Here are some brief updates in this week’s newsletter:-
Forum Re-Designation
We can confirm that Broxtowe Borough Council approved the re-designation of the Forum at last Wednesday’s council meeting. The formal re-designation notice should appear here when published, and the consultation responses can also be accessed from the same page. In summary there were eight representations from members of the public, seven supportive or very supportive and one opposed, and in addition, responses were received from Erewash Borough Council, the Coal Authority and Natural England, confirming that they had no comments on the application, and from the Beeston and District Civic Society supporting the re-designation of the Neighbourhood Forum. Thank you to all who responded.
Neighbourhood Plan Progress
Following on from the last digest post, we are hopeful that Broxtowe will be able to commence the statutory Regulation 16 consultation for our revised Neighbourhood Plan (see the Plan page on our website) before the end of March. We will of course keep you posted as soon as the consultation has started.
and Finally ……..
We have revised and updated our Privacy Policy, which can be viewed on the website here
As always please do feel free to ask any questions you may have on this or anything else via the Contact Us page, and we’ll do our best to answer them via the Questions and Answers page.
A number of updates and items of interest in this week’s newsletter:-
Forum Re-Designation Consultation
The consultation to re-designate the Forum closed on 28th January. We understand that Broxtowe received a number of responses from individuals and organisations, the vast majority raising no objection to the Forum continuing for another five years. Once anonymised, the responses will be made available on Broxtowe’s website, and we will share the link with you when we have it.
Stakeholder meetings
Following the HS2/Integrated Rail Plan (IRP) announcement and the separate decision to delay the vacation of Chetwynd Barracks, we have been seeking to hold meetings with the key stakeholders – Broxtowe, Notts CC, EMDevCo and Midlands Connect, to understand their thinking as to how the Forum’s aspirations for the developments, infrastructure, housing, community facilities, local jobs, and especially environmental aspects for our Area can still be taken forward, and where/how the previously promised level of investment will come from/be raised!
To this end (and in relation to our Regulation 16 consultation see ‘and Finally’ below) we had a quick catch-up meeting this week with Ruth Hyde, Chief Executive at Broxtowe. Next week we are meeting with Homes England and the DIO re the barracks, and also with EMDevCo to discuss the whole Toton & Chetwynd site.
When we have held discussions and talks with all the key players and have a better understanding of what is now possible, we will let you know. Rest assured the Forum will be pressing for all our aspirations and Plan policies to be implemented to make our Area an even better place to live than it is already. That has been our aim and vision from the outset, and you, our members, have contributed enormously to that objective. There must be no let down for the community now!
Beeston and District Civic Society
Richard (our Chair) and I were very pleased to accept an invitation to speak on Friday night at the Beeston and District Civic Society meeting, held at the Pearson Centre, Beeston. A copy of the presentation can be viewed/downloaded here or from this page on our website.
It seemed to be well received, and if you are interested in the work of the Society, then more information can be found on their website www.beestoncivicsociety.org.uk
and Finally ……..
As per the last digest post, we have continued to press Broxtowe to initiate the statutory Regulation 16 consultation on our revised Neighbourhood Plan submitted back in November, see the Plan page on our website. Unfortunately, we have hit a couple of snags in the requirement to make our documents accessible, and also to have the correct file types for the overall policies map. We are nearly there with both of these issues, so hopefully there will be better news next time!
As always please do feel free to ask any questions you may have on this or anything else via the Contact Us page, and we’ll do our best to answer them via the Questions and Answers page.
Happy (belated) New Year to you all and welcome to the first Forum newsletter of 2022! Following the Christmas break, the Steering Group have now started to wind ourselves back up for the challenges this new year may bring. Our first SG meeting of 2022 is this coming week.
This consultation run by Broxtowe Borough Council has now closed. The Steering Group on behalf of the Forum made a submission which can be viewed/downloaded via our website Consultations page. We would also like to thank all of you who submitted responses too.
We commissioned our consultants Kefa Design to provide a professional response of our views on the SM-SPD, and to critique it on our behalf. They have done a fantastic job as you will see, and the forty page document is very comprehensive. We trust the views expressed will be taken forward by Broxtowe in the next iteration of the SM-SPD. Not least because the publication of the Integrated Rail Plan for the Midlands & North, published in November, has a significant impact on, and implications for, the existing plans for Toton sidings and the immediate vicinity.
Also, it came to our attention over the Christmas period that the MOD announced (also in November) that the vacation date for the Chetwynd Barracks site has been put back again, this time to 2026! See here. In separate discussion with the DIO, we understand that the actual disposal date is likely to be the following year. This also puts into question the housing allocation for our Area within the Broxtowe Part 2 Local Plan which ends in 2028, and the dates expressed in the SM-SPD for development of the site cannot be met.
Therefore, we think it likely that the SM-SPD will have to be revised and consulted on again in the near future, as it is already out of date!
Forum Re-Designation Consultation
Just a reminder that this consultation is still open until 28th January. Details and how to respond are on the council’s website here and also our Consultations page as above.
We ask for as many of you, our members and friends, as possible to respond. It really is a very simple & short response form. A Word version of which is now available to download from the council website and can be emailed back to policy@broxtowe.gov.uk Thank you.
and Finally ……..
We continue to press Broxtowe to initiate the statutory Regulation 16 consultation on our revised Neighbourhood Plan submitted back in November, see the Plan page on our website. More on this in the coming weeks as further discussions are held.
As always please do feel free to ask any questions you may have on this or anything else via the Contact Us page, and we’ll do our best to answer them via the Questions and Answers page.
Although the Integrated Rail Plan has stopped the building of the HS2 Hub at Toton and the latest announcements by the MOD seem to delay vacation of Chetwynd Barracks until 2026, we still think it is important that Broxtowe receives comments from as many people as possible.
As this is the last newsletter until the New Year, on behalf of the entire Steering Group I would like to wish everyone an enjoyable Christmas in whatever way you plan to celebrate it safely in the current climate of rising Covid cases! Plus of course our best wishes to you all for a better 2022.
Forum Re-DesignationConsultation
Broxtowe Borough Council announced on Monday this week the start of the consultation to re-designate the Forum for a further five years. The consultation will run until 28th January 2022. Details and how to respond are on the council’s website here and also linked via this page and the Consultations page on our website.
We have noted that the response form provided can’t be completed online, and when downloaded it is a non-editable PDF document! Whilst we have reported this to the council, we thought it would be helpful to provide you with a form you can actually fill-in electronically, so we have converted it to Word and it can be downloaded in your preferred format here
Obviously it is not appropriate for the Steering Group to respond to what is effectively our own consultation, so please can we ask as many of you, our members and friends, as possible to respond. It really is a very simple & short response form. Thank you.
As you may have seen, Broxtowe Borough Council announced on 10th December an extension to the Strategic Masterplan consultation following the Integrated Rail Plan (IRP) publication. It will now run for a further month until 14th January 2022.
See here for information re the consultation and extension, and there is some more info via this link. We have also updated our Consultations page accordingly.
If you haven’t already responded, you now have more time to do so! It is important that everyone has their say so we will continue to encourage you to respond.
As always please do feel free to ask any questions you may have on this or anything else via the Contact Us page, and we’ll do our best to answer them via the Questions and Answers page.
Once again Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We will see you all again on the other side in 2022.
After much planning and a few false starts, the Director General of the Imperial War Museum Diane Lees visited the Chetwynd Station site recently. This was the first time Diane has visited the site and she was most impressed and excited to be shown around. Her obvious focus was the heritage assets that lay within the grounds. So, the ww1 infirmary, ww1 shell store, ww1 office block, the officers mess, that actually predates the shell filling factory and finally Williams barracks, that sits upon the site of the former ww1 press house.
She was escorted by the OC and members of the DIO. She thoroughly enjoyed her visit. We were fortunate to have a personal audience with Diane after the visit where she shared her views and thoughts and discussed our ambitions for the site. She gave us some really good pointers and ideas to move forward with and the promise of further support from the IWM once we are in the position of being able realise some of our plans regarding some sort of museum. She really liked our idea of a new community building that could include heritage spaces that would relate to the site’s impressive history.
One of her ideas that we’d like to share, is the possibility of recording peoples experiences of working at, or around the ww1 shell filling factory no6 and beyond through ww2 where it was reincarnated as the central stores depot that supplied the country in the second global conflict. This of course could include post war as well. If we can then save the experiences for future generations to read or listen to it would be a great source of local history relating to the “Chilwell Depot” story.
We have already received a really interesting story about the 1918 explosion, so if you would like to contribute please contact us via the Contact Us page.
Best Regards, Steve Brown the Community Development Team
The Environment Focus Group of the CTTCNF believe that there is not enough green space being created as part of the Toton and Chetwynd Barracks Strategic Masterplan. It states a minimum of 16ha which is not enough to meet the needs of the growing Toton and Chilwell populations. The new Environment Act also requires the formation of Nature Recovery Networks and expects at least a 10% biodiversity gain as a result of any new development. We don’t see how this can be achieved in our area with the present Masterplan. Natural England wants Broxtowe Borough Council to participate in the Nature Recovery Partnership and make reference to the Green Infrastructure National Standards projects which are noted but it appears not acted upon.
The Key Principles for Nature Networks for wildlife and people are:
1. Understand the place: Recognise where the nature network will sit, in terms of how the natural characteristics of the area generate conditions for different habitats and how the cultural landscape character has evolved and is valued. 2. Create a vision: for your nature network and be clear about your objectives: specify what the ultimate goals are for the network, identify the spatial scale, and the environmental and societal aspects that are important. 3. Involve people: People both benefit from and create nature networks: plans should engage and be created with the community; recognising that the landscapes and the ecosystems that support species, also provide multiple benefits to people. 4. Create core sites: Core sites are the heart of nature networks; these are places that sustain thriving wildlife populations that may expand across the network. It will often be best to build core areas of nature networks by enlarging, connecting and improving existing high quality wildlife sites. 5. Build resilience: Enhance the resilience of landscapes, ecosystems and their ecosystem services through restoration that reinstates natural processes. 6. Embrace dynamism: Remember that in a natural state, ecosystems and landscapes change and are inherently dynamic over short and long time scales. 7. Encourage diversity: Nature networks need to include a diverse physical structure. Biological complexity and landscape diversity are important to facilitate resilience. 8. Think ‘networks’: Networks need to be planned at multiple spatial scales and address multiple issues. 9. Start now but plan long-term: Identify the locations that can deliver a coherent nature network, but prioritise those locations that provide the best opportunities for action now, while developing longer term solutions. 10. Monitor progress: evaluate actions and adapt management in the light of results, to achieve long-term aims at local and national scales.
We feel that these principles are lacking in the Masterplan. Remember to have your say byfollowing this link
The following articles are very interesting for those who are interested in the implementation of nature networks.
Lovell, R., White, M.P., Wheeler, B., Taylor, T., Elliott, L. (2020) A rapid scoping review of health and wellbeing evidence for the Green Infrastructure Standards. European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter Medical School. For: Natural England, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Public Health England, and Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, England.
Crick, H. Q. P., Crosher, I. E., Mainstone, C. P., Taylor S. D., Wharton, A., Langford, P., Larwood, J., Lusardi, J., Appleton, D., Brotherton, P. N. M., Duffield, S. J. & Macgregor N. A. (2020) Nature Networks: A Summary for Practitioners. Natural England Research Report NERR082. Natural England, York.
We think its important that as many comments are made about the Masterplan as possible so we’ll be highlighting things we like/don’t like to help you find your way around it.
Broxtowe admit in their review of comments received from the first Consultation that a number of comments were made about the lack of detail in the number of homes & employment opportunities in the different Character Areas, the size, affordability & tenure of the homes to be built and the development timescales. We are particularly concerned that no indication is given on the maximum number of homes to be built in each of the Character Areas.
The Character Area Section (Section 4) contains little more detail than the original consultation, their reason being that: “The Masterplan is intended to be flexible,…”. The Phasing Section (5.1) says “development will take place gradually over the next 25 years…”
We think its important that as many comments are made about the Masterplan as possible so we’ll be highlighting things we like/don’t like to help you find your way around it.
Access from Stapleford Lane
The Forum made strong representation that access to Chetwynd Barracks from Stapleford Lane opposite Woodstock Road should be restricted to buses, pedestrians and cyclists. The high level of traffic on Stapleford Lane was a recurring comment during our own consultations.
Paragraph 3.67 of the Masterplan says access here is “for further technical and design work”, kicking the decision downstream. We think vehicular access should be restricted.
The Government has published its Integrated Rail Plan which has a significant impact upon the future for our Area. We will be consulting with our Stakeholder partners but we’d like your views on how you think the changes will impact our area.
