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Welcome to
Llanvair Discoed
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PUBLIC MEETING YOU NEED TO ATTEND!
LOCAL
DEVELOPMENT PLAN
VILLAGE
BOUNDARY CONSULTATION
You
are invited to a meeting at The Woodlands Tavern on Wednesday,
14th July 2010 at 7pm where Mr George Ashworth, Senior
Planning Officer will explain plans which may affect Llanvair
Discoed.
Please try to attend if at all possible.
Absence will be interpreted as consent! If you can't
attend, get one of your neighbours to voice any questions or
concerns on your behalf.
Click on the links below for information on the Local
Development Plans.
Whole LDP Document (Llanvair Discoed
info starts page 37)
Land behind School Court (PV14)
Land to the south (PV15)
Land to the south-east (PV16) (although this is labelled PV15 it
really is PV16, MCC assured me)
Monmouthshire
Land Sensitivity - LLanvair Discoed
Appendix 1, Part C - Caerwent, Llanvair and Kilgeddin
Monmouthshire LDP 2009, Part 1
Monmouthshire LDP2009 , Part 2
The meeting was attended by Phil Murphy and George Ashworth, Head of Planning.
Phil outlined his objections to the plans and asked George to speak.
George gave some credence to the huge turn out from the village (Well Done US!) as well as background to the plans.
He told us that PV14 and PV15 were not suitable and would not be taken further they would only look at PV16
He admitted that the reports PV14, PV15 and PV16 contained numerous mistakes but would not apologise despite being pushed to do so. (A good comment at the end of the meeting was to the effect that we were glad he and his team didn't plan the D-Day landings!).
Alun Morgan expressed his anger and outrage at not being informed about the plans despite his use of the land, a great discoutesy which was given a round of applause.
It appears that there is no criteria to move Llanvair from a Minor village to a Major village and that it seemed to be a very subjective and arbitary decision.
The whole room was against the plans either to move the village boundary or to build the houses, which equates to 14% increase in the number of houses in the village.
The minutes were taken officially and we were promised a copy of the minutes to check the content and validity of them.
Essentially the points people gave were the one's listed below, so when you write in please mention them ALL.
The address to write to is:
George Ashworth
Head of Planning
Monmounthshire County Council
NP44 2XH
It is my (Andrew Miller, Bramble Cottage) opinion that the council thinks we will just stand by and let them develop these houses without a second glance. Don't get me wrong - I am all for building houses and especially for sustainable and affordable houses. I am also all for commom sense and that is what the council seems to have mis-placed in these current plans.
As you can see we have three main sites. One is enirely landlocked (PV14) . One with access to the 'Little Lane' which currently struggles with the current agricultural and village traffic and the last (PV16) or with access via the playground area. The last (PV16) with access at the entrance to the village where the lane narrows and at a junction towards Penhein and The Cwm.
It appears that the identification of Llanvair Discoed and 2 other villages (Cross Ash and Llafair Kilgeddin) only just made the list of 26 "Major Village" and not the "Minor Village" list, which includes Crick and others. The decision on the village being identified as a Major villages list has major implications.
Their decision has been based on a crude measurement of the number of retail. employment and community and service facilities and access to public transport. No attempt was made to give weighting to different facilities.
The facilities were listed as:
Church
Pub
Children's Play area
Sports Ground ?? (I think the may the 'Haines Oval'!!)
It is also mention in the report that the Llanvair Discoed is:
"A relatively compact village with a reasonable population level" (estimated as 213 in 2008).
The initial selection is open to consultation and the final selection of the village as a "Major Village" will depend on the interplay of a number of factors including:
Range of facilities, services and employment opportunities within the village
Ability to access facilities, services and employment opportunities within close proximity, particularly by public transport
Size of the settlement
LLR02
Landscape sensitivity high/medium
The area has a high/medium sensitivity as it forms an open rising and attractive rural backcloth to the village [the older part] and is widely visible to the south with some strong woodland. It also lies within the SLA.
Housing capacity low
The area has low capacity for a housing as this would be likely to erode the positive rural character and the backcloth to the older part of the village and possibly be widely visible to the south.
LLR03
Landscape sensitivity medium
with recreation/sports ground. One deciduous copse and isolated trees in hedgerows. Dispersed rural dwellings on lanes. The area acts as the rural approach and lower setting to the village with traditional farm complex adjacent. The village and minor roads are quiet adjacent in this essentially rural area.
The area has medium sensitivity as it is very open to views from the approach roads to the south and from the village. The farmhouse adjacent acts as an appropriate outlier on the edge of the village.
Housing capacity low
The area has low capacity for housing due to its open, rural character which additional housing would impinge upon and be very visible from the south and east as well as from the village. Overall, this area is slightly less sensitive than the adjacent slopes but there are no clear opportunities.
Areas LLR02 and LLR03 cover all three proposed areas.
“Distribute development proportionately across rural and urban areas to meet housing needs evenly throughout the County, although focusing on those small towns and villages where there is a basic level of services and facilities.”
“An appropriate amount of development in rural areas with a focus on those settlements that have best access to services and public transport”
I feel that Llanvair Discoed does not meet these criteria in nearly all respects having a very limited level of services and facilities, specifically:
- The village has no mains sewerage or drainage. In addition, as this area of Llanvair Discoed is within an Environmental Agency groundwater special protection zone 1, the Environment Agency after a recent inspection (July 2010) have stated that they would refuse permission for any sewage discharge of any kind into the ground or village stream.
- Cesspits of a MINIMUM sized for a 1 bedroom house is 18,000 litres would have to be built per houes. Each cesspit would have to be 15m from any dwelling. For affordable family homesyour looking at 54,000 litres based on a three bedroom house.
- All three candidate sites are subject to flooding, and as the general climate of the UK is changing DEFRA suggest that precipitation in Wales could increase by 7% during the winter season, further increasing the risk of flooding. (Based on Medium Emissions Scenario in the 2020’s)
- The village has no mains gas supply. This causes the main supply of heating to be oil, and as such poses an extra danger in the number of oil tankers that would be required to access the houses in addition to extra storage. This also further damages the environment - oil is not a sustainable fuel.
- The village does not have a bus stop within 800m. The nearest bus stop is 1 ¼ miles away and the service runs on average 12 times per 24 hours. With an aging population how can you expect those over the age of 65 to walk 2 ½ miles carrying shopping, let alone young mothers with wheel chairs etc along roads that have no footpaths.
- The village has only a limited bus service (only the grassroots system whereby you need to call the day before to book a visit by the bus. Unless booked, the bus does not service the village) meaning that people rely more on car transport adding to the greenhouse effects and vehicles on the roads with resulting saftey concerns.
- The village has no school (and the nearest school at Shirenewton (2.6 miles away) is oversubscribed)
- Limited broadband (maximum broadband speed of <2MB - you are no doubt aware that the more users of broadband on a single line into the village will slow down the access speed for all users). This surely is not a good advert for living and working in rural Wales?
- Limited road access (the ‘main’ road into the village is a narrow lane barely wide enough for two cars to pass for a large part of its length prior to joining the A48). Increased traffic along this route would increase the chance of accidents, possibly fatal accidents, and happening.
- There are no shops in Llanvair Discoed. The nearest shops are located in Caldicot (4 miles away). With the very limited pedestrian pathways currently available in Llanvair Discoed and along the route to Caldicot it would be almost suicidal to consider walking to the shops especially for the elderly, infirm and those with young children and using push chairs et
- We do not have a village hall. The only spaces suitable for village gatherings would be in the Woodlands Tavern upstairs room, and whilst suitable for a small range of functions is certainly not suitable for any thing else.
- The local Church (St. Mary’s) whilst does hold functions can only do so on a small number of occasions due to no toilet facilities, limited disabled access and no running water. As such it is not suitable to be included in the report as a potential community access point.
When you attend the meeting you must make it clear that you object not only to the planning poposals but also the boundary changes.
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