This third and final week of the Sandwell Local Plan examination was about specific policy areas and their soundness and was conducted online instead of in the council chamber. I had never used Microsoft Teams before so had a practice before the day in question to get used to the application.
Unfortunately, I cannot find that these meetings were recorded as with the previous council chamber webcasts, as there is no record of them in that library.
The specific areas I had commented on were policies SNE1 and SNE2 relating to environmental and habitat issues and policy SCO3 on contaminated land. These areas are obviously key to Rattlechain Lagoon and the ludicrous scheme to use this “void” for filling in waste from a polluter that has never paid on adjacent land.
As with the other days, the inspector had specific matters and issues and invited comments for hearing statements. These areas had already been looked at in some depth in week two, but this overarching policy overlapped this specific site.
Matter 4 concerned natural and historic environment policies. The hearing statement I made for this can be viewed below.
At the hearing session , the council finally admitted “human error” in relation to failing to recognise Sheepwash as a local nature reserve in 2015, even though they were in full knowledge that it had been designated many years earlier. I expressed concern at this and arguments were made concerning the status of sites and if existing sites would be protected or face deletion.
I did not believe that The Fens pool Nature Reserve or Cannock extension canal were relevant to the Sandwell local plan. In terms of the former, I am aware through a former warden that the designation of this site was based on the great crested newts there, though the way in which Dudley Council and now the CRT have mismanaged it for many years undermines its status, making it questionable if it should have elevated importance above those within Sandwell’s own borders.
There was discussion again around the nature recovery map and its effectiveness when the council were considering overwriting housing in this area.
The discussion on BNG sites in policy SNE2 revealed that Sheepwash had been ruled out by Sandwell planning policy because there were additional site owners such as Network rail. I have to say I find this absurd. I made it clear at the week two hearing that Sheepwash had significantly been mismanaged for years with more interest put into Sandwell Valley and green flag parks, and this omission was yet more evidence in it being blacklisted for spurious reasons. By far over 95% of the site is SMBC owned.
I looked in greater depth as to the inadequacies if the Lepus consulting study BNG sites in this post.
Matter 11 and policy SCO3 concerns contaminated land. My submission in relation to this matter and issues the inspector had can be viewed below.
It is clear that there are concerns about how policy is shaped in relation to the current National Planning Policy Framework and its paragraphs, something I realised as this matter unfolded. The theory of “clean up” and responsibility and whose it is has consistently failed across the country and in Sandwell it has unravelled significantly at sites I mentioned such as The Millpool.
Without the polluter paying, without a clear direction that the council can “satisfactorily” guarantee no harm will come to future users is part of the problem, and I think the inspector got that. The wording of a policy is almost part of the problem in that the idea of turning contaminated land into housing is a very bad idea to start with.
This is why I stated that all former landfill sites be removed from residential site allocations within the plan and their acceptance that future risk outweighs built development upon them.
How do you solve a problem like “the mere”?
BR7P51 Aerial view of white phosphorus chemical waste disposal in Rattlechain Lagoon, St John’s Lane, Tividale, Sandwell, England, Britain, Uk