Sleepy old Cirencester has been introduced to companies versed in the dark arts of spin or “playing the game”. This is as it was described on BBC Gloucestershire radio recently in a broadcast on the Cotswolds housing needs and the rival applications for developments by Bathurst Estates and the owners of Kemble ( Cotswold) Airport. One firm, John Thompson Partners (JTP) represents the Bathurst Estate in promoting the giant development south of Chesterton. Another, CEG represents the owners of Kemble airport who are applying to build a large new housing estate and, for the time being at least, are promoting this development as an alternative to Chesterton. Let there be no doubt that these highly professional firms have but one purpose in life – to make money. They are paid by landlords to help shape the debate on housing and they are deceptively good at it.
Let’s just remind ourselves where we are. It is now 7 months since the public were restricted to just six weeks to comment on Cotswold District Council’s emerging Local Plan, dominated by the CDC proposal to build on farmland being sold by the Bathurst Estate, which stands to make tens of millions. Cotswold District Council’s attachment to the idea of a huge new housing estate on Bathurst land at Chesterton goes back many years.
Cotswold District Council, whose proud claim to efficiency disguises a woeful shortage of resources and management, were late and negligent in not producing a Local Plan. In theory a local plan protects local authorities and communities from haphazard development. In reality the CDC local plan is merely a not very successful camouflage of their long held ambition to meet the Cotswolds housing target with one massive housing estate on one extreme edge of the district at Chesterton.
Nearly all of the thousands of comments made on the cumbersome consultation portal about the local plan are critical of the absurdity of this massive development.
Against this welter of local opposition CDC’s natural inclination has been to keep the public at arms length, doing the absolute minimum in terms of communication.
Step forward John Thompson Partners, the hired hands of Bathurst Developments, far better at the dark arts of public relations and ‘spin’ than Cotswold District Council could ever be. They claim to “create collaborative vision” by their participative processes and engagement techniques. But anyone who has been to their sessions will have realized that these sessions were merely a top down box ticking exercise to give legitimization to what they, Bathurst and CDC, wanted from the outset.
A firm like JTP cannot shake off the slick professionalism by which they define themselves and the role they are being paid to perform. The fact is that they have misrepresented and exaggerated the level of support that the Bathurst Chesterton development has. Amongst Cirencester residents, so far as we can ascertain, it is virtually non existent. How do they accomplish this? People are very busy. Relatively few people have the mindset to make a fuss and ring alarm bells early on; most people will not form an opinion until they see concrete evidence of change – and then it is usually too late. Call it apathy if you like, but that’s the way it is.
JTP and advisors like them rely on this and will characterize this collective silence as being an advocatory stamp of approval. But nothing could be further from the truth. The vast majority of those that did attend the so called consultation sessions were against the Bathurst development. Yet clever use of language by JTP in their brochures and press reports are twisted to give the impression that attendance equates to support.
However, JTP are not the only spinmasters in town. Enter C.E.G. (Commercial Estates Group) representing the owners of Kemble Airport who want to build 2000 houses on the site. This application came mysteriously late and has put the cat amongst the pigeons, being promoted as an alternative to the Bathurst development. But before you attach any philanthropic tendency to this, read their corporate statements and you are left in no doubt where they are coming from ; “Our skills and experience always helps landowners achieve the highest potential from their assets by promoting them through the planning system, developing relationships with local communities, identifying local needs and working with local councils to deliver positive benefits.”
Despite the self serving aims of CEG and their clients, the case for this brownfield site is one that has to be considered. It was therefore mystifying to hear CDC’s response to the increasing efforts of CEG to get this application into the local plan so that it can be considered by the Government’s Planning Inspector. CDC state that Kemble airfield is not part of its Local Plan. They said, “For development proposals to be incorporated into any Local Plan, policy requires that they must be supported by evidence to prove that they are sustainable and deliverable. Kemble airfield is an isolated location, removed from the nearby village and lacks services and facilities. The site is split between Cotswold district and Wiltshire county. A strategic development proposal would first need to be agreed by Wiltshire Council before it could be considered.”
This position seems to clash with national policy. The National Planning Policy Framework states that “public bodies have a duty to cooperate on planning issues that cross administrative boundaries, particularly those which relate to the strategic priorities. The Government expects joint working on areas of common interest to be diligently undertaken for the mutual benefit of neighbouring authorities. It may be appropriate to agree a joint approach to resolving matters during the preparation of development plan documents”.
This begs a huge question over the competence of Cotswold District Council and the integrity of the draft local plan and surely this should be investigated. In the meantime, if any shred of confidence is to be retained in the local plan process, the application for Kemble, warts and all, must be included in the local plan before it is submitted to the Planning Inspectorate.
In the meantime all applications for other than small scale developments in the Cirencester vicinity, should be held in abeyance.
There is now also some devil in the detail of the Bathurst Chesterton plan. At the time of writing there is growing unease at the latest versions of the conceptual masterplan and the illustrations of what it might look like. There is a suspicion that so called “technical work” has further reduced the actual footprint that housing construction can take place on. Over half of the site area cannot be used because of space that cannot be built on (in situ utilities – pylons, gas, water, the scheduled ancient monument, flood attenuation). With the site size fixed and a target of 2350 dwellings, the outcome of this squeezed density is a crowded and unattractive landscape, especially in the middle of the estate. JTP blithely maintain that at the detailed design stage everything can be sorted out.
They say, “ Exactly what is on our site, how it is laid out, and how it will work best with the local community and the town itself will continue to be discussed and refined as we continue our technical assessments and as a result of future community engagement “
Surely no-one is convinced by this? The solution to avoiding what some have described as “ a potential ghetto” is to refuse the Bathurst development in its entirety, or at the very least scale it back to less than 1000 dwellings.
SaveOurCirencester! 