HMS Ganges development

The Inquiry into the planning application for 325 homes on the H.M.S. Ganges site held its final session at the Village Hall on 9 March. It will be many months before the Inspector completes his report and many more after that until the Secretary of State makes the final decision.

Suffolk County Council's case against the development was based on an there being no necessity to build the houses as there are sufficient opportunities to meet local and regional targets at better locations elsewhere. They were also concerned that with only very few job, leisure and shopping opportunities being proposed the development would in effect be a dormitory village. They wish to see no more than 200 houses on the site and facilities that would reduce the need for people to travel out of the area.

Babergh District Council supported the application on the grounds of it being better than a retirement community and not as bad as the 500 houses originally proposed. They believed that the compensation package was the best that they could achieve and that they saw no good reason why they should actively market the site or work with the local community and other potential developers to find a better solution.

Shotley Parish Council worked closely with the other Parishes on the Peninsula in presenting their case. They believed that any development should first of all meet the needs of the existing community for example by providing for homes for vulnerable elderly people. Secondly they believed that the development would put too great a strain on existing services such as health and education and that the proposed compensation was not sufficient to meet or ameliorate the impact. The parishes also argued that the impact on the B1456 would take the road over capacity leading to the potential for an increase in accidents, deterioration in safety for cyclists and pedestrians and damage to homes, livelihoods and the environment.

Haylink's case for the development was that it was preferable to the existing planning permission for 404 retirement homes, that the compensation package was adequate and that the objections were either immaterial or came from NIMBY's. They said that if permission was not granted they would build the retirement homes and that if it was granted they would resubmit the application to build 500 homes.

The above is only a very brief summary of many days of evidence and thousand of pages of documents. There is much more information on the web site. www.MyShotley.com

• HMS Ganges page
• If you have any views or queries, please email info@myshotley.com, or telephone 07845 875238.