Response from Mr David Alexander (Individual)
1. Mr David Alexander (Individual) : 18 Apr 2016 10:59:00
Please make your comments in the box below and refer specifically to the reference number of each site you are commenting on.
Site B120 High Cote,High Cote Lane, Slackhead, Beetham.
In addition to my comments and observations submitted on the Arnside & Silverdale AONB: Development Plan Document(DPD): Issues and Options Consultation in December 2015, I would like to make a number of comments on this site which has been added to the list of sites for consideration in Question 27.
This site must be assessed against the considerations set out in the introduction to the DPD. These stress the importance of the area as an AONB with the statutory purpose of conserving and enhancing natural beauty; the importance of character and special qualities behind this designation; the requirement in government policy to give great weight to conserving landscape and scenic beauty; the priority in the AONB Management Plan to meet local community needs,priority affordable housing and the use of brownfield sites( para.1.6).
Slackhead itself is an unsustainable area without any services and entirely functions by means of daily car journeys and vehicle deliveries to and from neighbouring and more sustainable settlements.It should probably never have originally been allowed to develop the existing housing layout, which remains visually intrusive from outside the immediate vicinity even to this day, and in line with the discussion paper and proposed DPD, any further development should be limited to local needs only, with any proposed development being focussed around the more sustainable settlement of Beetham village itself, which does hold a number of basic daily services and jobs.
Site B120 is largely a greenfield site of 2.21 ha.in a sensitive part of the AONB and might potentially hold a significant residential development opportunity. Not only is this unlikely to satisfy local housing need, it is also likely to be out of scale and at odds with the area's intimate AONB landscape and the infrastructure of roads, utilities and broader community services. The access from 'outside' is difficult at the best of times( e.g Beetham and Leighton Beck Bridge) and would only be accentuated by sustained, additional traffic from further residential settlement.
Assessed against the strategic settlement planning policy framework, its AONB status and the practicalities of development when set in the wider context of many more sustainable sites, including those outside the AONB, this large site should be dismissed as a significant development opportunity. It is understood that an application for up to around 9 houses on a part of the site was refused some years ago. There is no reason to consider that circumstances have materially altered in the interim.
