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This was a long meeting that took place on 1st February, Neil Rowe and Doug Colkin arrived just after 8pm and didn't leave until around 10pm.
We told them the results of our survey and gave them the print outs of the comments we had extracted from the questionnaires, both Neil Rowe and Doug Colkin looked at these with some interest. When we suggested a joint survey of the entire village we got the usual comments about how there were 3 surveys about the bypass and all got different results, how the Trust distributed 900 questionnaires in 2003 and only got 130 back, how only those against would bother to return a questionnaire. Neil Rowe and Doug Colkin said a survey would have to cover the entire parish (which extends to Cothill), not just the village. Neil Rowe and Doug Colkin said they felt happy they have the right information from their 23 user groups - we asked for a list - they said they already gave this to the Parish Council (who apparently only got 9 responses when they approached the same user groups).
We covered much old ground and got the same old replies:
The information below was new to us:
They have discussed the prospect of 60 new houses opening on to Howard Cornish Road with the Highways Department and they saw no problems from a traffic viewpoint.
Doug Colkin (in charge of the development issues) would like to lose no more than half of the field's 7.5 acres to development, retaining the rest as green space including children's playground, area for dog walking and possibly an Anson Sisters memorial garden. Once the developers get ownership of the land there will be nothing to stop the developers going back to planning for their patch and changing it for a different layout or a higher density of housing however.
Doug Colkin sees the area covered by the existing football pitch and the club house being preferred for development as this is closer to the Moreland Road access and services than the far end of the field around the cricket pitch etc. There was talk about the Parish Council taking a 99 year lease to protect the remaining green area but they in turn wanted money to maintain it!
The trust are running out of funds so Neil Rowe and Doug Colkin said they will not be able to afford ~£100K for an appeal if their planning application is thrown out at the first attempt. Their plan will have to cover the existing institute site, the Anson Field and the new land for the new facilities, this will all be submitted as a single package for approval. There are still "issues outstanding" with the land acquisition and planning can't proceed until these issues are resolved, however they hope to submit their planning application immediately after the 3 May local elections.
Doug Colkin thinks that if the trust had to be "wound up" then a speculator will buy the field and lobby for the next local plan to include a full development of the middle of Marcham and just wait until that new local plan is adopted. (NAF are trying to establish how true this statement is as it affects how we proceed significantly).
To protect those with short gardens, the trust could not sell off little patches behind individual back gardens but would be able to entertain requests to sell off an entire strip (i.e. all householders would need to act together in some way).
On asking them what we could do to ensure the minimum development took place it was suggested we give them our input about the best way to position the area to be developed. More on this is contained here.
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