neighbourhood plan, so demonstrating a local will to keep the village in a certain style, and this may help defend the village against any future planning efforts. Accordingly we shall be looking into this as a next step.
It is great to see that so many people are keen to become involved through social media and it would be lovely to meet anyone who is willing to become involved in the development of a neighbourhood plan.
Kind regards
Stuart Scarff
Chairman, Combs Parish Council