Cheltenham Civic Society speak out against housing plans
Architectural guardians have spoken out against a proposed housing development in Cheltenham.
Galliard has submitted plans to Cheltenham Borough Council to build 190 two-bedroom and three-bedroom homes on 10.4 hectares to the north of the town, between Swindon Lane and Hunting Butts Farm. The site is across the A435 Evesham Road from Cheltenham Racecourse.
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The proposals include dozens of affordable houses, after the company claimed the town was hundreds of homes short of current requirements.
But Cheltenham Civic Society says the proposed development is not a necessity..
In a report, it said: “We do not think this site, which has considerable landscape value, should be considered for development until other more appropriate sites have been developed in the context of the regional spatial strategy issues.
“Even if the site were considered for development, we would not favour the very conventional and unimaginative layout.”
Last year, Galliard angered councillors by releasing what they called deliberately misleading press releases.
The firm claimed the authority had admitted 3,000 households were waiting for social housing, with 100 applications being submitted each month.
Councillors said although the figures were broadly correct they had been taken out of context.
Galliard also launched a website where people are able to comment on suggested housing shortages in Cheltenham borough.
The firm hoped this could be used to support its bid, but the effort backfired when most posts were against its proposal.
2 Comments
by Hessen, Chelt.
Tuesday, February 09 2010, 5:07PM
“¿We do not think this site, which has considerable landscape value, should be considered for development until other more appropriate sites have been developed in the context of the regional spatial strategy issues." Fair enough, however, one has to ask: If it were a development of multi-million pound villas- thereby potentially benefiting the racecourse and so on, in a major way, wheather the same view would be taken..?”
by Matt H, Cheltenham
Tuesday, February 09 2010, 11:40AM
“I see that the CBC logo has been removed from the home page of the website Galliard has set up regarding (according to them) the lack of affordable housing in Cheltenham.
Good to see the Civic Society wading into the argument as well. Galliard are (in my opinion) employing emotional blackmail in their attempts to get Planning Permission for a development on protected Green Belt land. Hopefully the Planning Committee will agree, and refuse the application. Hopefully then a Planning Inspector will also agree when dealing with the inevitable appeal, and Gallaird will have wasted countless thousands on getting this development up to the Planning stage, plus more thousands wasted on a failed appeal (which they will then have to pay for).
If Gallaird really think Cheltenham needs more affordable housing, then find more appropriate sites to build on. In other words, NOT within the Green Belt.
Cue the debate on which bits of the Green Belt are more important than others, and therefore which bits can be built on..... Simple answer is that NONE of the Green Belt should be built on, irrespective of it's current worth / importance.....”