Local plan scoping consultation

Comment

Representation ID: 5407

Received: 29/01/2027

Respondent: Stephen Pearce

Long Lane
Long Lane is the only route connecting Haughton to Bunbury, its nearest service centre. It is unlit, is not routinely treated in winter, carries a 40mph limit, has bends with restricted visibility, and has no continuous footway. It is used by agricultural vehicles, horses, cyclists and pedestrians, including children walking to and waiting for the school bus.
I ask that a cumulative highways and drainage assessment for Long Lane be published as part of the evidence base, before site selection rather than after it, and that it address the combined effect of all parcels under consideration rather than each in isolation.

Comment

Representation ID: 5408

Received: 29/01/2027

Respondent: Stephen Pearce

Where Haughton’s capacity actually lies
Haughton contains existing rural buildings capable of conversion to small dwellings. The parish therefore supports the Council in meeting its small sites requirement through conversion within the village and asks that the settlement assessment take account of that capacity. Haughton has no smaller dwellings in the lowest council tax bands, and none suited to young working-age households.
Haughton’s built form is linear. It is varied along its frontage — plot widths, setbacks and house types differ considerably — but it is consistently one plot deep, with open fields behind. That is the characteristic worth protecting, and it points to a clear order of preference: conversion and reuse of existing built groups first, then frontage development, and only then any question of building into the depth behind the lane.
I would ask that the assessment methodology reflect that order, so that sites with existing built development are assessed before open agricultural land is allocated.

Comment

Representation ID: 5409

Received: 29/01/2027

Respondent: Stephen Pearce

A density convention is not a proposal
Housing figures attached to the Haughton parcels appear to be the product of the Council’s standard capacity assumption of 30 dwellings per hectare, rather than anything proposed by the landowner or the landowner’s agent.
The arithmetic is visible in the Council’s own earlier material. Parcels of 1.36 hectares and 1.35 hectares carry indicative figures of 40 dwellings each — 29.4 and 29.6 dwellings per hectare respectively. I would ask the Council to confirm that these are modelled capacities rather than promoted schemes.
The distinction matters because a modelled figure, once published, tends to harden into an expectation. Thirty dwellings to the hectare is a suburban density. Applied to open fields behind a linear village frontage it does not describe development that Haughton could absorb; it describes an estate, and it prejudges questions of form, access and drainage that the evidence base has not yet examined.

Comment

Representation ID: 5410

Received: 29/01/2027

Respondent: Stephen Pearce

What I ask on settlement assessment
● That Haughton be expressly assessed in the new Local Plan, on the record, whatever the outcome of that assessment.
● That the methodology used be published in advance, and that any population threshold applied be justified by evidence rather than carried forward as a judgement from the previous exercise.
● That where a settlement was not assessed in the previous evidence base, that fact be recorded in the new evidence base rather than left to be inferred from its absence.

Comment

Representation ID: 5411

Received: 29/01/2027

Respondent: Stephen Pearce

2. Haughton has never been assessed
The single point I most want to place on the record is this. Haughton has not been rejected as a settlement. It has never been assessed at all.
The Settlement and Infill Boundaries Review (ED06) considered 117 candidate settlements. Haughton was not among them. The candidate list came from an earlier report which ED06 itself records as containing no explanation of how it was compiled, and the base-mapping exercise built to catch omissions added eight settlements but did not catch Haughton. Every neighbouring settlement was assessed: Alpraham, Barbridge, Bickerton, Brindley, Bulkeley, Burland, Calveley, Faddiley, Peckforton, Ravensmoor, Spurstow, Wardle and Worleston. Haughton is the gap in the middle.
This is not a complaint that Haughton was given the wrong answer. There is no answer to be wrong. I make the concession openly: Haughton is small, its population was 187 at the 2021 Census, and had it been assessed it may well have been found not to meet the criteria then in use. That is not my point. My point is that the Council cannot say the criteria were applied to Haughton, because they were not.
ED06 itself quotes national guidance to the effect that all settlements can play a role in delivering sustainable development and that blanket restrictive policies should be avoided unless supported by robust evidence. For Haughton there is no evidence of any kind, and a restrictive outcome has followed by default.
The Council’s own records recognise Haughton as a rural settlement today. Haughton appears on the Council’s published rural settlement list, maintained under section 42A of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, which requires the authority to be satisfied that the settlement has a population below 3,000. I accept that the rural settlement list is a list of areas and ED06 was a review of settlements, and that these are different exercises. The narrower proposition is sufficient: it cannot be said that Haughton was invisible or unidentifiable to the Council.
I understand that the Council has advised Haughton Parish Meeting that a Haughton-specific assessment was not available. I would be grateful if that could be confirmed in writing.