Say No to Mickleover Sprawl

Derby City, South Derbyshire and Amber Valley district councils are consulting residents on the quantity and location of house building to plan for over the next 15 to 20 years.

This anticipates the coalition government’s Localism bill, which is expected to scrap the Regional Plans (which last year’s consultation related to) and put in place a new framework driving housing development, which supposedly gives local communities more say in the matter. This consultation invites residents’ views on the amount of house building there should be in the Derby HMA (the “housing market area” covered by the 3 councils) and where that house building should be concentrated.

The consultation closes on 30th September, and we suggest you make the effort to put your views. The planners have last year’s consultation responses to refer to, and they may now have more options about where all the building is to go, despite the government’s aggressive pro development stance (see NB below, and you can find plenty of current press coverage on this).

Local planners have produced an Options paper, Summary leaflet and a Questionnaire, which can all be found by clicking here: Derbyshire.gov.uk and scrolling down the web page. There are also documents there covering various population projections for the HMA. You can use the Questionnaire for your input or you can simply write or email your views (addresses and email addresses are listed below). We suggest you send your input to the South Derbyshire planning team (essential, as the green field land bordering Mickleover to the west is all “their patch”) and to the Derby City planning team. The full contact details for all 3 councils are listed in the options paper and in the summary leaflet and in the Questionnaire. The email addresses for Derby City and South Derbyshire are derby.ldf@derby.gov.uk and LDF.options@south-derbys.gov.uk respectively.

NB: The government appears determined that there will be a lot of house building across the UK; financial incentives for housing development are proposed and the Localism bill as drafted includes a presumption in favour of development, so it’s going to be very difficult for councils without a credible housing plan to fight off developers’ housing proposals. We advise you make your views known as the councils must formulate that credible housing development plan, and this is your chance to have your say.

Read the Options paper (the link is above). As background to the process the councils have considered 6 population scenarios, and of these, 3 are referred to in the Options paper, together with the regional plan housing numbers. One of these scenarios (the government ONS projection) would involve even more house building than last year’s regional plan because it effectively projects forward on the basis of the 5 years from 2003-2008 when Derby HMA experienced a high level of net inward migration (which hopefully isn’t considered a serious long term option). Note that you’re not constrained to suggest any of these specific scenarios, but you need to suggest something you could reasonably argue is credible.

As far as location goes, 4 basic options are discussed in the Options paper, but you can suggest whatever you think you could justify. It’s worth looking at the questionnaire alongside the paper, whether you plan to respond using the questionnaire or not. The 4 basic location options identified are – 1. concentrate most development in and adjoining Derby, 2. a greater role for other towns in the HMA, 3. a greater role for rural settlements, and 4. new settlement(s). As a Mickleover resident you might not want to suggest option 1 if you want to avoid the impact of being surrounded by more housing sprawl.

South Derbyshire, following the neighbourhood consultation earlier this year, has organized a further round of drop in events in July and August 2011, where planners will explain how they’re progressing with the Local Plan and about the next round of consultation.

They state that “among other things, we would like your views on how much housing growth we should plan for (over the next 15 years or so) and the extent to which growth should be concentrated around the edges of Derby or dispersed to other towns, villages and locations throughout the Derby Housing Market Area (HMA)”. They are working towards publishing a draft Local Plan in early 2012.

Probably not one that Mickleover residents should miss then!

You can attend any of these drop in sessions – nearby there are afternoon-early evening sessions at Findern (12 July), Etwall (13 July), Repton (14 July) and Mickleover Country Park (15 July). For a full list of venues, dates and times see here. There is further information on South Derbyshire’s website here and here

This work is in collaboration with Derby City planners, and they are holding two drop-in sessions at the Quad, Market Place, Derby. Each event consists of a brief presentation held at regular intervals and planning officers are available for discussion.
The dates & times are – Tuesday 26 July, 3:00pm to 5:30pm 2011, and Tuesday 6 September 2011 – 3:00pm to 8:00pm

The three councils launch next communications round ...

South Derbyshire, Amber Valley and Derby City councils are now engaging on the next phase of their development planning. The Coalition Government’s proposed changes to the planning system, which should involve scrapping the previous government imposed housing numbers, will still require local councils to plan for long term growth, but supposedly with more involvement of local people. It may be worth looking at information here on the Government’s recently published Localism Bill.

South Derbyshire has organized a series of drop in events for each local community, starting in February, where community planners will be available to explain how the council intends to progress its LDF strategy and how local people should be able to get involved. For a list of venues, dates and further information see South Derbyshire’s website, here. There is a session organized at Mickleover Country Park Social Club on Friday 4^th March from 3.00 to 7.30pm.

Derby City has opened its consultation process through the neighbourhood forums (the Mickleover Forum was Wednesday 23 February). There is a “My Mickleover” day on Saturday 12 March at Mickleover Community Centre, 10am to 2pm, to provide more information on the Local Plan and form part of the consultations with residents. There is some limited information on Derby City’s web site here.

Amber Valley has organized drop in events starting in February.

South Derbyshire has published all of the responses it received to the 2010 consultation here.

The Coalition Programme for Government, May 2010, states that “we will rapidly abolish Regional Spatial Strategies and return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils" ...
This should free South Derbyshire, Amber Valley(*) and Derby City to make the decisions about appropriate levels of housing development and which sites in their area to develop. We’ve seen nothing definitive from any of the councils on how they intend to respond to this situation. However, see the 2nd June Derby Evening Telegraph article (link below) and note that further information is promised at the next Mickleover Neighbourhood Forum on 16th June (details below).
(*) but note that the Radbourne Lane site is committed for 600 dwellings already.

The consultation closing date is now passed.

Mickleover is in danger of being swamped by even more housing – South Derbyshire and Amber Valley are planning to build at least 7,000 new houses on the edge of Derby and there could be many more. Most of these could be built on the western edge bordering Mickleover, so that Mickleover could double in size. Our roads, schools, shops and other facilities simply cannot cope with any more homes being built in this area, not to mention the destruction of beautiful green landscape on our border. The red areas on the map opposite show the potential development sites around Mickleover (and the developments could be more than housing, there could be shops, schools, employment land even!).

Whether some or all of this development ends up on the edge of Mickleover can now be influenced by the residents communicating their views on how such development would impact this community. So, please have your say before it is too late by mailing or emailing the local planning development forums of Derby, South Derbyshire and Amber Valley with your comments and objections (the closing dates are 28 May 2010 for all three). We have added some advice here on writing your objections.

You can click here to view our personal summary of the proposals, but you should also follow the links below under “Links to local council planning papers” to see first hand exactly what the councils are proposing. You can also learn more at residents meetings and drop in sessions (there is an updated list below).

Please forward a link to this website to as many Mickleover residents as possible and encourage them to take an interest in the issue before it's too late.

There are council questionnaires you could fill in, but it's most effective to write to the councils itemising your own set of comments and arguments about potential developments adjoining Mickleover. There is help here with writing your letters.

There are links to some on line petitions below, but please write a letter as well if you want to be heard. Mail and email addresses for your letters can be found through the link above.
Note that most of the land bordering Mickleover that is targeted by these proposals is either in South Derbyshire or in Amber Valley (and not Derby City), so those councils make the decisions about what happens and therefore you need to make certain that they receive your comments.

Petitions can be "signed" at: http://www.campaigns.libdems.org.uk/stopthehousingdevelopment
or at the Conservative site: http://www.mickleoversaysno.com/

Facebook users can exchange information and comments at MickleoverResidentsSayNo

Click here for Derby’s Core Strategy paper – If you don’t want to read all of it you could start with section 2, “How we are working with our Neighbours”, page 5, and note the map on page 7. You could then read “Options for where new development could go”, page 18. Note that Option A involves building on green field land shown outside the city boundary, while Option B involves building many more dwellings on that land.

Click here for South Derbyshire’s Core Strategy paper – If you don’t want to read all of it you could start with section 2, “Where should growth be promoted?”, page 31. The Derby PUA is section 2.1, starting page 33, and includes Mickleover as section 2.1.12, starting page 35. Note the map on page 34 which is equivalent to the Derby City map. Then “Housing Delivery Options” starts on page 42.

Click here for Amber Valley Core Strategy paper

There are related documents from each council … Click here for Derby’s, which includes a summary paper (where the Mickleover issue is mostly invisible, though the revised April 2010 edition does include the map showing the greenfield sites outside the city boundary), a questionnaire which the council invites you to respond with (but it’s rather long and may well dilute the points you really want to make), neighbourhood overviews (including Mickleover), the evidence base for the proposals and topic papers (some fundamental material for those with the time), etc. Click here and choose “view related documents” for a similar list for South Derbyshire, and click here for Amber Valley.

Click here for a direct link to all of the Derby City neighbourhood overviews. It’s worth looking at the one for Mickleover.

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Derby Evening Telegraph, 2nd June 2010, has an article on the new Government’s plans to scrap Regional Spatial Strategies across the UK: click here

Earlier articles …
Derby Evening Telegraph, 2nd March 2010, has an interesting article: click here
Mickleover Directory, May 2010, has a 2 page article summarising the issues and concerns that people may have (pages 34 & 35), and there is a very relevant article by Lisa Brown (a South Derbyshire District Councillor) on pages 58 & 60.