At the public meeting which was held at the school hall on 19th January 2017 members of the public were invited to give their views as to where a proposed development could take place together with giving their views on what considerations were important to them in selecting a suitable site.
Two documents were available for people to take away and consider.
- A map of Abbotts Ann upon which people were asked to mark where they believed a suitable site existed.
- A sheet headed “Site Selection” where people were asked to rank 7 different criteria in terms of importance. They were;
- Visual impact
- Satisfactory road access
- Proximity to village centre
- Expandability
- Within or close to the settlement boundaries
- Land cost
- Development cost
21 plans of the village were returned, duly marked, identifying 26 different locations.
35 Site Selection documents were returned. The returns indicated that the 3 most important considerations for location were;
- Satisfactory road access
- Visual impact
- Proximity to village centre.
Sub-Committee Formed
The Steering group, which has been running the project, then formed a sub committee to consider the suggested sites in terms of suitability. Whilst considering the suitability of the sites, the expressed preferences from the “Site selection” returns were part of the deliberation process.
17 sites were rejected, the reasons being as follows;
- Too small
- Visually intrusive
- Too far from the village
- In land already designated by TVBC as land where the “local gap” should be maintained between Andover and Abbotts Ann
- Poor/doubtful access to site
- On water meadow land
This brought us down to 9 potential sites.
Meeting with Planners
At that stage a meeting took place with the Planners from TVBC. It was felt that their input would be very important since nothing would be achieved if planning permission for a site would be refused!
This meeting led to a further 5 sites being rejected on various grounds namely;
- Too far outside the village boundary, and distanced from the village
- On high or very open ground, very exposed and prominent, which would lead to visual intrusion of parts of the village.
- A lack of suitable road and pedestrian access to the village
- Site which was too steep, sloping and unsuitable for building
- Site which was too close to a boundary of the existing “Conservation area”
This left 4 sites which were considered in detail by the Steering group.
It was felt that all sites should be pursued and, therefore, contact was made with either the landowner or their authorised agents.
After discussions and correspondence it became clear that the terms upon which 2 sites might be available were incompatible with either the wishes of the village as indicated in the open meeting or understood in the map and site selection returns, together with the desires of the landowners to realise planning potential on a scale greater than was felt acceptable.
A third site was rejected when it became clear in discussions that access was not feasible for road or pedestrians due to separate land ownership issues.
Therefore, the subject site was chosen and negotiations were then commenced leading to an agreement for the site that is now presented for approval.