In February 2007 Ian Cowan, Barbara Shout and Carl Storer from STAG had a meeting with Councillor Andy Smith, Chairman of the LDF Task Group, along with Stephen Brown and Phil Ridley from SCDC Planning Department. We had a very robust exchange of views, and came away from the meeting convinced that the LDF Task Group had already made up its mind to recommend the adoption of Option Six, whereby greenfield land around the Trimley villages would be earmarked for large scale housing developments.

Councillor Smith started the meeting by explaining the LDF decisionmaking process, and was adamant that Cabinet had NOT rejected the previous Plan whereby Option Six was recommended last year. He claimed that because of a reinterpretation of Government Guidelines and the experience of other Councils they had to represent their Options without recommendations and undergo a consultation process.

It was pointed out by STAG that had the current consultation process not been undertaken they would have gone ahead with Option Six without a consultation process. This was denied.

He also expressed the desirability of people living close to their places of work.

Carl Storer outlined the history and purpose of STAG and explained that the LDF had a credibility problem with regard to the presentation of its findings - for example accessible only on web site, documents very extensive, summary is meaningless, questionnaire has many pages with loaded questions, etc.

It must be noted that Councillor Smith is a difficult person to debate with - there can not be a normal dialogue or exchange of views with him and he will talk over other people who wish to interject or make a point.

Councillor Smith severely criticised the bias of Nigel Pickover and the exaggerated and erroneous reporting of Richard Cornwell.

It was claimed that Stephen Brown had undergone an informal consultation process over the past two years, including workshops with Paris Councils. This prompted several questions -
1. Two Settlement Hierarchy Options have now been presented, the latter of which included the Trimley Villages with Felixstowe - so as part of the consultation process how many people had said this was a preference?
The answer was - None.
2. Of the 100 settlements within the hierarchy, how many had been moved from one designation to another?
Stephen Brown expressed surprise that he would be expected to know the answer, and when it was pointed out there were only two - the Trimley villages - Councillor Smith pointed out that this was merely a consultation, but could not - despite being pressed - justify the reasoning.
3. If the Parish Councils and villagers expressed opposition to being classified as a suburb of Felixstowe would their views be listened to?
Not necessarily. Councillor Smith pointed out that difficult decisions would have to be made and not everyone would be pleased with the results, despite claiming that “Town cramming and quality of life were concerns” and “communities will be treated individually.”

When asked if the Six Options now presented were final, Stephen Brown claimed that if other Options were suggested they would be listened to.

We talked a great deal about the balancing figure of “x” - i.e.. the number of houses needed to be allocated up to 2021 on greenfield land. When Councillor Smith was specifically asked “To the best of your knowledge do we need 3620 houses to be allocated?” The answer was an unequivocal “Yes”.

There was then a great deal of discussion - and disagreement - about this total.

Ian Cowan asked Stephen Brown “Have at least 1300 more houses been built since the allocation figure of 3620 was arrived at in 2004?” The answer was “Yes.” “Are there at least 600 more Outline Planning Permissions than there were in 2004?” Again the answer was “Yes.” “Has more brownfield land become available since 2004?” “Yes.” So how come, if there are nearly 2000 more houses built and planned, can the ‘x’ figure still be 3620?”

At this point Councillor Smith intervened, and tried to explain that the brownfield figure from 2004 would have been reduced by new houses built and new planning approvals granted so the balancing figure to be allocated would still be in the region of 3620.

When this point was argued in detail he defended the use of old statistics on the basis that they had to stop at some point, they could not be constantly updating the figures, and it would be unreasonable to ask planning personnel to do so. Stephen Brown explained that the relevant statistics are only updated on a 3 yearly basis, thus confirming that the housing statistics contained on the six Options has been prepared at 1 April 2004.

STAG attendees expressed surprise that in view of the importance of the Core Strategy it had not been thought prudent to update the statistics as a special exercise.

It was explained by STAG that they were making decisions that would have an affect for years to come, and using statistics which were now nearly 3 years out of date was incorrect and unreasonable, and to have them in the Core Strategy Document was misleading. Ian Cowan used the analogy of a company board meeting, and if the accountant presented figures 3 years old to back up a decision he would deserve the sack. Ian Cowan, on this basis, accused Smith and his colleagues of being negligent and incompetent.

At this point Councillor Smith tried to use an analogy about accountants presenting pension figures which changed every time they were represented. Ian Cowan pointed out the error of this analogy, since houses are fixed and countable, unlike pension projections which are influenced by outside factors.

STAG were then challenged - how many houses in the Trimley villages would be acceptable to you? Carl Storer replied that we could not decide since we were not planning experts, however figures of between 50 and 100 affordable units were mentioned. STAG also stated that we were not nimbies, opposed to all developments, and if SCDC could come up with overall housing figures that were accurate, up to date, and believable then we could not reasonably object to overall numbers, but we could reasonably raise concerns about their location.

Barbara Shout mentioned doubts about depending on Dock estimates regarding increases in future employment levels. She stated that recruitment was currently static and previous promises of more jobs had not materialised. There was no response to this.

Barbara Shout highlighted the current problem of traffic congestion on the HIgh Road and stated that it would get much worse with more houses. When Stephen Brown was asked if this had been studied in detail the answer was negative. Ian Cowan asked how many new houses would it take to gridlock the High Road. The answer was not known.

Councillor Smith denied that it had ever been the intention of the LDF to build on greenfield land around the Trimley villages as a priority. He stated that it had always been the policy to build first on brownfield land, with greenfield land only being used as a last resort.

Carl Storer reiterated the LDF’s credibility problem because the policy of building on brownfield land was not sufficiently clear from the February Core Strategy Document. When asked if he would make the point more clearly in the next version of the Core Strategy - due in late Summer - he agreed to do so, perhaps in his Foreword.

The next stage will be a reissue of the Core Strategy once the consultation exercise has been completed. Ian Cowan asked Stephen Brown which figures for Housing Completions would be used. Stephen Brown confirmed the date would be houses completed up to 1 April 2007. Ian Cowan specifically asked the same question again for Outstanding Planning Permissions and Urban Capacity. In both cases the answer was 1 April 2007.

Overall Conclusion : Since Councillor Smith and colleagues see nothing wrong with using old and out of date statistics, and propose to rearrange the Settlement Hierarchy to make it easier to build on brownfield land around the Trimley villages it is easy to conclude that it is their long term intention to surround the Trimley villages with housing estates, and that nothing within the consultation process will change their minds.