East Coker Preservation Trust

Flawed Plans For Newmarket Sunk By High Court

2011-04-10T11:18:00.012+01:00

In a decision that is very relevant to the current situation in South Somerset and East Coker, where the local District Council appears determined to present strategic plans that are flawed and non-compliant with European environmental legislation, the High Court has quashed the housing strategy of Newmarket's Forest Heath Council, even after a Planning Inspector had approved it.

The ruling shows that Planning Inspectorate decisions are not always correct. It also shows they can certainly be challenged.

Further, it shows that local authorities that do not ensure legally correct process is followed will open themselves to legal challenge and payment of challengers' costs. Challengers in similar circumstances should find it relatively easy to obtain insurance for costs when taking action.

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/general/news/stories/2011/mar11/31mar11/310311_2

Facebook campaign to Save T.S.Eliot's East Coker

2011-04-09T17:30:00.002+01:00

http://www.facebook.com/SaveEastCoker

Yeovil Transport Study Flawed, Says Consultant

2011-04-09T15:51:00.005+01:00

Write to andy.foyne@southsomerset.gov.uk to comment on traffic plans for Yeovil and East Coker.

ECPT has commissioned an independent traffic consultant FMW to review the March 2011 Parsons Brinkerhoff report for South Somerset District Council looking into transport effects of large scale development at Yeovil. The following is an extract from the review:

* Options 1, 2 and 3 [the potential sites for housing on the northern and eastern sides of Yeovil] should also be considered for partial and full eco success as
each site should be able to provide similar sustainable transport measures
regardless of location;
• Simplified peak hour spreading through the use of reducing overall traffic is not
ideal and a more detailed methodology should be used;
• The average speed assessment demonstrates that Option 1 [Lufton] provides the least
impact on average speeds on the five routes into and out of Yeovil. This would
be further improved if full or partial Eco-success is applied to the trip
generation;
• The two main roundabouts on the A30 to the south of Yeovil are not included in
the nine key junctions identified by Somerset County Council for detailed
junction modelling. These should be included as part of a detailed assessment
especially for any development options located to the south of the town;
• The report makes reference to the flat topography of the sites to the south of
Yeovil but fails to acknowledge the significant level differences between the
town centre which would impact upon the sustainable credentials of these sites;
• The development mix and sustainable transport criteria for Eco-success can be
applied to all sites, therefore all Options should be assessed for both partial and
full Eco-success within the model;
• The walking distances to the town centre from each of the sites is greater than
a reasonable maximum walking distance (2.0km) therefore walking to this
location is unlikely to happen in reality whichever site is considered;
• A full ‘Smarter Choices’ programme should be considered for all 6 Options not
just Options 5 and 6 [Brympton/Coker and West Coker/East/Coker/Barwick];
• Financial contributions could be sought by SSDC and SCC to ensure that all
the options achieve Eco standard not just those to the south of the town.

The above concerns raise doubts over the results of the modelling assessments
undertaken by PB and in particular suggest that the proposed development options
have not been assessed appropriately or in an unbiased manner.

The modelling should re-run using a four stage multi-modal model using the SATURN
and EMME programs to enable the full sustainable credentials of all the development
options to be properly assessed based on partial and full Eco-success.

Only after the above has been undertaken should a preferred Eco-urban development
for Yeovil be allocated within the Core Strategy.

East Coker in the press

2011-03-25T18:43:00.003Z

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/20/eliot-east-coker-housing-estates

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365172/A-new-Waste-Land-3-700-homes-planned-T-S-Eliots-resting-place.html

http://www.southwestbusiness.co.uk/news/Development-threat-heritage-villages/article-3339497-detail/article.html

http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/news/Poet-s-society-speaks-new-homes-plan/article-3316655-detail/article.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coker

Heritage in East Coker

2011-03-25T18:39:00.002Z

Like Stratford-upon-Avon or Grasmere, the village of East Coker in Somerset, UK will forever be associated with one poet and with the profoundest sense of Englishness. For East Coker, in addition to being the poet's final place of rest, is the name T. S. Eliot gave to the second of his Four Quartets, the sequence of poems which crowned his career.

Written in London shortly before the Battle of Britain, East Coker is Eliot’s tribute to a way of life that the civilized world was fighting to protect. Ancestors of his had lived in the village from the 15th century, his family leaving for America in 1667. His return to it more than 250 years later not only had deep personal associations, but stands in his writing for the sense of history itself, glimpsed as “the light falls across the open field” or heard like “laughter in the garden . . . not lost”.

His descriptions of the tranquillity of “the village, in the electric heat, hypnotised” have made East Coker even more important than Rupert Brooke’s Grantchester as a place of poetry, known and loved worldwide yet undisturbed — existing in and out of time.

East Coker is an affirmation of the identity and values of a people, and writing it was part of Eliot’s personal war effort. In another poem, he wrote of defence of “the lanes and the streets” for the sake of “the past and the future generations of our kin and of our speech”. But if the present development plans are not stopped, this generation will have betrayed our past and future generations, and all that is left of the village that inspired the imagination will be the poem.

T. S. Eliot is the UK’s favourite poet (BBC poll 2010), and was the most prominent poet of the 20th century. He wrote one of the most formidable poems in English, The Waste Land, but was so revered that one of his literary lectures was attended by 17,000 people. As poet, publisher, editor and critic, he was a central figure in literary London for forty years, and was afforded a funeral service in Westminster Abbey, yet he was a reticent, meditative man, who chose to be buried in the church of an unspoilt golden ham-stone village in Somerset.

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East Coker was the birthplace in 1627 of William Dampier, the first Englishman to set foot in Australia. Hydrographer, explorer, writer, and naturalist, he was a fundamental inspiration to the birth of Western science and English exploration, to Banks, Cook, and Darwin. The English literary genres of the novel owes much to him, he directly inspired Defoe, Swift and Coleridge, and he brought over 1,000 new words into the English language. Nelson made all his midshipmen study Dampier’s work.

Dampier was feted by his fellow scientists in the Royal Society and is highly important figure to the history of science itself, being the pioneer of zoology. He named and was the first to describe Shark Bay, the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Western Australia listed for its importance to natural science. The house where he was born, Hymerford House, (listed Grade I), still stands and can easily be viewed from the road into North Coker.

The Coker manors were at the centre of the seafaring world during the centuries of exploration and the rise of the English nation, being renowned as the site of the highest quality flax cloth production available. This was due to the richness of their arable land, which is still today categorised Grade 1 most versatile. The highest grade of sail cloth used in the Royal Navy, including that used by HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship, at the Battle of Trafalgar, was referred to as "Coker Cloth".

The area's maritime and military procurement history dates from the 13th to the 16th Centuries when the Coker Manors were held by the De Courtenay Earls of Devon who were close royal kinsmen of the Plantagenet and Tudor kings, especially Edward III, Richard II and Henry IV, V and VIII. Then the most powerful nobles in south west England, as High Admirals of the West Seas the De Courtenays were the supreme naval commanders and had responsibility for the defence of the South Coast of England and transport during the Hundred Years War, into Normandy and Aquitaine. The succession of their “house” is referred to at the beginning of T.S. Eliot’s poem.

The de Courtenay family's architectural legacy stands in the Coker area, including the mid-15th Century Coker Court (Grade I), the early 15th Century West Coker Manor (Grade I), and the mid and late 14th Century Naish Priory (Grade I). Naish Priory, in Gothic Perpendicular style by William Wynford, is the particular legacy of the most important generations of the De Courtenay family. It was owned and expanded from 1393 by William de Courtenay, the Archbishop of Canterbury who defended both the traditional role and independence of the church in England, and was pivotal in mediating between Richard II and his various challengers, including Henry IV, who were all close de Courtenay blood relatives.

In the late 15th Century, having lost his two immediate forebear Earls in battles of the Wars of the Roses on the Lancastrian side, the following De Courtenay Earl of Devon married the daughter of Edward IV of York, causing political problems for his descendants, who were from time to time drawn into suspicion of Yorkist plots and contention for the throne. The Coker manors reverted to the crown under both Henry VII and Henry VIII after two successive de Courtenay family beheadings and restorations, after which the male line of the de Courtenays died out. It is this history of succession, as well as that in his own family, to which T.S. Eliot refers in the first line of East Coker.

The Coker manors were subsequently granted by the crown to Archdeacon Helyar, Elizabeth I’s personal chaplain. Helyar’s descendant at Coker Court in East Coker was the patron and sponsor of William Dampier’s early life, education and expeditions.

Prior to the Norman Conquest the Coker manors had been held by Gytha, mother of King Harold, and a Saxon golden horse jewel from that period of direct royal ownership has recently been unearthed.

Uninvestigated remains of two large Roman Villas lie under fields to the east and the west of Naish Priory, which itself sits on top of a spring known as King's Springs and Peter's Hole, that is equidistant between the two villas.

------------------

The setting and context of the rich historic and cultural fabric of East Coker is coherent and unspoilt. Future generations would not regards ours well if this were to change. Literature has its places in the world which should never be lost.

DAMNING REPORT ON COUNCIL'S PLANNING

2010-12-06T13:34:00.006Z

Grade E for South Somerset's observance of SEA regulations

Below are the summary comments of George Lambrick, the heritage environment expert engaged by East Coker Preservation Trust to make independent review of South Somerset District Council's Core Strategy and Sustainability Assessment drafts, including compliance or otherwise with the Strategic Environmental Assessment Regulations, whose report was submitted as part of East Coker Preservation Trust's submissions to South Somerset District Council on Friday 3rd December 2010.

With respect to Item 4 below in particular, Mr Lambrick graded SSDC's SEA Regulations compliance according to the EU Envirnomental Assessment Review criteria, in every respect with Grade "E", meaning that there was "Very Poor provision of information with major gaps or weaknesses which would prevent the decision process proceeding and require major work to complete."

Summary of Mr Lambrick's Report:

1. The Core Strategy is flawed in many respects in not having attempted to promote policies to safeguard and enhance the District‟s heritage, despite it being repeatedly highlighted as a key aspect of people‟s quality of life in the county and district Sustainability Strategies. The Core Strategy offers no practical means by which these high level aspirations will be achieved, and the development options pose a major threat to them in several areas, especially in the areas earmarked for major housing development around Yeovil.

2. There are serious problems in the failure to consider and/or shortcomings in addressing historic environment issues adequately within the broader structure of strategic planning and sustainability strategies. This has contributed to and exacerbated the multiple failures and shortcomings in how this Core Strategy has been developed vis-à-vis the historic environment

3. The specialist Historic Environment Capacity study for the area around Yeovil is in principle that sort of study that should inform strategic decision making, but in practice it is far too limited in scope and flawed in execution. It does not cover all options considered for the Strategy, leading to a heavily uneven evidence base that is insufficient for carrying out meaningful comparisons It is in fact a sensitivity appraisal not a capacity study It is very limited in approach not reflecting all the issues raised by PPS5 and its Practice Guide or EH technical guidance notes, giving a very limited approach heavily biased to visual perceptions not the full range of heritage values issues It does not provide the basis of a proper assessment of significant effect that meets SEA requirements.

4. The Sustainability Appraisal is very seriously deficient in its coverage of the historic environment when viewed against the requirements of the SEA Regulations, to such an extent that it is not fit for purpose in its role to inform the implications of the Strategy and different options for heritage issues.

5. There are indications that consultation and public involvement in coverage of heritage issues has been extremely weak, contrary to the sustainability strategy commitments to involve local communities and interest groups in considering all aspects that are of public interest in future decision-making.

BBC Somerset in East Coker

2010-12-01T11:29:00.004Z

To listen to the BBC coverage of the planning threat to South Somerset follow this link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00cbtsb/BBC_Somerset_Breakfast_01_12_2010/

0:37.50 Marcus Fysh & Martin Sowerbutts from the East Coker Preservation Trust

1:37.20 East Coker mums reaction to the plans followed by SSDC response by Ric Pallister, Lib dem deputy leader in charge of planning.

SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT PROBLEMS

2010-11-23T11:38:00.001Z

SSDC’s assessments are incorrect, unreliable;
- it should correct, reassess, publish and re-consult…

- Impact on the Heritage environment and increasing traffic congestion have not been properly assessed in the draft Sustainability Assessment, as is detailed in other posts.

FURTHERMORE:

- Biodiversity has not been properly studied and assessed for all the considered sites, so the sites cannot have been considered properly.

- Dark skies still extant in the sites that are part of the southern periphery of Yeovil, which are proposed to be damaged and lost if the “preferred option” is confirmed are not mentioned in the draft Sustainability Assessment. This despite studies and evidence in SSDC’s possession which it appears to have chosen to ignore.

- Viability of the “preferred option” site has been dramatically overstated. In fact there is written evidence that both SSDC and its developer partners believe implementation of “Eco Standards” in an urban extension would make such an extension unviable. Delivery of an urban extension as eco town as proposed is therefore unrealistic and should be discounted.

- Notwithstanding that implementation of “Eco Standards” is admittedly unviable for the developers and SSDC, and that the imposition of “Eco Standards” is worded in the draft Core Strategy as “subject to viability” therefore unlikely to happen, and that there is no compelling justification for an urban extension in any case, SSDC has chosen as its “preferred option” for a Yeovil urban extension a site where modal transport shift towards more environmentally friendly modes such as walking and cycling is most unlikely.

- The draft Sustainability Assessment admits that sites other than the “preferred option” could be more easily adapted for such a modal shift of transport.

- Sustainability due to services proximity is incorrectly assessed, with Yeovil hospital being in fact closer to the northern periphery sites than to the “preferred option”. No hard evidence of sustainability of services being due to development, which SSDC assumes as a good.

- Sustainability due to proximity to work is incorrectly assessed, with the sites in the northern periphery of Yeovil having 4 of 5 of the major employers of Yeovil nearby, including Yeovilton naval base to which there is an existing cycle path. The only employer conceivably near to the “preferred option”, Agusta Westland, is not in expansion mode and holds no realistic prospect of walking or cycling to work over the natural barrier of the south ridge.

It is incorrect for SSDC to assert Yeovil has sustainable capacity or need for major expansion of its population, since it clearly and admittedly is constrained by topography, transport and service infrastructure. Modest local development in rural areas is more sustainable/realistic.

HERITAGE ENVIRONMENT

2010-11-23T00:38:00.000Z

Highest quality and importance, should remain protected

- SSDC’s draft Core Strategy and draft Sustainability Assessment do not accurately assess relative value and importance of the “preferred option” Keyford / East Coker sites from a heritage conservation point of view, completely omitting their value.

- The heritage of East Coker which includes the land proposed for development in the “preferred option” contains Grade 1 and Grade 2 listed buildings and their settings and context including but not limited to views, which are of equal or greater sensitivity and heritage value than those of the Grade 1 buildings mentioned in the other sites, yet this heritage is inappropriately ignored in the draft Sustainability Assessment.

- The historic environment study that informed SSDC’s “area of search” is factually incorrect, wrongly mentioning listed building designations including an incorrect designation of Naish Priory as Grade 2 when it is in fact Grade 1, “of paramount importance to the nation”.

- The environment at East Coker in fact includes Coker Court (Grade 1), Naish Priory (Grade 1), Hymerford House (Grade 1), Pavyotts Mill (Grade 2), North Coker House (Grade 2) and St Michael’s and All Angels Church (Grade 1), which together form a coherent and well maintained historic fabric of the ancient royal agricultural manor of East Coker, which facts are all ignored by the draft Core Strategy and Draft Sustainability Assessment.

- Respectively, the heritage buildings of East Coker mentioned above are most intimately connected with:
i) the medieval de Courtenay Earls of Devon - Plantagenet kinsmen and High Admirals;
ii) the Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of England William de Courtenay and his mother Margaret de Bohun de Courtenay and later Robert Phelips who built Montacute House;
iii) William Dampier the first English discoverer of Australia and writer of its flora and fauna;
iv) Sir William de Montacute 1^st Baron Montacute and father of the first Earl of Salisbury;
v) the Bullock/Troyte Chafyn Grove family who led the Dorset regiment in the Great War;
vi) the greatest English poet of the 20^th Century T S Eliot who mused on the unchanging nature of the heritage environment of East Coker and our place within it in his famous poem of the same name.

- The history of East Coker and the land that forms part of the “preferred option” for development as an agricultural community is strongly connected to the history of naval and military procurement in South Somerset, and is therefore a living part of the history of the Royal Navy and Westland.

- The historical environment of the “preferred option” is evidently not properly understood by SSDC and consultation should only take place after a proper review of the evidence is conducted by English Heritage and published for all to consider.

GRADE 1 LAND

2010-11-22T23:22:00.001Z

It should remain protected for the whole community

- All of the Keyford and Coker land that is proposed for development in the “preferred option” is classed Grade 1 best and most versatile agricultural land, and is of higher more consistent agricultural quality than land on the northern periphery of Yeovil, hence the classification.

- Grade 1 land is normally accorded the very highest level of protection and conservation. When Cheshire council performed an “area of search” for development of mineral deposits in 2005, Grade 1 land was immediately excluded before even village/town conservation areas, areas of special county value, national trust land, scheduled ancient monuments, and sites of high ecological value including “SSSIs”.

- SSDC says the fact that the land in the “preferred option” is Grade 1 rather than Grade 2 or Grade 3a is irrelevant and hence it remains the “preferred option” for development, yet it has now asked the Department of Environment for advice on whether the difference should be taken into account. We want to know the full text of this advice too before we comment fully on this issue. Reserve your rights to do so.

- Being so close to a large town, this large piece of Grade 1 land is among the very best opportunities that South Somerset has for sustainable food initiatives such as local organic, slow food and community farming to produce more local and lower carbon food for Yeovil and South Somerset, which would contribute to South Somerset’s sustainability objectives and diversify its economy, as well as enhance its food security and people’s well-being.

- The land’s quality and productivity has made Coker a highly valued agricultural prize at least since Roman times, and the agricultural nature of the East Coker parish and the land in question is an integral part of its heritage, and fundamental to the setting and context of the various Grade 1 listed buildings and scheduled monuments that are valued by the community and endangered by the proposed development.

- Flax and hemp were grown on this land and processed locally becoming the strongest grade of rope and sailcloth materials. Evidence of this starts in mid 14^th century when holders of the Coker Manors were the High Admirals of the West Seas with responsibility for defence of southern England. The highest grade of sail cloth was for centuries known as “Coker Cloth”. The history of this agricultural land is no less than the history of the origins of naval and military procurement in Somerset that continues with Westland and RNAS Yeovilton today.

Environmental scorings in the draft Sustainability Assessment do not accurately reflect the unsuitable disadvantages of the Keyford/Coker sites as regards use of Grade 1 agricultural land. Further they do not accurately reflect the comparative advantage of the sites within the area of search on the northern periphery of Yeovil, which are mainly Grade 2 and unclassified agricultural land, hence more suitable for development.

TRAFFIC ENVIRONMENT Congestion to increase dramatically, decreasing well being

2010-11-18T11:24:00.004Z

photographs copyright of John Snelling

- Evidence from the most recent traffic study for the other developments taking place on the Yeovil fringe suggests that 3,700 households and 31 hectares of employment land would generate over 3,000 vehicle trips per hour at peak times in or out of the development area.

- Considering that most of trips would admittedly be in or out of Yeovil or to or from the A303, a development of this size would increase congestion dramatically at all key points in Yeovil as well as through East, North and West Coker and Barwick, with very negative effects on air quality, noise, light pollution and well being that would impact all residents of Yeovil as well as the residents of those villages and those in the development itself.

- Prevailing winds from the south and south west would tend to spread air pollution into Yeovil from the “preferred option” site at Keyford.

- Access to the Keyford site is poor, with Hendford Hill already very congested (see photgraphs) and forming a barrier to almost all realistic prospect of journeys by foot and cycle to the main work and service areas of Yeovil, and journey time by any other route being so long as also to be unrealistic.

- The environmental scorings in the draft Sustainability Assessment do not accurately reflect the unsuitable disadvantages of the Keyford/Coker sites as and do not accurately reflect the suitable advantages of sites on the northern periphery, with their suitable prevailing winds, access to cycle path to Yeovilton which is a key employment area.

- The environmental scorings in the draft Sustainability Assessment further do not accurately reflect that the Keyford site does not in fact provide any close transport link, by foot, bus, cycle, car or otherwise, to the two railway stations of Yeovil, as in claimed to be an advantage.

- Proposals for allocation of the Keyford site for development have not been properly assessed for the likely strong negative effect that it would have on the economy of all of Yeovil due to the likely dramatic increase in congestion that would follow.

- Community consultation should take place only after the facts and proper independent analysis have been published, including but not limited to the transport review that is currently in preparation and is to be considered by SSDC in December.

- Ask to be allowed to comment further after the transport review is published.

The numbers are wrong

2010-11-13T21:21:00.001Z

• Office of National Statistics predicts population growth in South Somerset will only be from net migration until 2026, at an annual rate of 0.625% and over, despite the average net migration rate over last 4 yrs being around 0.4% per anum and on a sharply falling trend.

• We predict that even the average of the last 4 years projected out to 2026 would realistically support only around 7,600 new households in all of South Somerset, not 16,600 as in the draft Core Strategy.

• Oversupply of housing and risk of such would encourage economic stagnation and deprivation in all of South Somerset, endangering SSDC’s core objectives.

• Need for affordable housing is dramatically overstated as a factor and is an overdramatic policy objective. In fact, according to SSDC’s own research (Fordham Housing Needs Survey 2008 Exec Summary paragraph 20) “the net backlog of need for affordable housing is around 275 units”, and from para 11.5 of that report it can be deduced that only 300 out of 68,000 households in South Somerset are moving and wish to stay but feel that they cannot, ie. only 0.44% of households. SSDC’s research says Yeovil already has plentiful cheap smaller units. Affordability should be able to be addressed quickly through quality brownfield regeneration and windfall in rural areas, where the research says it is needed. 

• SSDC and its consultants appear not to have not performed responsible or rigorous independent analysis and the Council is waiting for an updated report from Baker Associates into the ONS projections and implications for the Core Strategy, which it anticipates considering in December 2010. However, we believe a reasonable person might conclude Baker Associates’ previous work for SSDC has not been particularly independent or rigorous.  

• Community consultation should take place only after the facts and proper independent analysis have been published, including but not limited to the Baker report and independent reviews of its work, and the very detailed comparative analysis that will be relatively simple to produce after the Census on 27th March 2011 (see ONS 2011 Census Outputs Strategy). 

• Question: why is SSDC still wedded to a discredited 2007 peak bull market blue sky strategy when the evidence is that the world has changed? 

• Ask to see SSDC’s detailed factor models that inform its forecast of 16,600, and those for the forecast it made in 2005/6 for demand and supply of 13,600 homes.

What to do

2010-11-13T21:17:00.002Z

Please write multiple, evidence-based, well-argued, dispassionate letters  to Andy Foyne, Head of Spatial Policy at South Somerset District Council, Brympton Way, Yeovil which oppose SSDC’s draft Core Strategy and draft Sustainability Assessment.

Make SSDC acknowledge receipt, and don’t lodge on their web site in case they get lost.
Write on each topic separately or together as you wish.
Ask for specific pieces of information and responses to your questions.
Be polite.
Do some digging.
Put yellow posters in your windows or on your property.
Feel free to contact us with ideas or arguments we can develop into a format that will work
Follow our blog which will morph into a great web site soon.
And let’s get these reasoned arguments disseminated by
viral communication….

Email your friends who can help put the arguments, wherever they might live.
Print them off for your neighbours who might not be on the internet, or able to get to our meetings.
Are any of them passionate about T S Eliot, or Dampier’s discovery of Australia, or late medieval history and the Wars of the Roses?