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This correspondence follows a meeting arranged by County Councillor Judith Heathcoat with the Leader of the County Council, Keith Mitchell. At the meeting Councillor Mitchell was supported by three OCC planners, and the Longworth interests were represented by Councillor Heathcoat, Parish Clerk Alan Boyce, and McGregor. A robust discussion resulted in Councillor Mitchell suggesting that a letter should be written to the Council setting our the
Longworth point of view, with a copy to Hanson.
18th November 2004
Mr Peter Day
Principal Planning Officer
Oxfordshire County Council
Speedwell House
Speedwell Street
Oxford OX1 1NE
Dear Mr Day
Following our meeting with the Leader of the Council, yourself , Mr Dance and Ms Shaw today I am writing as suggested by Councillor Mitchell to draw attention to a material factor in the possible future planning application by Messrs Hanson Aggregates for permission to develop a field adjacent to Pine Woods Road Longworth as a mineral site for the extraction of soft sand and limestone rock.
In the various preliminary discussions about this project it does not seem to have been taken into account that the group of properties developed around the former Longworth House constitutes a hamlet to which Policy PE3 in the 1996 MWLP should apply.
The hamlet occupies an area of 27 acres and consists of 13 properties with 34 current inhabitants. The properties are contiguous, all the land within the 27 acre perimeter being owned by one or other property owner. The central group of 10 properties has common ownership of its roads, verges etc managed by a limited company owned by the property owners.
We shall be glad to have your confirmation that the 350 metre buffer zone between the hamlet and any mineral workings, prescribed in PE3 for such a situation and specified for other possible local sites in the 24th May 1991 Minerals Working Party paper taken under Agenda item 9, will apply to this site. This should in this instance be measured from the house wall of Woodland Cottage.
I am copying this letter to Mr Duncan of Hanson Aggregates.
Yours sincerely
Peter McGregor
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This produced a reply which accepted that the settlement was a hamlet, but another attempt at evasion of the 350 metre buffer zone.
9th December 2004
Ms Emma Shaw
Oxfordshire County Council
Speedwell House
Speedwell Street
Oxford OX1 1NE
Dear Ms Shaw
Buffer Zones at the proposed site at Longworth
Thank you for your letter of 1st December in reply to mine of 18th November to Peter Day. I wrote to him as the senior planning officer present at the meeting with the Leader of the Council.
Your letter confirms our view that the settlement developed from the former Longworth House in Pine Woods Road constitutes a hamlet in the normal definition of the word. Thank you for this revised view which goes some way towards the clarification of Policy PE3 which Alan Boyce and I sought at the meeting with Councillor Mitchell, Councillor Heathcoat, Mr Day, Mr Dance and yourself.
Having read the rest of your letter I should like to draw to your attention the strong history of an automatic presumption by OCC and others of a 350 metre buffer zone between mineral workings and such a hamlet. Annex A gives details of the soft sand sites discussed at a meeting of the Council’s Minerals Working party on 17th April 1989 which lists a number of sites with comments on the necessary buffer zones.
The presumption embodied in this paper is supported by comments at various planning applications since 1990. These are listed in Annex B as are the comments of an Inspector at an appeal regarding Tubney Wood quarry.
The re-evaluation of the Pinewoods site in relation to its adjacent developments must now influence any planning application and it would seem fair, reasonable and appropriate to expect the OCC to advise Hanson of the change now, including the implications for a buffer zone. It is to be assumed that Hanson was aware of the activities of the Mineral Working Party in 1989/91, and the existence of the hamlet was not drawn to its attention in 2003 when discussions about the site began.
We look forward to your confirmation that you are taking this action.
I should be grateful if you would bring me up to date with copies of any further correspondence between OCC and Hanson since the papers which you sent me a little time ago. I should also like to see e-mails and notes of telephone conversations, which I suppose are kept and filed for contacts between officers and applicants or prospective applicants.
With best wishes
Yours sincerely
Peter McGregor
Longworth Parish Councillor
cc Councillor Judith Heathcoat
Mr Alan Boyce
Annex A
Oxfordshire County Council Environmental Committee, Minerals Working Party Sub-Committee.
At the second of three meetings of the Minerals Working Party on 17th April 1989
officers were requested to carry out bore hole investigations of areas between Oxford and Faringdon and thereafter to draw up a shortlist of possible soft sand sites.
The sites were listed and contained a note on the relevant buffer zones in each case.
- Mount Pleasant Farm south of Buckland.
Could provide “adequate” buffer zone to isolated dwelling.
- Buckland Warren
350 metre buffer zone could be provided to protect Gainfield
- Gainfield
Most of site would be absorbed by 350 metre buffer zone for Gainfield
- West of Longworth Hospital
Buffer zones of 100+ metres could be provided for Longworth Hospital and isolated dwellings.
- South of Frilford
“Adequate” buffer zones could be provided to Frilford village
- Between Cothill and Marcham
The extent of buffer zones is likely to be contentious and to reduce the capacity of the site significantly
- Besselsleigh
The extent of buffer zones may again be contentious but sufficient land to be viable should remain.
- Hatford (extension)
Can maintain a 350 metre buffer zone to Hatford.
By 1989 the former Longworth House site was a developed hamlet, not a hospital, and the situation of the “West of Longworth Hospital “ site was exactly the same as that given for Gainfield.
pmcg 9 dec 04
Annex B
Soft Sand Planning Applications from 1990
Wicklesham Quarry near Faringdon
Mainly gravel but soft sand and limestone also available.
Granted 25 September 1990 and 5 April 1994
Amongst relevant policies cited are GM2 in the Minerals Local Plan for Oxfordshire (unworked buffer zone of 350 metres beyond dwellings in towns and villages and 100 metres around individual dwellings or groups of dwellings.) Since we have not seen this MLP we must assume either that hamlets had been accidentally omitted or that they were mentioned for the first time in MWLP 1996.
Duns Tew Quarry - Blue Barn Farm (12 km south of Banbury)
Soft sand
Granted 6 April 1995
Farm buildings and Greenacres (a village or hamlet?) are 400 metres and 600 metres from the proposed working area.
Shellingford Quarry near Faringdon.
Soft sand
Granted 30 November 1993
Three properties west of Stanford are 400 metres from site. Two individual properties are 200 metres and 250 metres from site.
Bowling Green Farm Faringdon.
Soft sand.
Application in 1987 rejected by OCC, but won on appeal.
New application refused on 30 November 1990. Appeal withdrawn.
New application granted on 6 December 1993
New application granted on 14 February 1995 (to get conditions withdrawn)
New application granted 30 March 1995.
Director of Planning and Property Services noted that there was a buffer zone of 400 metres and 320 metres from groups of houses (not hamlets) in two different applications.
Hatford Quarry
Soft sand
Granted 19 July 1991
Notes from Director of Planning and Property Services draws attention to the buffer zone of 350 metres to Hatford village. Two other buffer zones to individual properties of 140 metres and 300 metres.
Tubney Wood
Soft sand
Original approval on 10 July 1989 following an appeal
New application for extension refused on 26 September 2001
Appeal lodged but withdrawn.
Further application for (smaller) extension approved 21 May 2002.
Further application approved on 24 May 2004
Workings not so close to houses as previous application. Policy PE3 quoted in Report by Head of Sustainable Development records that 100 metre buffer zone to individual properties exists and notes that 100 metres is the guideline for buffer zones distance between mineral workings and small groups of dwellings. By inference the guideline for buffer zones to towns villages and hamlet is 350 metres. Policy PE3 is not mentioned under Key Development Plan policies
In the report of an Inspector dated 10th July 1989 he says that “Policy GM2 of the draft Minerals Local Plan defines the necessary buffer zones as a minimum of some 350 metres beyond the edge of a settlement and a minimum of some 100 metres around individual dwellings of (sic) groups of dwellings; this proposal complies with both of these requirements”.
We presume that this draft was eventually the MWLP 1996 by which time settlements had been defined as towns, villages or hamlets (as noted above we have not seen the previous MWLP) but the assumption of a 350 metres buffer zone is clearly in the mind of the Inspector as well as those of officers in the various cases quoted earlier in this Annex.
pmcg 9 dec 04
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The County Council continues to try and wriggle out of the buffer zone issue.
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