I went this morning to the Development Committee, with Christine Johnson, Clerk of Acton Parish Council. I am pleased to say that once again we were able to persuade the Committee that it would be a bad idea to spoil a part of the village by the overdevelopment of a site within the built up area.
Like it or hate it the ‘mid twentieth century’ estate in Acton was carefully planned when it was built. It is therefore arguable that it would be wrong to allow piecemeal development that is out of keeping with the whole, particularly when the proposed houses have to be designed in a rather unattractive way to shoe-horn them into the limited space available. It is always a bit of a heart stopper as the debate about the merits of the case goes this way and that, but on this occasion the committee was clearly on our side from the start. Only Clive Arthey (a man who reputedly takes the Babergh Local Plan to bed with him every night) sounded a note of caution in saying that he felt that such developments could not be staved off forever. He is probably right, but we will continue to try.
Our turn was well down the list and so had the opportunity to listen to other cases as they came forward. One of the most exciting and interesting was an application for a 'low impact' dwelling on the old sewage works site in Holbrook. This is basically a property which has ‘net zero carbon emissions, demonstrates the optimal use of renewable non-carbon based energy sources and which provides the basis for a sustainable low energy lifestyle’; in other words a very ‘green’ property indeed.
What was amazing about this particular dwelling was that it looked just like an ordinary house...no large sheets of sun-attracting glass or windmills to be seen at all. In fact it looked rather old fashioned, and not at all like the ‘eco home’ pictured above. I think that the Committee were rather taken aback by this, and there was a certain amount of teeth sucking, since I am not sure that this was what they had in mind when the policy with regard to special, less onerous, conditions for low impact housing was developed. The applicant looked a bit depressed while these fears were expressed, but in the end a majority of the Members voted for the scheme and we were all able to break for coffee feeling that an exciting project will shortly be underway in Babergh!
