Baffled campaigners wishing to make further comments about developments with the controversial Clowne Garden Village planning application for 1,800 homes claim they have been left struggling to find newly-announced details, after Bolsover District Council stated it has received fresh information relating an ‘environmental statement’.
The council is still considering Waystone Ltd’s planning application for the Clowne Garden Village housing scheme for 1,800 properties with 24 hectares of greenfield land for mixed-development and employment, as well as community and commercial facilities between Clowne and Barlborough.
Campaigners have already raised concerns the development will lead to overcrowding, pose a strain on highways and services and create flooding and some have revealed they have been struggling to find newly-announced information about the planning application. They are calling for more public meetings with updates for clarity, given the application’s prolonged nature and complexities.
Dee Dell, of the Clowne Garden Village Action Group, said: “There is a real anomaly issue here regarding Clowne Garden Village.
“They are continuing to accumulate objections to the 2023 proposals, but the plans we are objecting to have been changed.”
She claims that her husband and fellow campaigner Roger Dell has been told there will be no more public meetings and the couple is concerned that without publicity, protesters may be unaware of changes that may alter their previously submitted objections.
Bolsover District Council distributed a letter in April to concerned parties explaining that further information and evidence has been received relating to the ‘environmental statement’ and this could be viewed at the council or via its website.
It added that hard copies of the information could also be obtained from the applicant for £50 in writing with the payment to Waystone Ltd, 7 Napier Court, Gander Lane, Barlborough, Chesterfield S43 4PZ.
The correspondence stressed all previously submitted comments from concerned parties will still be valid and they will still be fully considered and any further comments would also still be welcome before a May 20 deadline.
However, Mrs Dell has complained that it is very difficult to find the relevant updated information in the council’s online documents because she could not find a date reference and the print resolution is poor.
Greg Lindley, Secretary of Clowne Community Association, stated in a letter to the council: “The letter of 10 April is unacceptable. It does not tell anybody anything.
“At first read of it you think it is about something to do with the environment on the Clowne Garden Village application. But if you look for that on the planning portal for the application you won’t find it.”
Mr Lindley claims he tried to contact the council without success and visited the council headquarters at The Arc, in Clowne, only to be offered a chance to search online at a computer in the reception.
He added: “We are left having to guess why this letter is out there to every consultee and what we should be looking at, for and why?”
Nearly 1,400 public comments have now been submitted to Bolsover District Council concerning the Clowne Garden Village planning application as campaigners call for more public meetings.
In the meantime, the council stated no date has yet been announced for the deciding council planning committee meeting after the application first surfaced in 2017 and was thrust back into the limelight in 2023 with further consideration and a renewed public consultation.
Campaigners suspect the plans are being altered again after the council has received new information and they would like more public meetings with updates given the prolonged nature and complexity of the planning application.
They have already raised concerns about the development’s possible impact on highways and existing services, the loss of countryside and wildlife, as well as fears about drainage, flooding and overcrowding and many have signed a Clowne Garden Village Action Group petition with over 1,300 names.
Bolsover MP Mark Fletcher has also claimed the housing scheme could increase the population of the area by nearly 50 per cent and that the amount of actual affordable housing will be negligible and in his own survey he claims 95per cent of 276 residents who answered questions were opposed to the development.
Clowne Garden Village Action Group campaigner Dom Webb stated the new information concerns a viability report with unresolved Section 106 arrangements between the council and the applicant which involve proposed payments expected from Waystone to support infrastructure which may be disputed by the two parties.
He has also been pushing for a Judicial Review to challenge Bolsover District Council’s handling of the residential planning application and he has also written to the Secretary of State for the Home Department to consider the progress of the proposed Clowne Garden Village scheme.
Mr Webb has claimed when an original application was submitted after 2017 it did not match the district council’s Local Plan at that time and after the application was delayed it was then allegedly included prejudicially in the subsequent 2020 Local Plan which would support its progress.
The council has, however, provided comprehensive explanations and a timeline claiming that the proposed development has always been part of the Local Plan since 2016 and it has insisted that consideration of the planning application will continue.
Mr Webb has also claimed the release of Green Belt land to allow for the development was also allegedly unlawful because he claims there were no special circumstances to do this and this land should be protected.
But the district council has stated that following a robust review “exceptional circumstances” were cited legally allowing the removal of this area from Green Belt preservation.
The district council has stated it has to meet housing and affordable housing targets because of nationwide shortages and there is a strategy to expand Clowne and this site could involve a progressive 20-year long process.
Mr Webb also tried to trigger a parish poll to gauge public opposition or support for the plans which the council declined to combine with the recent election polls for the East Midlands Combined County Authority Mayor and for the Derbyshire Police and Crime Commissioner elections in May.
The council stressed that parish polls are aimed at purely obtaining the opinion of a parish and their results are not legally binding.
Bolsover District Council’s planning committee had originally resolved to approve the application in June 2018, but the council has stated that following delays with legal agreements and the Covid-19 pandemic reports needed to be updated so the application was delayed.
Despite opposition to the housing plans, the developers have claimed there is support for the scheme in terms of the potential for economic growth, facilities and jobs.
The council has stressed it is continuing to deal with the application for the proposed housing development, north of Clowne including part of the village centre off Hickinwood Lane, in accordance with legislation and guidance and it will be submitted to a future planning committee for consideration.
Bolsover District Council said no date has been set yet for a planning committee meeting to finally decide upon the planning application and it has reiterated that it does not wish to comment any further at this stage after it has previously addressed concerns.
The Clowne Garden Village application details have also been recently fowarded to the newly elected East Midlands Combined County Authority Mayor Claire Ward with 29 other priority investment sites across Derbyshire as part of an EMCCA investment plan focussing on housing development, regeneration and brownfield land.
