Home > Neighbourhood Plan

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This page is concerned with all aspects of the Neighbourhood Plan for Alton, and especially how it affects Holybourne.

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The map below shows the proposed development site – please note that at the Consultation meeting it was shown that the children’s Playground is not part of the development area.

September 2023  For your information.

The Local Plan’ and the ‘Alton Neighbourhood Plan’ are two entirely different documents.

The Local Plan is a document owned by EHDC and is in response to the determination from Central Govt. as to the number of houses that EHDC are required to build.

The neighbourhood Plan is owned by Alton Town Council and sets out the criteria under which development progresses. The ANP cannot prevent any building set out in the Local Plan, only define the best way to proceed.

The Froyle Estate was bought by Belport for £41m and they will want to capitalise on their investment. They have put forward land from the estate to EHDC which can be regarded as “Available Land for development” If this accepted by EHDC, then it will be registered in the “Local Plan”. Our planning advice is to provide such evidence that the land is not seen as viable to the Local Plan and thus will not be registered. Just because a landowner says he has land available for development does not necessarily mean that it will be. There are many reasons why land can be unsuitable and the emphasis by our NP working group is to identify specific hard reasons why the land behind the cricket pitch and up to the houses backing onto Church Lane is unsuitable and therefore not included in the local plan.

The Local Plan is scheduled to be drafted in January 2024 it will be reviewed within EHDC and a published draft plan for consultation is due July 2025. If that is accepted it will be submitted in December 2025 and adopted in September 2026.

The Alton Neighbourhood Plan next come to public consultation in November 2023.

Huge thanks to everyone from the village who turned out to support our efforts at the assembly rooms. Colossal thanks to to Paul Fitzgibbon who continues to represent us on that group. It takes many hours of his time attending meetings and a whole lot more giving thought to how best to serve the responsibility.

Having chatted to several Holybourne residents, it seems that people are unsure about how this money is being spent. Who are the consultants? Are they local to and on the side of Holybourne?  So I, and others too I suspect, would appreciate a clearer picture of how £10000 would be spent and what it could achieve.

In response to the query above, Jerry has put a document together which he hopes answers the questions posed.  Click Here to Read.

Just a few notes to clarify the situation. East Hampshire District Council will be given a figure for the number of houses they are required to build over the coming years. Regardless of what we do or say this will be set in stone. If we do nothing or reject all the work which has gone into the Neighbourhood Plan then East Hampshire will have no steer as to where to build the houses and so will build at will. The Alton Neighbourhood Plan is a document which has a set of specifications that the whole of the Alton Community have agreed and will identify land which we will accept development but crucially will impose detailed conditions on the development which can be seen to be reasonable and imposable on any developer. The most important point is that we need the ANP because it gives us a say in how development goes ahead. Our input to the process is to provide masses of data to show why and what constraints should be applied. Without it the development will go ahead anyway and we wont be able to stop it.

07/09/2023

Just to bring you all up to speed with what I, Jerry, and the group have been up to. You will be aware now that the results of the village survey have been collated, analysed and published on the village website.

Many thanks to Jackie Nelson for her untiring efforts on this and to Andy Muir for putting them onto our website, Holybourne.com. A small group took the results and conducted research in specific areas to co-author the Strategic Response to Planning Applications that is also published on the web site.

It’s a heavy read but please do look through it. I’ve had a series of meetings with people I hope might be able to help us including with the Planning consultant we have engaged to advise us. Helen Walters and I walked him all around the village and surrounding countryside on a boiling hot afternoon but he got a genuine impression of what it is that we are trying to protect. I’m meeting the Chair of the Alton Society this Thursday afternoon and Vanessa Gist is arranging for us to meet a representative from the CPRE. I just think the more friends we can gather, the better.

As you know the consultation on the Alton Neighbourhood plan takes place tomorrow and I won’t bore you by pleading with you to attend. If there is anyone who might need a lift down, please do offer to help if you can.

A key distraction from building on green-fields sites is the implementation of something called Neighbourhood Development Orders which would allow local communities to demand the redevelopment of unused or inefficiently used sites to provide opportunities for the development of affordable housing. The redevelopment of the old Post Office site in Alton and perhaps building houses on underused car parks would mean that they don’t have to build in Holybourne. Please clamour for this approach.

Finally, could you give some serious thought to where in Holybourne we might welcome development? Currently we have a housing need in the village of two dozen affordable homes. Where might we put them? I would counsel that a total opposition to any development at all is unlikely to win us any friends while at the same time, disadvantage those villagers who need affordable homes.

I’d be very grateful to hear your thoughts either by WhatsApp or by emailing Chair@holybourne.com.

Some views from within the village

The consortium who bought Froyle estate didn’t do it because they liked the pretty North Hampshire rolling downs, along with farming land and bluebell laden woods, which surrounds a lot of our village, they bought it because they got a sniff of making a wallet busting return on their investment by selling off the land for development . They couldn’t care less about our historic village which goes back to the romans times and the consequences of the development on the village people.

 

And because most planning permission in Petersfield is denied due to SDNP and we’re the closest to it… it’s a joke, and I know that this is the case because our life long family friend who happens to be our family Solicitor who works in property law for “large” property developers confirmed it… we’re the new go get area on the London line

8 /9/2023

There is a spring behind  the Forge, and the fields behind the playground have often taken the flood water. Building there would make the existing houses at greater risk of flooding. Has anyone got photos of the last time we had serious problems?

Flooding risk has got to be very important part of the village resistance to this proposal. It’s not just the properties on the playground side of London Road at risk it is all those opposite. As Juliet says there are numerous underground springs which drain water off the downs so any new properties built may be at risk of flooding. Remember the issue at Farringdon when EHDC had to rebuild properties built in land that flooded similar to this land in the early 2000s.

Flooding plus far too many cars going along roads originally meant for carriages and carts. Brockham Hill is already crumbling and the safe passing places (no deep potholes) are getting fewer. Do we know where the entry and exit points are proposed?

The ANP working group are now furiously analysing all the information gathered at the public consultation for the Alton Neighbourhood Plan (8th and  9th).

Following this details will be compiled and another consultation meeting will be planned in November.

One of the slides at the presentation will be about Neighbourhood Development Orders. This is really important.

NDOs would allow Alton to regenerate the existing urbanised parts of the town. It potentially has the effect of reducing pressure on greenfield development.

This report is a summary of the Strategic response to development in and around Holybourne

This report highlights the key issues relating to housing development plans around Holybourne.

 

Remember it is important to go to these consultations even if it is just to register your presence. Notice is taken of the number of attendees so if you don’t go it will be seen as “not interested you just carry on”

Here are the results from the HVA survey which was carried out over the last few months.

(The survey is now closed and these results are the final ones taking on board all recent entries.)

One of the slides at the presentation will be about Neighbourhood Development Orders (see below). This is really important as it would allow Alton to regenerate the existing urbanised parts of the town and potentially reduce the pressure on greenfield sites.

Alton Neighbourhood Plan

Further details will be found on the Alton Town Council Website

– { www.alton.gov.uk/neighbourhood-plan } as they become available

 

The map above is derived from the East Hants “interactive planning map” which anyone can access from EHDC website planning area. (Type in browser – easthants.opus4.co.uk) to get to it.

HOLYBOURNE – WE LOVE WHERE WE LIVE!
Holybourne Village Association (HVA) has formed a sub-committee to consider strategic issues in connection with how Holybourne develops in the future. The work of this sub-committee will inform how the HVA responds to the preparation of the Neighbourhood and Local Plans by Alton Town Council and East Hampshire District Council (EHDC) and also any planning applications affecting the village. It is very important that the HVA reflects the views of everyone in the village.
Many thanks to all who completed the survey and to Jackie Nelson and Paul Fitzgibbon for putting it together.
Jerry Janes – Chair HVA

For what it’s worth, my own feeling is that the village could sustain very little more development that empties onto London Road.

If this was proposed by the developers I do not believe they would ever get consent for large-scale development. If you want to know what Holybourne was like in the Pre bypass days try talking to David Andrews or some of the elder statesmen and women in the village who lived there at the time. I am told it was quicker to go up Brockham Hill and down the old Odiham Road into Alton than try and queue through the village.

There is a significant amount of land being considered in Holybourne. You can see it on the map – the purple areas are those available for development and being considered.

JJ Chair HVA

Holybourne Community Group Facebook Page

This is the link for the Holybourne Community Group.