Musings from the Merse
Monday, December 19, 2011
WHAT GOES ROUND......
I see from the recent Berwickshire-Minutes of the Hutton and Paxton Community Council that the hoary old chestnut of Devdlopment at Hutton Castle Barns has raised its hoary old head again. Ironically all this could have been settled years ago when the Castle Barns highheidyins put in an application to build 4 new houses without consulting the people most affected by their application. It has been bad blood every since with every application blocked by the local community-and being subsequently withdrawn by HCB. Huttonian earnestly suggests that the two parties talk to each other instead of exchanging legal opinions.
I see from the recent Berwickshire-Minutes of the Hutton and Paxton Community Council that the hoary old chestnut of Devdlopment at Hutton Castle Barns has raised its hoary old head again. Ironically all this could have been settled years ago when the Castle Barns highheidyins put in an application to build 4 new houses without consulting the people most affected by their application. It has been bad blood every since with every application blocked by the local community-and being subsequently withdrawn by HCB. Huttonian earnestly suggests that the two parties talk to each other instead of exchanging legal opinions.
Labels: Hutton and Paxton Community Council, Hutton Castle Barns
Friday, December 19, 2008
Chicken Hearted?
Farmer M Junior is not having much luck with his planning applications. First the affair of the four new houses and the access road which got up the noses of his neighbours-and now the mobile poultry unit which might literally have done just that judging from the letter from SEPA as posted on the Scottish Borders Council Planning Application website:
Erection of mobile poultry unit and extension of access road
Land North East Of Hutton Hall Barns Hutton Scottish Borders
As with the previous expansion undertaken in 2007, Environmental Health is unable to support this application as it is in conflict with Section 13.14 of the Code of Practice ‘Prevention of Environmental Pollution from Agricultural Activity (2005)’, due to the proximity of existing dwellings. The risk from nuisance is significantly increased due to the proposed enlargement of the business and although the current operation has not been subject to formal complaint an increase in odour has been detected by some of the occupants of neighbouring housing*. Should the proposal be accepted great care will have to taken to ensure odour and other potential nuisances from flies, feathers and dust do not increase to unacceptable levels.
This application is now withdrawn pending the provision of new information in its favour.
So the recent applications (over the last two years from this gentleman run:
Applications: Three.. Withdrawn: Two Refused: One)
I suggest advice from Farmer C on how to get proposals through the highheidyins in Newtown St Boswells might not come amiss and a glance at McDale Carnegie's famous tome : How to win Friends and not Piss off Neighbours (Chatshow and Windbag , Kelso 1972) would help
All this is a great personal disappointment to Huttonian. Farmer M's organic eggs sold to the public at the entrance to his drive are the best in Berwickshire (if not in the Borders and the known world) and reasonably priced at that.
(* Again the dog did not bark? If no formal complaint was made how does SEPA know that 'an increase in odour has been detected by some of the occupants of neighbouring houses? 'Look I am not complaining but.......?')
The image is of Chicken Licken and a friend going off to tell the King that the planning application has fallen in.
Labels: Hutton Castle Barns, Mobile Poultry, Planning
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Megaphone Development: The outcome
If you look here*
you will see that Huttonian has tracked down the application referred to in the post immediately below. He thought it might be turned down.
It was.
Lesson there somewhere.
(*On opening the link scroll down to 'Hutton and Paxton Community Council' in the appropriate search slot and put in 01/04/2008 as the start date and 01/08/2008
as the finishing one and Bob's your new friend)
If you look here*
you will see that Huttonian has tracked down the application referred to in the post immediately below. He thought it might be turned down.
It was.
Lesson there somewhere.
(*On opening the link scroll down to 'Hutton and Paxton Community Council' in the appropriate search slot and put in 01/04/2008 as the start date and 01/08/2008
as the finishing one and Bob's your new friend)
Megaphone Development
For some mysterious reason the Scottish Borders' Planning Highheidyins have made it difficult to access the latest details of the contentious outline planning application for four new houses at Hutton Castle Barns. It may be because this is not a new application but the continuation of an old one which was withdrawn late last year because of local opposition and because the planning flaws in the proposal were exposed. It was a classic case how not to apply. Let the neighbours find out either when they are contacted via the formal notification process or when they log on to the SBC Planning website! It would surely have been more courteous to have knocked on a few doors (5 or so only) and explained what they wanted to do taking account of people's views and comments and seeking to modify the proposal accordingly. Should not be a problem when it is for an outline planning permission and there is accordingly room for manoeuvre. In this case the neighbours were presented with plans apparently showing houses in-your-face-mate-just-right-across-the-road-peering into-your-bedroom-sort-of-thing. In fact the sites were so large that putting the houses at the back of the plot rather than at the very front might have helped to elicit a more positive neighbourly response. And apart from understandable nimbyism there were also real problems of access and excessive traffic.
And then the proposal resurfaces a few months later, unchanged and without any attempt at consultation. Same plans, same in your face bricks and mortar, same access problems, same green field site on good farming land-nothing altered in the light of previous comments. With the obvious result. Same opposition.Same deficiencies
You might think, mightn't you that such a proposal hardly deserves to succeed? And the smart money says
it won't
For some mysterious reason the Scottish Borders' Planning Highheidyins have made it difficult to access the latest details of the contentious outline planning application for four new houses at Hutton Castle Barns. It may be because this is not a new application but the continuation of an old one which was withdrawn late last year because of local opposition and because the planning flaws in the proposal were exposed. It was a classic case how not to apply. Let the neighbours find out either when they are contacted via the formal notification process or when they log on to the SBC Planning website! It would surely have been more courteous to have knocked on a few doors (5 or so only) and explained what they wanted to do taking account of people's views and comments and seeking to modify the proposal accordingly. Should not be a problem when it is for an outline planning permission and there is accordingly room for manoeuvre. In this case the neighbours were presented with plans apparently showing houses in-your-face-mate-just-right-across-the-road-peering into-your-bedroom-sort-of-thing. In fact the sites were so large that putting the houses at the back of the plot rather than at the very front might have helped to elicit a more positive neighbourly response. And apart from understandable nimbyism there were also real problems of access and excessive traffic.
And then the proposal resurfaces a few months later, unchanged and without any attempt at consultation. Same plans, same in your face bricks and mortar, same access problems, same green field site on good farming land-nothing altered in the light of previous comments. With the obvious result. Same opposition.Same deficiencies
You might think, mightn't you that such a proposal hardly deserves to succeed? And the smart money says
it won't
Labels: Hutton Castle Barns, Planning
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Neighbours Revisited
Huttonian gets it wrong sometimes and he has got this one wrong big time. But judging from, incredible as it may seem, that the application to build 4 new houses at Hutton Castle Barns, withdrawn after strong objections to the original proposal, has been lobbed in again. I had told one of the previous objectors that I was confident that the idea was dead. Wrong.Very.
The application is identical in every way to the original one. Not a nod towards the comments made before many of them based on good planning objections. Not even an attempt to address the difficult problem of access. The application is slightly economical with the actualite in that it refers to the Roads Officer having no difficulty with the issue of access-indeed 'supports the proposal': through the existing entrance to the M Farm. A bloggee with a better memory than mine (many of them around) has recalled that the Roads Department said that they had no issue of principle over the building of the 4 houses but were concerned about the access. But, and here's the rub-a reapplication of an unamended proposal (within a year)is free! So lob it back boys and keep your cash under the bed. Otherwise the timing is extraordinary-building now ! When you see all the properties for sale around the area in the midst of a serious recession it seems silly to add to the over plentiful stock.
I doubt if it will go through.I hope not to be wrong this time. The objections* made earlier will be renewed in spades including a well researched comment by the Hutton and Paxton Community Council. I had heard that the original application was likely to fail-hence its withdrawal. And the whole sorry business arises from a total lack of communication and consultation between neighbours. It would have made sense for the Ms to have crossed the road to discuss with the people most closely effected how their plans might be made more acceptable rather than proceeding by formal 'neighbour notification' and the Council Website. Unfriendly or what?
The Council website invites comments.
Go to it.
(* Indeed. Already a neighbour has written covering the ground rather well especially on the lack of consultation and access.
Huttonian gets it wrong sometimes and he has got this one wrong big time. But judging from, incredible as it may seem, that the application to build 4 new houses at Hutton Castle Barns, withdrawn after strong objections to the original proposal, has been lobbed in again. I had told one of the previous objectors that I was confident that the idea was dead. Wrong.Very.
The application is identical in every way to the original one. Not a nod towards the comments made before many of them based on good planning objections. Not even an attempt to address the difficult problem of access. The application is slightly economical with the actualite in that it refers to the Roads Officer having no difficulty with the issue of access-indeed 'supports the proposal': through the existing entrance to the M Farm. A bloggee with a better memory than mine (many of them around) has recalled that the Roads Department said that they had no issue of principle over the building of the 4 houses but were concerned about the access. But, and here's the rub-a reapplication of an unamended proposal (within a year)is free! So lob it back boys and keep your cash under the bed. Otherwise the timing is extraordinary-building now ! When you see all the properties for sale around the area in the midst of a serious recession it seems silly to add to the over plentiful stock.
I doubt if it will go through.I hope not to be wrong this time. The objections* made earlier will be renewed in spades including a well researched comment by the Hutton and Paxton Community Council. I had heard that the original application was likely to fail-hence its withdrawal. And the whole sorry business arises from a total lack of communication and consultation between neighbours. It would have made sense for the Ms to have crossed the road to discuss with the people most closely effected how their plans might be made more acceptable rather than proceeding by formal 'neighbour notification' and the Council Website. Unfriendly or what?
The Council website invites comments.
Go to it.
(* Indeed. Already a neighbour has written covering the ground rather well especially on the lack of consultation and access.
Labels: building in the countryside, Hutton Castle Barns, Planning
