In documents released to MNO under the Freedom of Information Act it has become clear just how insistent the Crown Estate’s agents have been in trying to get Wiltshire’s Core Strategy to favour housing developments – placing its emphasis on Crown Estate land.
This applies especially to two major development sites in Marlborough – one of which, the Salisbury Road West site has been selected by Wiltshire Council to help fulfil Marlborough’s strategic housing quota. And the contentious site on the north-eastern edge of Devizes: the Lay Wood green-field site for which planning permission was granted in February.
The Lay Wood development will consist of 230 houses (down from 260), will protect a recently discovered Roman villa and include 92 affordable homes. The site is 17 hectares – just a small part of The Crown Estate’s 4,000 hectare Devizes Estate.
The Crown Estate’s agent making submissions on the Core Strategy to Wiltshire Council and the planning inspector is AMEC – an international engineering, project management and consultancy company. It is a FTSE 100 company which is active around the world in energy, mining, environment and infrastructure projects.
AMEC has made dozens of ‘representations’ on general and on detailed matters in the Core Strategy suggesting changes to wording and attempting to put the Council right on significant parts of the Core Strategy’s housing policy.
For example when the Council stated that additional non-strategic sites for new housing “may also need to be identified”. AMEC quoted the government’s planning Framework and wanted it changed to read “will need to be identified”.
In October 2013 (after the open hearings on the Core Strategy), AMEC asked specifically that a hotel should be mentioned for the Salisbury Road development. It wanted a bullet point added: “Explore the potential for a new hotel site to support local tourism.”
AMEC admitted that this addition was not germane to the issue as to whether the Core Strategy was or was not ‘sound’. The Council’s further modifications submitted in February 2014 have not mentioned the hotel.
AMEC was also keen to point out that the Core Strategy directed that new housing should be “built at least for Sustainable Homes Level 4.” AMEC wanted the entire paragraph about sustainable building standards deleted as the government was planning to ‘scale back’ the whole code.
The Code for Sustainable Homes was introduced as a voluntary standard in 2007. It sought to reduce carbon emissions and make homes more energy efficient. While it helped reduce the cost of running a home, it also slightly increased the initial cost of building.
On another issue AMEC was very worried about the Council’s fairly prescriptive attitude to developments outside the county’s recognised town and large village settlements. Specifically it wanted to change the Strategy’s approach to new housing in ‘small villages’ so as to allow more developments.
It sought to replace the Council’s statement that “…Small Villages development will be limited to infill within the existing built area.”
And to replace it with: “Proposals for development at small villages will be supported where they seek to meet housing needs of settlements and/or employment, services and facilities provided that the development accord with all policies of the development plan…”
The attitude of AMEC and the Crown Estate can be summed up by their proposal as to how Wiltshire Council should deal with one ‘unsound’ strand of the Core Strategy: “However the policy can easily be made sound via a series of wording changes as proposed by The Crown Estate.”
The Crown Estate through AMEC have not suggested to Wiltshire Council where the extra 70 homes now required by 2026 should be built.
However there are two areas of Crown Estate land which they might put forward. The most obvious development site would be the Chopping Knife Lane/Elcot Lane site which they originally put forward as an alternative to the Salisbury Road West site favoured by the Council.
In 2010 The Crown Estate suggested a first phase of development “off Elcot Lane immediately adjacent to the former [St John’s] school site” could accommodate 70 new homes.
They then proposed a further phase with 150-180 homes “delivered on The Crown Estate’s wider landholding” – though this would need improvements to access. This scheme was not accepted by Wiltshire Council as part of its need for strategic housing.
The alternative solution to find land for the extra 70 houses could be an extension of the Salisbury Road West site. AMEC has asked that the southern boundary of this site where it reaches to the crest of the hill, should be seen as flexible.
This is probably the most contentious area of the site. If houses go too far up the hill on the southern boundary, they will breach the horizon and could be visible for miles around.
AMEC said in their representation to the planning inspector: “The extent of the site’s southern boundary is not fixed and will be determined through a detailed assessment of the landscape and visual impacts of [the] development.”
However, while they have sold most of the farm that used to include the fields of the Salisbury Road West site, The Crown Estate have kept land just across the site’s southern boundary.
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