By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter
There are concerns people trying to have their say on plans to build almost 19,000 homes in the Cotswolds have faced difficulty and experienced errors.
Cotswold district planners are in the process of creating a new local plan which will set out where development will take place in the council area over the next 20 years.
The new local plan includes major expansion to market towns and the creation of large villages.
The plan includes 3,717 new homes in and around Cirencester, 2,217 homes in Moreton-in-Marsh, 1,658 homes in Down Ampney and 1,238 new homes in Mickleton.
Council leaders say the local plan is “absolutely vital” to curb speculative development. However, it has sparked strong opposition across the district with residents fearing it will ruin the character of their communities.
And concerns have been raised this month over changes to the council’s online portal people can use to have their say on the new blueprint.
Village campaign group Mickleton Against Inappropriate Development (MAID) claim it is flawed and they feel it doesn’t allow residents to comment in a meaningful way.
“When you go online to fill out their form for representation you find that the form has changed without comment from Cotswold District Council (CDC),” they said.
“Indeed, CDC had discounted some of the earlier representations as they did not adhere to the format they requested. However the new format does not allow you to complete the form to adhere to their conditions.”
They also claimed there are issues with the portal’s new format when trying to fill in the form and fear the council was “filtering out public evidence during transcription”.
MAID also said there have been errors affecting the “have your say guide”.
“The ramifications of this are far and wide, critically risking our residents’ submissions being lost in the coding process,” MAID said in a press release.
However, council chiefs say there are no technical faults and the changes do not impact comments and representations submitted previously.
More than 1,000 responses have already been received and none have been lost, they said.
The council has extended the local plan consultation which can be viewed and commented on by clicking here but they say this is unrelated to the concerns raised by MAID.
Conservative councillor Tom Stowe (C, Campden and Vale) is concerned residents and organisations are “seemingly experiencing such difficulty in making representations and making their views known on this highly contentious plan”.
He said there is concern across the district that the Liberal Democrats are “deadset on railroading this plan through regardless”.
“There is a feeling that major concerns raised by communities during the regulation 18 process were totally ignored,” he said.
“Regulation 19 consultation is now the last chance that residents and communities will have to put their arguments to the Planning Inspector. It is vital part of the Democratic process that the procedure is straightforward, robust, and that everyone has an opportunity to make representations in full, and in a clear and transparent way.
“There is still confusion over the extension to the consultation period and the reasoning for it. I’ve requested a definitive response from officers but no response has yet been forthcoming. It all seems rather rushed.”
Lib Dem council leader Mike Evemy (Siddington and Cerney Rural) said he was disappointed to read Cllr Stowe’s comments who he claims “seeks to undermine” the local plan process the council is following “instead of waiting for council officers to answer the questions raised by MAID”.
He went on to say the Tories voted in July last year for the local plan to be updated and submitted by December this year.
“He now claims that our administration is ‘railroading’ the plan through,” Cllr Evemy said.
“Perhaps he is contrasting our action with the inaction and delay on the local plan when the Conservatives, led by his father, ran CDC ten years ago.”
He said the Tory administration’s delay allowed speculative developments to go up across the district “from Moreton to Tetbury to Fairford” without infrastructure.
Helen Martin, director of communities and place, said the council knows how much people care about the future of their communities. And it is important to them that everyone who wants to comment on the local plan can do so.
She said they recently introduced a drop-down menu in the online consultation to help better organise the vast numbers of responses they are expecting.
“The drop-down menu, which is in response to the question ‘To which part of the Local Plan does your comment relate?’, allows respondents to select a specific policy or site and submit a comment on it,” she said.
“They can repeat this process for as many policies or sites as they wish.
“It does mean, however, that any comments previously made as free-text on this question can no longer be seen on the consultation platform. All other comments remain publicly visible.
“The online system is not corrupted, there are no technical faults, and the change does not impact comments and representations submitted previously. More than 1,000 responses have already been received – most through the online consultation platform – and none have been lost.
“But every representation will be published and passed to the planning inspectorate unabridged, so residents can be assured that their comments and local knowledge will form part of the process.
We also continue to welcome responses via letter or email if that is preferred.
“The consultation extension is separate from the concerns recently raised by MAID. On 22 September, we extended the consultation by four weeks because we published further evidence, including all approximately 3,600 representations received during the previous consultation – fulfilling a commitment made previously.
“Giving residents and stakeholders an additional month means they have more time to consider that information before making or updating their own representation.
“We have directly spoken to over one thousand people through our engagement events, and really value the time people are taking to understand the proposals and share their views.
“There is still time to take part, and we would encourage anyone who wants to comment on the local plan to submit their representation by 11.59pm on November 3.”