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Here are our recent press releases and articles.

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SUPPORTING LOCAL FOOD
(Article in Warwickshire Life October 2008)

If the food is edible, and there is enough of it, and the price is reasonable, does it matter where it comes from or how it is produced?
The C.P.R.E. thinks it does. We want to promote fresh, healthy, affordable food. We want to support farming. We want local shops to offer alternatives to the mass produced item.
So we have started a project called Mapping Local Food Webs. Our aim is to research the local food network, from customers through to shops, producers, processors and suppliers. We want to demonstrate the interdependence of the system and the benefits it provides in jobs, social contact and land management.
Noble intentions. Unfortunately, the mass produced item usually costs less than the locally produced one. So if you or I patronise our local shop rather than the supermarket it is, on the whole, for this reason – it sells a better product.
Nobody knows this better than Jim and Helen Cherry, who run two local food shops called Taste of the Country in South Warwickshire.
They graduated from agricultural college and became engaged on a tour of Australia and New Zealand where they studied farming on a practical basis. On their return to England an opportunity arose to farm cows and sheep at a farm just over the Oxfordshire border. Helen Cherry built up a flock of 200 sheep and they became involved in the Farmers Market at Stratford-upon-Avon, where they sold beef and lamb directly to the public.
“By doing the Farmers Market,” Jim told me, “we rekindled the consumer interest in where r food was coming from and how it was produced.”
The Cherrys moved to South Warwickshire and Jim worked with a friend who farmed at Cherington. Then he noticed an empty shop in Long Compton that had been a butcher’s. The Cherrys re-opened the shop, in 2002, running it initially with part-time staff.
“The aim of the shop was to sell purely local and British products,” which indeed they did. 80% of their products came from within a ten mile radius of the shop.
In October, 2006, they opened another shop, at Shipston-on-Stour, equipped with a kitchen in which meat dishes, fish pies, lasagne, Cornish pasties, sausage rolls, cakes, pastries, biscuits, flapjacks and other items are prepared, mainly with local sourced ingredients.
“Our ethos,” Jim Cherry says, “is to sell a product with provenance and good quality. We’re searching for the honesty in food that has been lost to mass production. In the last twenty years food has gone so industrial that people distrust the retail infrastructure that supports it.”
He is very aware of the difficulties ahead. Small businesses are struggling and the gap between the hand-produced and mass-produced product is widening. But he thinks he can win. “A growing number of consumers are looking for our type of food.”

CLEANING UP WARWICKSHIRE
(Article in Warwickshire Life September 2008)

Have you heard of Bill Bryson from Iowa? He visited England as a youngster, found a job in a hospital, married one of the nurses and stayed here.
If you have heard of him you have probably read one of his books, most likely Notes on a Small Island, the story of a backpacking trip that took him all over the British Isles. Our social behaviour fascinated and amused him no end, but he was rightly scornful of our shortcomings. The service in pubs and hotels was frequently appalling. He was unable to travel by bus from one end of the country to the other. Our architecture and scenery were splendid, but horribly spoiled by ugly development and neglect.
“It sometimes occurs to me,” he wrote, “that the British have more heritage than is good for them.”
We should pay a good deal of attention to that remark. We have the most beautiful architectural heritage in the world, but how many excellent buildings have we torn down, how many fine streets ruined by unsuitable replacements? Our countryside is second to none, but how much of it is marred by pylons, unnecessary signage and street furniture?
As he loves us and laughs at us, Bill Bryson also chides us and is most concerned that we should change our ways, which is surely reason enough for making this anglophile celebrity President of the C.P.R.E.
As his reign began he was engaged on his latest book, Shakespeare. Is there anything left to say about this immortal but elusive son of Warwickshire? Indeed, there is. Mr. Bryson has produced a commonsensical compendium of what we know, what we do not know and what we cannot know. It is a witty, friendly little volume, but quietly, formidably erudite. Anyone reading for a degree in English should acquire it.
The book came out last Autumn and since then our president has been giving us a good deal of time and attention, and to one subject in particular. He thinks we are extremely untidy and he wants us to pull our socks up.
Perhaps you saw him in a Panorama documentary about fly-tipping or read articles by him in The Times and the Daily Mail. He has also been liaising with other groups that want to clean up the country, such as Keep Britain Tidy, which is having a special drive this month called The Big Tidy Up. He has gained the ear of the Minister in charge of Waste and Recycling, Joan Ruddock, who has promised to write a report on a refundable bottle scheme.
Needless to say the Warwickshire Branch of the C.P.R.E. wants to join in the fun. Do you know of any places in the county where there is fly-tipping? Let us know and we will get out there, take photographs and alert the powers that be.

POST OFFICE CLOSURES
(Article in Warwickshire Life July 2008)

Must we lose still more rural post offices?
To call them facilities is scant justice. We post letters there, of course, and buy the loaf of bread, tin opener, ball of string or birthday card that we forgot to buy in the nearest town. It would be a nuisance to be without them.
But as social animals we need places where we can tell each other that we are not too bad considering, lament the weather, blame the government and cast incurious eyes over the handwritten notices of our fellow citizens who want to sell us a good condition exercise bike, rent us grazing land, teach us yoga or help find poor missing Tiddles.
As far as these things go it would be horrible to be without them. Close the village post office and, if the pub has already gone, the village is no longer a community.
The value of post offices cannot be measured, but the losses they make can and they are costing us £4 million a week. So the Government will close 2,500 of them, by withdrawing its subsidy and removing the post office equipment.
Aware of their importance to the community, many post offices have already expanded their activities. Go to the top of the county and you find that Baddesley Ensor accepts medicaments from the local surgery, which are collected by local residents. Go to the foot of the county and you find that Long Compton sells a wide range of locally grown flowers, vegetables and fruit.
Is your post office on the proscription list of June 24th? If so, you have until Monday, 4th August, to tell Post Office Ltd. why it should be spared. So send a freepost letter to Network Change Programme Office or an e-mail to network.change@postoffice.co.uk But unless you can convince this body that your nearest post office will now be more than three miles away your plea will be futile.
Happily, the County Council is taking a keen interest in this matter. It will not subsidise post offices itself, but is looking for ways to combine them with other, existing facilities and has already set a good example by relocating the post office in Brook Street, Warwick, to the Shire Hall in Market Square.
Your parish council will also be very concerned and may already have plans to move your post office into the village hall, school, public house or even someone’s private house. So if your post office is threatened join forces immediately with your fellow villagers to ensure that a viable scheme is blessed by your local M.P., endorsed by the County Council and becomes a reality.
We should be grateful for this showdown, unpleasant though it is. Far better to close a fixed number of post offices all at once than allow many more to slip, singly, into oblivion. We have been given a challenge; let us take it up.

TOO MANY HOUSES!
(Our Press Release dated 3rd June 2008)

Unless people protest, Warwick District could be overwhelmed by new housing under Regional plans.

“The housing numbers assumed in the Warwick District Council Core Strategy are not fixed and everyone should object to them. And if we don't, we could have yet more houses imposed, as overspill from Coventry”, says Mark Sullivan, Technical Secretary of the Warwickshire Branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE).

“The old Warwickshire Structure Plan, which limited total housing numbers, has gone. The proposed West Midlands Spatial Strategy proposes that 10,800 houses be built in Warwick District from 2006 to 2026. It also says that Coventry should have 33,500 more houses. As Coventry may not have room for so many, some of them may be put into the Warwick District. If just 3,000 were allocated to Warwick the total would be nearly 14,000."

There is no need for this huge amount of new housing. The numbers proposed by the Regional Assembly planners would add 18% to the houses and flats in the District. This is far more than the needs of the local community. Yet the key priority in the Core Strategy is “to meet the housing needs of the whole community, including adequate affordable housing”. The Regional Strategy housing numbers conflict with this by providing far more than for local needs.

The District Council does not have to accept the imposition of over 10,000 houses, let alone overspill from Coventry. So the housing figure for the West Midlands is open to objection.

“Everyone concerned about the future of Warwick District as a well-planned mix of historic towns and protected countryside should object to the regional housing figure of 365,000 and to the Warwick District figure of 10,800” said Mr Sullivan.

Notes for Editors

1. The housing figure in the West Midlands RSS as currently published is 365,000 dwellings (houses and flats) to be built between 2006 and 2026.
2. CPRE (West Midlands region) after researching the data carefully believes that the right figure is 285,000 over those 20 years: 78% of the regional planners’ number.
3. If the CPRE regional figure is applied proportionately to Warwick District, instead of 10,800 houses and flats 2006-2026, the number to be permitted would be not more than 8,400.
4. Warwick District Council’s Core Strategy Options Paper says that in Warwick District 2,650 dwellings have been built since 2006, are under way or have permission now. And it estimates that 5,500 could be built, or converted from existing stock, between now and 2026 without needing any greenfield land.
5. Warwick District could thus accommodate 8,150 dwellings without needing new greenfield sites. Applying the CPRE proposal for the region to Warwick District would result in the loss to new housing of little, perhaps no, greenfield land in the District in the next 18 years.
6. Objections to the West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy housing numbers should be sent to the Regional Spatial Strategy Panel Secretary, Government Office for the West Midlands, 5 St Philips Place, Colmore Row, Birmingham B3 2PW.

Telephone calls:
Mark Sullivan (CPRE Warwickshire) 01926 330104 or 01926 494597
Peter Langley: CPRE West Midlands Region) 02476 540211

A NEW TOWN AT LONG MARSTON?
(Article in the Warwickshire Life June 2008)

The Government wants to build 240,000 houses a year in England between now and 2016. Some of them will comprise new towns. One of these towns might be built on 240 hectares at Long Marston. The local residents, the local planning authority, the local M.P. and the C.P.R.E. all hope that it will not.
New houses, many new houses, must be built somewhere. Young married couples must be properly housed, people upon whom local communities depend, teachers, doctors, carpenters, plumbers and farm workers, must be able to afford to live in those communities. So why is the Long Marston site ruled out?
You cannot build houses where they are not needed.
South Warwickshire has a high level of employment. Stratford-upon-Avon and Evesham, primarily market towns, employ many people from their rural catchment areas. The local planning authority, Stratford-upon-Avon, knows how much affordable housing it must add to each of its towns and villages. Six thousand houses at Long Marston would meet no local demand.
The town would be sustainable, up to a point, with its own shops, schools and leisure facilities, but though it would also have business premises it would be far from being economically self-sufficient.
Most of the new townspeople would commute considerable distances to their work and the roads round the town would be clogged with traffic. To solve this traffic problem these minor roads would have to be upgraded, an enormous expense which would inevitably be passed on to the ratepayers.
The development would harm the environment.
The Long Marston site is set in particularly attractive countryside, close to the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. To the south east is the Heart of England long distance footpath. To the north west is the Greenway, from Stratford-upon-Avon to Long Marston, a cycle route that uses an old railway line. It is overlooked by Meon Hill, the northernmost hill in the Cotswold Scarp line, with the higher hills between Hidcote and Ilmington to the south rising to over 800 feet.
The natural beauty of this area would be spoiled and when the new town had covered the former Royal Engineers depot it would almost certainly take in Long Marston Airfield to the north.
This site is one of fifteen on a Government shortlist. In November, these fifteen sites will be whittled down to ten.
Do you want Long Marston to be excised from this list?
Objections will be considered up to the end of this month. So write – now – to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Rt. Hon. Hazel Blears, at Eland House, Bressenden Place, Longon, SW1E 5DU.
The Chief Executive of Warwickshire County Council, Jim Graham, would be interested to see a copy of your letter. His address is Shire Hall, Warwick, Warwickshire, CV34 4SA.
So would the Chief Executive of the Stratford-on-Avon District Council, Paul Lankester. His address is Elizabeth House, Church Street, Stratfordc-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, CV37 6HX.

INTRODUCING OURSELVES
(Article in the Warwickshire Life May 2008)

Between the two world wars of the last century, car ownership grew at an alarming rate. Arterial roads shot out over all over England and beside them sprang up garages, shops, Odeons and factories, blurring the distinction between town and country.
In particular something had to be done about ribbon development and something was done. In 1926 The Council for the Preservation of Rural England was formed. This was our first campaign and the upshot was The Restriction of Ribbon Development Act.
Then we asked that buildings of historic and architectural interest should be listed as such. The Town and Country Planning Act of 1944 turned hope into reality.
We urged the Government to establish National Parks. In 1949 established they were.
We proposed an “open belt” of protected countryside round London. In 1955 Green Belts were created.
Ribbon Development, Listed Buildings, National Parks, Green Belts. Had we never addressed these issues England today would be, physically….much more of a mess than it is.
These four campaigns tower above the rest of the achievements that comprise our eighty year history, but there have been, and there are, many, many others.
For instance, we campaign to prevent advertisement hoardings alongside roads, protect of our coastline, safeguard our hedgerows, grow food locally, prevent light pollution, build houses on brownfield land rather than greenfield and halt the reckless expansion of airports.
None of these are losing battles, but with sixty-one million people crammed into thirty-two million acres, they are, must be, largely defensive ones. We have a great deal to lose, in fact we lose twenty-one (is that all?) (square delete) acres of countryside to concrete every year, and it will take all our goodwill, experience and effort to conserve the natural and man-made beauties of England for those who live here now and those who come after us.
Warwickshire’s greatest conservational asset is its share of the West Midlands Green Belt, which was established, in 1975, to stop Coventry and Birmingham from running into each other. In fact, it encircles both those cities and, as you can see, extends south and east to Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick and Leamington Spa.
Some of this countryside is exceptionally beautiful, some of it is just countryside, for its essential quality is not beauty but openness. Here is greenery. Our ancestors took it for granted and we value it as a priceless, because it is a potentially diminishing, asset.
For it is always under threat.
As people may not build there they seek permission for agricultural dwellings that are nothing of the sort, convert outbuildings and create garages that are houses in disguise.
Sometimes the Government even slyly reneges from its official position of support for the Green Belts. The recent Review of Land-Use Planning by the economist Kate Barker wondered if the boundaries of the Green Belts might be altered to allow development to extend out of cities….
For the pressure on land is enormous, almost overwhelming.

LONG MARSTON ECO-TOWN – “WHOLLY DAMAGING TO THE COUNTRYSIDE” SAYS C.P.R.E.
(PRESS RELEASE Thursday, 3rd April, 2008)

The Government’ selection of the former Royal Engineer Depot at Long Marston for an ‘Eco-Town’ flies in the face of the all the local factors that make the site unsuitable for major development and have done for years, says CPRE Warwickshire Branch.

CPRE believes that the site is given special favour because the Treasury would make money from it. There is a ‘clawback’ on the profits that any developer of the land makes, the site having been sold as surplus Ministry of Defence land only a few years ago.

The Long Marston Royal Engineers Depot was established just before World War II in a remote location in the western lee of the Cotswold escarpment in order to prevent an air attack by the Luftwaffe from the east. Its remoteness then makes it remote now, far from major towns and main roads.

It abuts the north-western end of the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is overlooked by the northernmost hill in the Cotswolds Scarp. The name ‘Middle Quinton’ is stolen from the quiet Cotwold villages of Upper and Lower Quinton a mile to the east.

6,000 houses in the rural area where Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire meet would be a wholly ‘unsustainable type of development. It would create large scale out-commuting to towns providing work, and cause residents to drive to as far away as Birmingham, 30 miles north along mainly rural roads through the Green Belt. The effect on tourism and country roads seems to have been entirely ignored in short-listing Long Marston.

o The effect on the attractiveness of the northernmost Cotswold Hills would be highly damaging, and seems to have been entirely overlooked by the Minister. Traffic generated by 6,000 houses and businesses set up at Long Marston would flood country lanes and damage historic villages in the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Mickleton, Ilmington, Hidcote and Chipping Camden are all nearby.

o Damage would spread, because the Long Marston site is accessed off the winding B4632 tourist road that runs from Stratford-upon-Avon to Cheltenham via Broadway and along the foot of the Cotswold scarp through Winchcombe. This road was once the A46 but downgraded to attract only leisure use.

o To the north, the narrow, weight-limited country bridges over the River Avon at Bidford-on-Avon and Welford-on-Avon would come under severe pressure from extra traffic as eco-town residents would use cars to work in Redditch and Birmingham.

o The new town would be dependent on car use as, despite the promoter's claims, there is no passenger rail service in prospect. The site lies on a long freight siding.

‘Middle Quinton’ (Long Marston) is wholly unsuitable for a major new town.
Contact: Mark Sullivan: 01926 330104 or 01926 494597
Nicholas Butler: 01608 684953

FIGHTING TO SAVE OUR POST OFFICES
(Article in the Leamington Courier on 28th March 2008)

What happens in a post office?
We meet our friends, discover that they and we are not feeling so bad considering, agree that we dislike the weather, or the weather that we have had, or the weather that is to come, blame the Government for whatever is currently amiss and, incidentally, buy a stamp or so and some groceries.
Nothing in particular happens in a post office and it is important for our social health and happiness that there should be places in every community where nothing in particular happens, because that is what community life is all about and without it community life ceases to exist.
So, needless to say, we are concerned about the post office closures and very, very concerned about closures in villages that have no other facility.
As we all know, the post offices are costing the Government, which of course means us, £4 million pounds a week. So it has established certain criteria by which the success or otherwise of every post office must be measured and if it fails this test the Government subsidy will be withdrawn.
These criteria are being administered by the Post Office Ltd. Network Change Team at Watford. Two or three months hence it will publish the list of potential victims in the West Midlands.
A six week consultation period will ensue. During this time you may send letters or e-mails to this body, or ring it up, and tell it just why your post office should not close. However, unless you can produce some fact that was overlooked in applying the Government criteria your plea will be in vain.
That, however, need not be the end. When it was announced that Essex would lose thirty-one post offices, the County Council donated £1.5 million to seeing how many of them it could save, by one means or another. It appears that at about half of them will remain.
The Warwickshire County Council is also preparing for the fray. One post office at least, in Warwick itself, will be saved, for it will be relocated to Shire Hall. In small towns and villages, post offices may be combined with existing shops or relocated to schools and libraries.
What can you do? If you think your local post office is threatened, raise the matter with your parish council immediately so that it can devise a sensible plan for its future. You should also, personally, take this sensible plan to County Hall and tell your M.P. about it. The post office buck stops in several places; it certainly stops with you.

KEEPING IT RURAL - Eco Town?
(Article in the Leamington Courier on 14th March 2008)

Three columns ago I introduced the subject of eco-towns. I told you that before the month was out the Government would produce a shortlist of locations. February is over and that shortlist has not yet appeared, but it is, we understand, imminent, indeed might be with us by the time you read this.
The C.P.R.E. has devised tests to measure the suitability of proposed sites. Let us apply them to the site proposed for Warwickshire: Middle Quinton, near Long Marston and south of Welford-on-Avon
We believe that eco-towns should be carbon neutral, conserve natural resources, minimise air, noise and light pollution, and achieve zero waste. Of course. Otherwise, they would not be eco-towns.
They should have a strong sense of identity and have shops, schools, and facilities for recreation, community and health. Of course. Otherwise, they would be dormitories.
They must have high quality architecture. The style will be largely dictated by the carbon neutrality and lack of pollution. So it will be original, but not necessarily good. Aesthetics is a difficult business, for it is largely subjective, but if Middle Quinton is chosen we will look at the plans long and carefully. High quality? We want excellent quality, superb quality.
So much for the character and content of an eco-town.
Land should be efficiently used, with priority given to recycling urban brownfield land. A good deal of this site is brownfield, for it was previously owned by the Ministry of Defence.
Eco-towns should be well connected to their surroundings with public transport to nearby settlements. Ah, here is a fault. The site is ill connected to its surroundings. The surrounding B roads and lanes would have to be upgraded, at prodigious expense. With little local employment the inhabitants would commute, many for long distances.
Eco-towns should be sympathetic to their settings and clearly enhance the local landscapes.
And this is damning. The site, open countryside, is close to the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is overlooked by the northernmost hill in the Cotswold Scarp. The new settlement would wreck the local landscape and destroy good agricultural land into the bargain.
So the locals have risen in revolt and we have joined cause with them. We have no quarrel with eco-towns in principle, but Middle Quinton is the wrong place for one.
The Minister for Housing, the Rt. Hon. Caroline Flint, addressing a recent 2008 Ecobuild Conference at Earls Court, indicated that she would employ the C.P.R.E. tests in her choice of suitable sites.
If she does, if she has, Middle Quinton is ruled out.

WHAT BILL BRYSON HAS TO TELL YOU
(Article in the Leamington Courier on 29th February 2008)

“England’s countryside is one of the country’s supreme achievements – loved, visited and walked across and gazed upon, infinitely varied, lovely to behold.”
As you, or I, or anyone, might well remark. However, when the speaker comes from Iowa, as does Bill Bryson, our Anglophile president, who loves us as he laughs at us, then we should pay attention.
He is writing in a pamphlet called 2026 Vision, with which he intends to stir up interest in the countryside.
So, just what is the C.P.R.E. vision for eighteen years hence?
We optimistically hope that in 2026 nine tenths of England will be open and green, with very little lost to development.
So it will, if we ensure that the new housing is built on brownfield sites and that these desired residences are in fact desirable, places in which people will live by choice, not necessity.
Most of the countryside will be farmed and most of the food we eat grown here.
I can believe that. As a matter of economics we will import less food in the years to come and a good deal more of it will be produced a good deal nearer the people who eat it.
Many more of us will visit the countryside The wildflowers, birds and insects that have dwindled over the past seventy years will return. The countryside will be more wooded, a little wilder and wetter.
It may be so. We are already creating more nature reserves, woodland and wilderness areas, and more of us may be interested in restoring lost flora and fauna. Wetter? If we fail to take immediate and drastic action a good deal of England will not be wetter; it will be drowned.
The countryside will play a leading role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The politicians will. They are already competing hard to be first in this field, and laws, ever tighter, about cars that use too much petrol and factories that make too much smoke, are on their way.
However, the extent to which this modest vision becomes a reality, for you, me, Bill Bryson, and everyone else, depends on how many individuals press for it to happen and how hard they press.
“Creating an enchanting landscape is a great achievement,” our president tells us, “but keeping it will be the real trick”
Amenity and conservation societies, local and national, abound and among the glad throng there must be one, or more, for you. Give us money, by all means, but far, far better find out what we do and how we do it, and become an active part of that doing.

KEEP IT RURAL WITH BRIAN DOUTHWAITE
(Article in the Leamington Courier on 15th February 2008)

This week the chairman of the Warwickshire Branch of the C.P.R.E., who farms at Kineton, writes of his hopes and fears for the coming year.
The first thing we do in our family farming partnership when deciding the budget for the year ahead is to look at what happened in the year just ended. That gives a base to plan for the future. We have a mixed farming enterprise of livestock and arable crops, all produced to Soil Association organic standards.
So, how did we do last year? All the factors within our own control worked pretty well; the cows in the beef suckler herd produced healthy calves on time and the ewes produced a reasonable crop of lambs. The grass grew very well, a product of the very wet year no doubt, so we have plenty of conserved grass (silage) to feed the animals through the winter months. The organic produce commanded a very useful price premium.
The factors which didn’t work well were, unfortunately, considerable and outside our control. The extremely wet summer weather depressed the cereal yield; the new disease Blue Tongue affecting sheep and cattle arrived from Belgium. Foot and mouth disease “escaped” from the Government’s own laboratories. Both of these led to movement restrictions across the whole country and severe disruption to normal trade.
So how do we plan ahead on the basis of the previous year? We must expect a more normal year of weather, or can we? Global warming in action! We are promised a vaccine for Blue Tongue. Foot and Mouth will not “escape” again, or could it come in contaminated produce from overseas?
We will continue to manage the farming enterprise as well as possible. Both my sons have college and university training and we have between the three of us about 100 years of practical experience! Managing the farming enterprise includes the environmental schemes which are part of our farming philosophy.
How will the business fare financially? On the input side the cost of fuel has rocketed, as you all know only too well, other costs are rising too. On the output side prices for some of the commodities which we produce have risen sharply, notably all the cereal crops, wheat, oats and beans. Beef and lamb prices have remained low, although our organic premium has helped considerably. It is fair to say that in recent years prices have been very depressed, so a rise is both welcome and necessary. Our mixed farming enterprise, which relies very much on producing high quality grass/clover crops to feed our livestock, has insulated us from the effects of high cereal feed prices.
To sum up, we shall continue producing for our niche market in a spirit of optimism. Farmers need to be optimists!

GREEN TOWNS ARE TO BE BUILT SOON
(Article in the Leamington Courier on 1st February 2008)

We knew last year that the West Midlands must build 365,000 more houses over the next twenty years, and to get 2008 off to a good start the Government increased the figure to 420,000.
And on top of that the West Midlands will receive yet another 5,000 to 20,000 houses within the next year or so. For the Government has decided to give every region a brand new eco-town.
I have in front of me a document from The Department of Communities and Local Government entitled Eco-towns Prospectus.
Like every government document, there is a foreword promising change and improvement with a smiling minister above it. Unlike most government documents, its intentions are not cunningly hidden in a mound of convoluted bosh.
In plain words we are told that ten small new towns will be buuilt. Each will have a distinct identity and be linked, mainly by transport and employment, to neighbouring towns. Each will have a secondary school, shops, business premises and leisure facilities. Each will have 30% to 50% affordable housing.
And they will be eco-towns. The houses will be cheap to run, with solar panels and triple glazing well to the fore. Rain water will be used, among other things, to flush lavatories. Household waste, perhaps all of it, will be recycled on the spot and some of it turned into power. The buildings will produce no carbon emissions. Biomass boilers will heat schools and commercial premises.
We are starting to tackle climate change – as we are loudly and repeatedly reminded. We are also, quietly and discreetly, abandoning a national economy that is based on everyone being persuaded to buy more and more and more.
These facts will be reflected in the new towns. This will be the architecture of thrift and it will shape the behaviour and character of those who live and work there.
Local authorities have proposed three sites for the West Midlands: Throckmorton in Worcestershire, Fradley in Staffordshire, and, nearest to home, Middle Quinton near Long Marston, south of Welford-on-Avon. If the last-named is chosen, 6,000 houses will appear on land recently owned by the Ministry of Defence, for each eco-town will be built on a site previously used for some other purpose, another thrifty ploy.
Before this month is out the Government will announce a shortlist; come mid summer it will tell us where the ten new eco-towns will be built. Must they be ugly, utilitarian places? No, not if the architects know their job. If Middle Quinton is chosen we must demand that the new town, besides being strikingly original, is an humane, welcoming place.

IT IS TIME TO TAKE A STAND ON PLANNING
(Article in the Leamington Courier on 18th January 2008)

Two members of our National Office team visited the House of Commons last week. They presented our comments on the Planning Reform Bill, which is now before Parliament, to the Public Bill Committee.
For the bill has now reached the committee stage and twenty-two honourable members from all parties are receiving and digesting the opinions on what is proposed from conservation bodies, such as us, business, naturally, and indeed the Government itself.
We began by telling the Committee that planning was a crucial, well-established but yet undervalued part of the democratic process.
So it is. It is also comparatively unnoticed. In order to be seen to be governing, governments must alter things. If they alter school curricula or hospital management they will receive curiosity, and generally hostility, in full and equal measure. However, if they alter planning regulations you will rarely hear of it in the newspapers or watch people arguing about it on television.
Are you interested in a Planning Reform Bill that wants to create documents called National Policy Statements and a body called an Infrastructure Planning Commission? Hardly. But are you interested in the sixth terminal and third runway that are proposed for Heathrow? Indeed, you are.
Then you should know that this Planning Reform Bill wants to fast track terminals and runways, and power stations, and major roads, and every other project that will wreck the ecology and climate of this country. The Policy Statements will declare that they must occur, and where, business will produce the money, the Commission will consult the Policy Statements and constructed they will be.
Oh, there will be public consultation, but not nearly as open and thorough as it is at present. In particular, we may not be allowed to cross-examine the promoters of large schemes and when that right has been taken away the promoters will take far less pains with their proposals. And so we told the Committee.
If National Policy Statements complement existing planning policy statements perhaps they should be created, but we draw the line at the Infrastructure Planning Commission. It will cost millions of pounds to set up and run, and make the lives of conservationists much harder.
So we told the House of Commons that if the I.P.C. produced unwelcome decisions it could expect to be challenged in the courts and even face direct action. The C.P.R.E. might very well take the I.P.C. to court, but would we lie down in the front of the bulldozers that obliterate countryside for the third runway at Heathrow?
Some conservationists surely will.

WILL WE BE AT MERCY OF THE DEVELOPERS?
(Article in the Leamington Courier on 4th January 2008)

I open the new year by reminding you - yet again - of a matter of vital importance to us all.
Will the carefully crafted policies in the current district and borough local plans appear in the local development frameworks that are to replace them?
But they must! How could they possibly not? For if all our local planners had to rely on were the generalities contained in the Government’s planning policy statements the planning system would be at the mercy of the developers.
Yet the well-nigh unthinkable might become a hideous reality. For the Government has not yet told us in which of the documents that comprise the local development frameworks local policies will appear and the only reference to these policies in the latest Government White Paper on Planning is patronising and dismissive.
I wrote to the Department of Communities and Local Government, to ask exactly what is proposed and after four months, which included a second letter from me and two prods from my M .P., I received a vague, ambiguous, rambling, icily discouraging letter that confirms my worst fears.
Space forbids quoting the letter verbatim, so we must settle for the nub of the answers I received to my two questions:
1. “Will the present detailed policies that are contained in the district and borough local plans be contained in the local development frameworks or not?”
“If a local authority could justify the need for a Development Plan Document specifically on Development Control policies, the local authority could produce one. However, the production and location of such policies within the LDF is at the discretion of the local authority.”
2. “If they do, in which of the documents that comprise the local development frameworks will they appear?”
“The location of such policies within the Local Development Framework is at the discretion of local authorities. The management and consideration of development through the application process will be via policy contained in key documents at all levels. Some local authorities may produce a specific DPD on development control policies but the decision of whether to produce one is not imposed on them by Central Government, but rather it is a decision for each LPA to make based on their own set of circumstances.”
I brought the Department’s letter to an executive committee meeting of our Warwickshire branch and we decided to write to the eight planning authorities in Warwickshire, asking them exactly what they propose to do. I will let you know how they reply.

THIS HAS BEEN A YEAR FOR VICTORY
(Article in the Leamington Courier on 21st December 2007)

How will we remember 2007? Coventry Airport.
For seven long months the big guns thundered in the Leamington Town Hall and for seven long months two extremely resilient members of our planning team, Gill Smith and Mark Sullivan, listened to the battery of argument and counter argument, and indeed opened up with their own field piece, cross-examined witnesses and told the inspector exactly why a passenger terminal should not be allowed.
The inspector agreed with us and two government departments concurred. So the number of passengers will not rise to two million a year and those who live nearby will not be tortured by noise.
The airport has appealed. Of course it has, and beyond the High Court lies the House of Lords and the European Court. And if all that fails the passenger terminal may well be reintroduced and we shall have to fight the battle all over again.
One of the grounds for refusal was “the potential diminishing of its role as complementary to Birmingham Airport.” So is Birmingham now more likely to secure the longer runway in its master plan? Or will the country’s growing concern about the noise and pollution of areoplanes turn the tide?
Well, never mind all that just now, and never mind the Planning Reform Bill that is passing through Parliament or the dreaded local development frameworks. This has been a year of victory.
The dozen or so guerrillas who run our branch going keep in touch by telephone and e-mail. From time to time committees meet at our Warwick office, but we never see a great deal of one another and this, alas, is one of the reasons why we find it so hard to recruit and retain active members.
However, once a year we follow up an executive committee meeting with a Christmassy two hours at a hostelry. This year we all trouped down the road to The Roebuck Inn for chicken, jacket potatoes, a raffle and an opportunity to talk about anything other than conservation.
We also met, and thanked, other active members of our branch, our unsung but invaluable team of hedgerow surveyors.
Quietly, slowly, determinedly, this band of volunteers is mapping the 6,000 miles of Warwickshire hedgerow. When the task is complete we will have an edge tool in our hands that can be used to assess planning applications and be produced at public inquiries. If Coventry or Birmingham Airports were to expand how many miles of hedgerow should we lose and what quality of hedgerow should we lose? When the survey is finished we shall know.

I’LL NEVER TEMPT PROVIDENCE AGAIN!
(Article in the Leamington Courier on 7th December 2007)

“How about a sixth terminal and runway at Heathrow…?” Thus I blithely opened my last but one article, with an example of a ridiculous, an impossible circumstance.
I vow never to tempt Providence again. For a sixth terminal and a third runway are proposed for the ugliest place in Great Britain.
As one man, the environmentalists have denounced the proposal, (as you knew we would), for it will destroy acres of countryside, multiply traffic on overburdened roads, pollute the heavens above and the earth below. As one man, big business has championed the proposal, (as we knew they would), for it will create jobs, promote wealth and effectively prevent an otherwise inevitable recession.
How can these two sets of irreconcilable factors be justly weighed? They can’t, but a public inquiry will be held, an inspector will write a report for the Secretary of State and he will decide which shall prevail.
Or will it, and will he?
For last Tuesday week the dreaded Planning Reform Bill was presented to Parliament.
This bill will introduce National Policy Documents and these documents will tell us where major infrastructure projects, such as highways, airports, railways, dams, reservoirs, generating stations and waste treatment plants are needed. It will also introduce an Infrastructure Planning Commission, which will decide if a development is in accordance with the relevant National Policy Document. If it is, it will be built.
What will happen to public inquiries? In fact, they are not to be abolished entirely, as we feared they would be. However, they will be limited to discussing the local impact of a development and it appears pretty certain that there will be no more cross-examination. We may no longer brief barristers to haul the developers over the coals.
There is no doubt whatever that Heathrow’s sixth terminal and third runway will impact horribly on the locality. So we oppose it on these grounds.
In fact, we oppose the expansion of any airport in this country at this moment. Airports cause noise and pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The Government is allegedly pressing for a 60% reduction of carbon emissions by 2050. It cannot possibly mean what it says if it allows Heathrow to expand.
We shall fight, but if this bill as it stands becomes law what hope have we? And what hopes shall we have if the second runway at Birmingham International and the terminal building at Coventry Airport are resurrected? We won the battle of Coventry Airport and a hard battle it was. If the Planning Reform Bill is passed we must surely lose a second fight.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN BROWNFIELD SITES ARE GONE?
(Article in the Leamington Courier on 23rd November 2007)

A stone’s throw away from the Bank of England is Merchant Taylor’s Hall. It has stood there since 1347 and though the City has many skyscrapers that go socking up to heaven, this livery hall and its fellows still provide oases of quiet and comfort in the heart of London’s money-making.
In fact, this hall is not the original, a pity for the Middle Ages could unite grandeur with grace and the Victorians, who built the present one, united grandeur with ponderousness and humourlessness.
No matter. It was pleasant, the other day, to step out of busy Threadneedle Street into peace and to meet my fellow C.P.R.E. members at our annual Volunteers’ Conference.
So, what did we delegates confer about?
Ninety of us, from all over the country, sat at tables in the Great Hall and were presented with various topics. A speaker would talk on an issue, such as Planning or Housing, and we were given a short time in which to discuss the points raised and decide which were most important. Then one delegate from each table was allowed fifteen seconds to present the views of his colleagues to the meeting.
It sounds a rather breathless way of doing things, but it enabled the C.P.R.E. headquarters team to find out what matters most to us. As regards Planning, we were pretty well agreed that the Government should not be allowed to put economic development before the environment. As regards Landscape we were all for developing parks in towns and cities and preserving green corridors.
Lady Caroline Cranbrook, who spoke about Food and Farming, told us bluntly that the world had run out of its finite resources and the era of cheap food was over. Since her family has farmed in Suffolk for the past century she must know this only too well.
Housing was another grim topic. The Government, we were reminded, wants to build another three million homes. Put them on brownfield sites by all means. But what happens when the brownfield has all gone? And already the country is losing twenty-five square miles a year to development.
The conference was naturally a social occasion. The refreshments, wine, beer and a buffet, were first class and as we ate and drank we talked our heads off. Altogether, despite the bleak rural outlook, a well spent day, a happy day.
The years ahead will be critical for the countryside and we know it, but we will continue to prod the politicians and generally agitate to ensure we turn them to good account.

A DANGEROUS PLANNING BILL
(Article in the Leamington Courier on 9th November 2007)

How about a sixth runway and terminal at Heathrow…?
As one man, the environmentalists would denounce the proposal, for it would destroy acres of countryside, multiply traffic on overburdened roads, pollute the heavens above and the earth below. As one man, big business would champion the proposal, for it would create jobs, promote wealth and effectively prevent an otherwise inevitable recession.
How could these two, totally different, points of view be evaluated and a just decision made? How indeed, but a public inquiry would be held and an inspector would listen to argument, counter-argument, examination, cross-examination, re-examination and concluding speeches. He would write a report and make a recommendation. Then the Secretary of State would make the decision. And how could he, the Secretary of State, properly weigh environmental loss against economic gain?
These decisions are ultimately always arbitrary, but they are made openly. Public matters are publicly aired and may lead to other, responsible and effective decisions on matters such as traffic control, light pollution and air fuel taxes.
Unhappily, this democratic way of doing things is likely to be abolished.
For the Government wants to set up National Policy Documents, which will tell us exactly where air terminals, and oil terminals, power stations, wind farms, roads and all the other large pieces of infrastructure are needed. There would be no more “if” about that sixth terminal and runway at Heathrow, only a “when,” and perhaps, just perhaps, a “how large” and a “how long”.
What, no public consultation? On the contrary. The White Paper on Planning, which proposes this change, shouts consultation, bellows consultation, in paragraph after paragraph.
There would be consultation early and late. Everyone human being and organisation with an axe to grind, no matter how large or how small, would be invited to grind that axe before an august new body called the Infrastructure Planning Commission, which would decide the matter.
Unfortunately, since the Commission would decide the matter in accordance with a National Policy Document, or in other words would have already had its mind made up for it by the Government, this rip tide of opinion would be little more than waste paper.
And here it comes! “There will also be a bill to reform the planning system….” Thus Her Majesty on Tuesday morning to her Lords and Commons assembled and it is expected that before the month is out the bill that will turn this dangerous, this morally repugnant, this undemocratic proposal into reality will be presented to Parliament.

DEMANDING GOOD DEVELOPMENT
(Article in the Leamington Courier on 26th October 2007)

Last month the Warwick District Council adopted the new Warwick Local District Plan. So let’s have a look at it. Or, because space is limited, one small part of it. What about Chapter 4: Development Policies?
Two introductory paragraphs tell us that new development should respect the environment, be safe to use and fit for its intended purpose.
Then, to business. The first Development Policy is called Layout and Design and the text, printed in amarinth cerise, runs thus:
“Development will only be permitted which positively contributes to the character and quality of its environment through good layout and design. Development proposals will be expected to demonstrate that they:
(a) harmonise with, or enhance, the existing settlement in terms of physical form, patterns of movement and land use;….” And (a) is followed by (b), (c), (d) down to the letter (l), a dozen ways in which developments must make things physically better, not worse. Then we are told that if the application makes a significant impact the applicant will have to back it up with a Character Appraisal and Design Statement.
Nor is this the end. Eleven more paragraph of black type explain, in words that you and I can understand, exactly what is proposed and why.
Now, there is a policy for you. And an upbeat one at that. Time was when district local plans forbade various forms of bad or inadequate development. Now they demand positively good ones. And provided the planning officers firmly insist on the letter of that policy then surely the physical future of the district is reasonably safe?
Safe until 2011, because that is the life of the present District Local Plan, and perhaps safe for three years thereafter because the District Council may ask for the lives of policies to be extended, and even extended again.
Unfortunately, the District Local Plan is the last of its kind. It is to be succeeded by a Local Development Framework, which is not one document but several and we do not yet know where, in this bundle, the carefully crafted policies upon which we rely will be found, or even if they will be there at all.
Mr Philip Clarke, the District Council’s Head of Planning Policy, is sanguine. He tells me that properly drafted policies will indeed appear in the Local Development Framework.
Will they, indeed? And if so, in which document? And what power will they have? To set my mind at rest I asked the Minister for Communities and Local Government, the Rt. Hon. Hazel, Blears, for an explanation. My letter was dated 28th July. I am still waiting for a reply.

BUILDING NEW HOMES: HOW MANY?
(Article in the Leamington Courier on 12th October 2007)

At the end of August I told you that the West Midlands Regional Assembly would soon tell us how many more homes the region ought to build itself by the year 2026. Ten days hence it will do so.
In fact, it has already made up its mind. It originally wanted a figure of 300,000, but the Government has been pressing hard for 380,000 so it has finally opted for a conformist 362,600.
Who can know, or guess, how many human beings will have needed, or will have received, new homes by 2026? Yet governments must make public predictions and even a layman can guess that in twenty years time the population will have risen and the size of the average household will have shrunk.
Where will we be housed? The three districts of Nuneaton and Bedworth, Rugby and Warwick are each to receive a target of 10,800 more houses and Warwickshire as a whole 41,000.
In fact, about 15% of housing is usually built on windfall sites and in Warwickshire this figure is much higher. Unfortunately, the Government will not allow windfall sites to be taken into consideration, so these homes must be built either on brownfield, which is previously developed land, or greenfield. The three districts already have a very high housing provision; anything more would be truly alarming.
Since Coventry is to have a building rate three and a half times the current level, this building, if implemented, will almost certainly spill out southwards into the Green Belt, despite the Government’s publicly avowed intention to preserve it. And if it does, why should Leamington not spill out northwards towards Kenilworth? The new homes will command new roads, schools, hospitals, shops, offices and factories. So what will the county, what will Warwick District, look like in twenty years time?
These figures will be formally announced on 22nd October, mulled over by the Regional Assembly and forwarded to the Secretary of State, the Rt. Hon. Hazel Blears, in December.
Twelve weeks of consultation will ensue, during which we shall all be able to object. The C.P.R.E. will do so, vigorously, because it believes that only 285,000 new homes are needed in the West Midlands.
In September, 2008, there will be a public examination, very likely in Birmingham, and again we shall be able to object. The Government will then adopt these figures or, if we press hard enough, slightly revised ones. And that will be that. The prediction will be acted upon and more houses will appear.

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Contents

SUPPORTING LOCAL FOOD

CLEANING UP WARWICKSHIRE

POST OFFICE CLOSURES

TOO MANY HOUSES!

A NEW TOWN AT LONG MARSTON?

INTRODUCING OURSELVES

LONG MARSTON ECO-TOWN – “WHOLLY DAMAGING TO THE COUNTRYSIDE” SAYS C.P.R.E.

FIGHTING TO SAVE OUR POST OFFICES

KEEPING IT RURAL

WHAT BILL BRYSON HAS TO TELL YOU