Hillacre No Greener

A revised application has been submitted to Basingstoke and Deane for development of houses to the north of Fox's Furlong. If judged on the weight of the documentation, the new application should class as a masterpiece of planning.

Sadly, the evidence of any radical improvements when compared with the previous plan is impossible to detect. Yes, there are modest changes to things like windows, but the issue of the impact on existing Fox's Furlong residents and potential loss of open space remain basically unchanged. As the area under development is in Sherfield-on-Loddon parish, it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that the area should be accessed from there.

The present arrangement means that future residents of the development will pay council tax to Sherfield-on-Loddon whilst undoubtedly using primarily Chineham community resources. In the meantime, a useful piece of open space will be significantly reduced in value and Fox's Furlong/Stockbridge Close residents will face significant increases in traffic.

Hopefully the borough leisure services team will refuse to accept decimation of this piece of public space and the Development Control Committee will demand improvements from the applicant. We shall see.

2nd November 2007