The Council’s published responses to the Green Belt Consultation in November 2017 and the outcome of a subsequent disappointing meeting between three BNG Directors and the Chief Planning Officer in early December 2017 has affirmed BNG’s view that they now need to retain a specialist Planning Barrister to advise generally and to represent this campaign at the future Local Plan Inquiry anticipated to be held sometime next year.  BNG have commenced discussions with Sasha Blackmore of  Landmark Chambers, who are very highly-ranked specialists in Planning Law. 
 
Whilst fundraising is going well to fund this professional representation, BNG must ensure they have sufficient funds to cover the Barrister's full involvement and to this end the Chairman of BNG will be speaking at various public and private events in the coming weeks. 
 
If you want to be updated on what is happening please try to attend one of the following events;

• Presentation by P Plato at PRIVATE MEETING at 79 Lye Green Road, on Tuesday 30th January @ 7.30 p.m.
  (contact  Giles Ellerton for info on attendance)
• Presentation by P Plato at OPEN MEETING at Black Cat Pub, Lycrome Road, on Weds 7th February @ 7.30 p.m. (contact www.brownnotgreen.com/contact to advise if attending)
• Presentation by P Plato at OPEN MEETING at White Hill Centre on Monday 12th February @ 7.30pm  
  (contact www.brownnotgreen.com/contact to advise if attending)

 
Alternatively, please keep an eye on our website for updated info and for details of our new crowdfunding initiative where from Midday on Sunday 28th January 2018 we can accept credit card donations via CrowdJustice.com.  Please share this news on your private and social media networks such a Facebook, Twitter etc.  The more people that hear about this the better.

The stark reality is that if we do nothing, we will lose these fields forever and Chesham will have an extra 900 homes eating into the already strained infrastructure.  The Council Plans need to be challenged legally if we are to change their proposed "direction of travel" regarding this much cherished section of Greenbelt.  

Thanks again for your support.

As was feared, recent official publications by the Council confirm that the Local Authority is still proposing changes to the Green Belt boundary to the North East of Chesham. 
 
BNG now feel it will be necessary to hire a specialist barrister to represent BNG in the final official consultation and at the subsequent Examination in Public (Local Plan Inquiry). This was expressed at the Public Meeting organised by BNG in October where a fundraising initiative was launched. 
 
In light of the Council’s publications BNG now urgently renews their call for donations from all residents & businesses in Chesham as the Council’s proposals will have a significant effect upon the wider town if left unopposed.  We already have over 50% of the funds needed to retain a specialist planning barrister. 
 
In the face of the recent Council publications outlined below, BNG now urges the Chesham Community to contribute towards funding professional opposition to these unsubstantiated and damaging proposals for Chesham.
PLEASE CLICK HERE TO MAKE A DONATION
 
BNG asserts that the notion of outward expansion of the town into Green Belt is in stark contrast to the more thoughtful Chesham Master Plan being created by the Chesham Renaissance Community Interest Company, under which more homes can be accommodated in the town centre avoiding increased traffic and air pollution but also whilst regenerating the High Street and avoiding loss of any Green Belt.    We fear that if the Council earmark a housing site for over 900 homes that is 2.5km from the town centre it will undermine the excellent work being done by Chesham Renaissance CIC. 
 
The Council’s position on Green Belt Options was summarised on Tuesday 7 November 2017 at the Joint Committee of South Bucks & Chiltern District Councils where Members reviewed the Post Preferred Green Belt Options report that had been published by the planning officers a couple of days before the Council meeting. 
 
This has been the first official indication of the Council’s reaction to the numerous objections made by the community to the Green Belt Options Consultation that the Council had concluded nearly a year ago.                                         
To read the document, please click HERE.
 
In respect of the Green Belt land to the North East of Chesham at Lye Green, despite concerns in the recent report alluding to the sustainability of the location and in spite of the main landowner’s reluctance to release additional land on the site, the planning officer’s recommendation was that the whole 60 hectare site should be removed from Green Belt designation and safeguarded for future development after the end of the new Local Plan in 2036.
 
Many BNG supporters, who had picked up on this announcement, emailed their Councillors or members of the Joint Committee before the meeting.  A number of local residents also attended the Joint Committee Council Meeting near Denham and subsequently expressed their frustration to BNG at the minimal amount of time given to debate this important matter.
 
Furthermore many attendees complained that more time was spent debating and approving a £5,000 loyalty bonus to planning officers than the Post Preferred Green Belt Option report.
 
The Chesham location was one of four of the 15 Green Belt Preferred Options listed in the report with a recommendation that the whole site should be removed from Green Belt designation and safeguarded for future development after the end of the new Local Plan in 2036 or at any early Local Plan Review (normally every 5 years).
 
All the remaining 11 Green Belt Option sites, bar one, are also recommended for removal from the Green Belt designation but specifically for development within the forthcoming Local Plan period.
 
The Chief Planning Officer, Graham Winwright responded to the only question raised by one of the Councillors at the Joint Committee on the proposal to “safeguard” land, saying that “no final decision” has yet been made but that this report “merely gave an indication of the direction of travel” in the ongoing Local Plan process.
 
The Chairman of BNG, Phillip Plato, spoke to Mr Winwright after the meeting and asked him to confirm that it would be inappropriate for any unsustainable location to be safeguarded in the Local Plan.  Phillip also highlighted the risks of removing 60ha from Green Belt protection when only about 26ha are regarded by the Council as “developable” or necessary for the perceived housing need. Within hours of asserting unsustainable locations should indeed not be removed from Green Belt and earmarked for development, Mr Winwright sought to modify his response given after the Council Meeting and stated in an email to Mr Plato that “I do not think an ‘unsustainable location’ should be the determining factor in whether land should be safeguarded from the Green Belt but rather whether any resultant development is capable of being sustainable”
 
[Editor’s note:  For the avoidance of doubt, the Planning definition of the word safeguarding used by Mr Winwright here means protecting for development rather than protecting against the development.  Therefore safeguarded land would be built on.]
 
BNG have asserted that the site NE of Chesham at Lye Green is unsustainable, undeliverable, unviable, undesirable and that to date the Council have failed to demonstrate the existence of any demonstrable exceptional circumstances being justified for this site’s removal from Green Belt designation.
 
National Planning Guidance (NPPF) is clear and states that Green Belt boundaries should only be changed in “exceptional circumstances”.  Case law has indicated that housing needs alone are not “exceptional circumstances”.  BNG now feel they MUST fund a specialist Barrister to argue the case against this site being removed from Green Belt as development at that location would harm the wider town too.
 
BNG appreciate there may well be a case for a mix of Brownfield and Green Belt development in the administrative area of Chiltern & South Bucks although given the topography of Chesham and the many concerns relating to Lye Green specifically and Chesham generally, they feel any Green Belt proposals need to be somewhere else and that the mix should strive to be mostly brownfield.
 
In terms of Green Belt, BNG feel that the starting point must be what National Guidance says.  Specifically, whether there are “exceptional circumstances” for an area being removed from Green Belt designation in the first place. Case law indicates that neither the process of preparing a Local Plan nor housing need alone constitutes “exceptional circumstances”.   Only after identification of such “exceptional circumstances” should questions be asked of whether the land should be safeguarded or whether it is sustainable for proposed development. 
 
In terms of the Lye Green area the latest report (Post Preferred Green Belt Options – Nov 2017) states that “exceptional circumstances could exist” (our italics) subject to further evidence base work, testing etc. BNG submit that this is not enough and that only after exceptional circumstances are demonstrated, should any site be considered for removal from Green Belt designation.  Therefore, it seems premature to be recommending this site for removal from Green Belt as well as “safeguarding” it. Even more so where there are concerns on sustainability, deliverability, viability and the methodology being used by the Council to quantify housing need.
 
A specialist planning Barrister is now to be retained to make the formal submissions to the final draft Local Plan in June 2018 AND to then appear at the subsequent Examination in Public (Local Plan Inquiry) to highlight these issues before an independent Planning Inspector.  Please pledge or donate to the BNG fundraising campaign. (CLICK HERE)
 
Please share this news article with family, friends and social media.
​
Thank you.

Post Script:  On a separate but connected note, BNG Supporters will be interested to read a letter addressed to to the Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP, the Secretary of State for the Department for Communities and Local Government from a handful of Parliamentary Members including the Rt Hon Cheryl Gillan MP.  It is self-explanatory and can be read by clicking here.  This news was echoed in the recent Budget where Phillip Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer announced "the government will continue their strong protection of our Green Belt.”  Read the comprehensive CPRE reaction to the Budget by clicking here.

Dear Supporter

Many thanks for all those that took part in yesterday's email campaign to the Head of Chiltern District Council and her fellow Councillors. If you haven't yet, it is not too late to take part.  See yesterday's News post further below. 

Today we are looking for a show in numbers at this evening's Joint Planning Committee Meeting.   

Members of the BNG team will be in attendance at the Chiltern and South Bucks Joint Committee Meeting, tonight, Tuesday 7th November at 6.30pm at Room 6, South Bucks District Council, Capswood, Oxford Road, Denham, UB9 4LH.

We are pushing for Phillip Plato of the BNG team to be allowed to present to the Planning Committee.  We will also use this opportunity to lobby individual Councillors on the Planning Committee and challenge the Green Belt Development Options Appraisal Document which currently recommends the land to the North-East of Chesham be removed from the Greenbelt.

​It will strengthen our message if we have a strong show of numbers.  Banners will be provided.

Fill your cars with friends, family and neighbours.  Arrive early and dress warm (we may not all squeeze into Room 6!)

We are not there to disrupt the meeting but we do wish to show the strength of local feeling against these proposals. 

​We hope you can join us there.

Dear Supporter,

We need your URGENT assistance as we need people to quickly email the Head of Chiltern Council:

Isobel Darby - idarby@chiltern.gov.uk

THIS NEEDS TO SENT BEFORE THE COUNCIL MEETS ON TUESDAY EVENING, 7th NOVEMBER

As predicted at our BNG Open Meeting with Cheryl Gillan MP just three weeks ago, Chiltern & South Bucks Joint Council Planning Committee, is due to meet to consider the Green Belt options recommendations from the planning officer this coming Tuesday  at 6.30 pm. 

In respect of our site in Lye Green, to the North-East of Chesham, the recommendation by the Chiltern Planning Officers for Lye Green is that the whole site is removed from Green Belt designation & “safeguarded” for future development!   

This is an appalling suggestion given only 26ha (43%) of the whole 60ha site is regarded as develop-able. Continued Green Belt designation will safeguard it perfectly well as it has done for many decades.

Most importantly, the site is at an unsustainable location being too far from public transport and places to shop/work and is inappropriate for "safeguarding". 

The recommendation flies in the face of the site's scoring within the Council's own Evidence Base and their Green Belt assessment and therefore the recommendation is contrary to guidance in the National Planning Policy Framework and the recent Housing White Paper. 

It will also expose the hypocrisy of the Council’s boasts to always strive for “sustainable development” in the area and it will probably undermine the excellent work currently being done by Chesham CIC Renaissance too.

Given the fact that the main landowner does not want to sell the whole site either, the whole site is clearly not deliverable and the officer's recommendation makes no sense and offers a dreadful option of uncertainty in planning terms over the next 20 years.    
​
Please send an immediate email to Isobel Darby copying in all other other Chiltern Councillors (click here for the full mailing list) reciting the above and any other issues you wish to raise in the hope we can get the elected Councillors to reject this lamentable recommendation being made by an unelected planning officer! 
Thank you. 

The BNG team

Today, I was privileged to sit among some of the brightest minds Chesham has to offer to hear a presentation of the second stage of the Chesham Masterplan and Launch of the Public Consultation which begins tomorrow, November 4th.

We at Brown Not Green (BNG) have been campaigning against building on Greenbelt proposing that brownfield should be used first.   Although we agree the need for more housing, we at BNG are not really coming up with any detailed solutions to the housing need problem in Chesham.  The good folk of Chesham Renaissance, the Community Interest Company (CIC) set up for Chesham, have gone much further by coming up with a developed plan to not only protect the Greenbelt around Chesham but to build sustainable homes and promote carefully located employment land all within and around the environs of Chesham.  Their joined-up thinking regarding infrastructure, transport, parking, pollution, quality of life, quality of employment and variability & affordability of different housing types shows far more imagination and innovation than the lazy planning option of just plonking 900 homes on the Greenbelt at the top of a very steep hill, a mile and half from the station.

So impressed was the attending Rt Hon Cheryl Gillan MP with the ground breaking work that the Chesham Renaissance CIC are doing with their bottom-up approach to building homes and re-invigorating Chesham that she would like to use them as a shining example to be shared with her colleagues, including the PM, in Parliament.  Likewise, the Leader of the Chiltern District Council, Isobel Darby was very supportive.  Every Councillor that spoke at this meeting appeared to be very much in support.  We all recognised there is still much work to be done and many challenges lay ahead but none of these challenges are insurmountable.  

If everyone is so convinced that this is the way forward and that Chesham's Greenbelt can be protected, why have we still not heard that the Greenbelt Option #1, the land to the North-East of Chesham, is no longer under threat?  The meeting was well attended by many elected officials ranging from the local MP, County, District and Town Councillors.

The Head of Planning for Chiltern & South Bucks was not in attendance and it is this person that ultimately decides whether the Chesham Masterplan is incorporated into the Local Plan for Chiltern and South Bucks.    It appears that the Head of Planning, playing his cards very close to his chest, still needs convincing regarding the strength of the Chesham MasterPlan and the protection of Chesham's Greenbelt despite the fact that building on Greenbelt without exceptional circumstances flies in the face of the Government National Planning Policy Framework.  

Chesham Renaissance need to build a strong Evidence Base, thus one of the reasons for their Public Consultation.  This consultation is in the form of an easy-to-complete questionnaire.  Your response can be as brief or as long as you like.  Your response will be used to shape and confirm the next stage of the Masterplan.   What you say today will go towards designing the Chesham of the future.  This is a real chance to have your say on how the Masterplan develops.

If you wish to find out more about the Chesham Masterplan, they will have an exhibition at Chesham Town Hall, tomorrow, Saturday November 4th between 10am and 3pm.  Try and get along there.  If you can't make it, it is worth investing the time exploring their fabulous website www.cheshammasterplan.org.   

I came away from this meeting, very much inspired.  Chesham Renaissance have a great team of Directors.  They may have had what started out as a vision but they are heavy hitters and I have every confidence that if the Masterplan is incorporated into the Local Plan they can make it happen.  The BNG Team are very much in favour of this project and urge our supporters to take part in the Chesham Masterplan Consultation.   As with the BNG petition - even more so in fact - the more responses they receive the better.

Please share this post with your friends, family and social media.

​Dicky Biddle
​BNG Team

​PS And if you haven't had a chance, don't forget to visit our Fund-raising page.  It looks like we may be needing to commence legal work very soon.

For those that missed the meeting, were unable to gain entry or would just like a recap, we now have the videos of the Brown Not Green public meeting held at Chesham Town Hall on October 14th.

So grab yourself a coffee and settle down to watch:

1. Rt. Hon Cheryl Gillan MP Introduction Video - YouTube
2. Brown Not Green Ltd Presentation by Phillip Plato - YouTube

Please feel free to share these videos with friends, family and social media.

The Chesham Society have put together some helpful links to documents referred to during the video presentation:   The Chesham Society Campaign Page

And don't forget to visit our Fundraising page.  We are almost nine thousand pounds towards our £20,000 target. 

It was a packed house at Chesham Town Hall for the Brown Not Green public meeting on Saturday October 14.  Two hundred and fifty attendees managed to squeeze into the crowded room with the majority lining the walls and sitting on the floor.  This was despite having laid out over one hundred chairs.   A further fifty were left straining to hear from the crammed staff kitchen area and corridor.  A few gave up with a view to watch the publicised YouTube video later.   You can read the published Press Release about the meeting here.

​The meeting was chaired by the Rt Hon Cheryl Gillan MP who was able to give all listening the official view from Government.  This was followed by a thorough update from Phillip Plato, representing the Brown Not Green (BNG) Campaign Group, on the status of the land to the North-East of Chesham that has been earmarked for removal from the Greenbelt.   He then went on to highlight the activities of the Brown Not Green Campaign and what they intend to do next.  A copy of his transcript can be found here.  The slides he used here.

This was followed up by a questions and answers session.  The first question was aimed at MP Cheryl Gillan, asked most poignantly by Phillip Plato,   He asked a question in response to a previous statement from a District Councillor that blamed the Government for the notion that Chiltern District were having to build houses on Greenbelt.  "Who in Central Government is insisting that councils have to build on Greenbelt?"   It was telling that the response was that this was not coming from Government.

Apologies to all those that were not able to get into the Town Hall to attend this meeting.  Despite always seeking larger venues than before for BNG meetings we always seem to need a bigger venue.  The first BNG meeting just under a year ago consisted of barely thirty local residents but as word spreads of how this proposal will affect all of Chesham, not just Lye Green, more people wish to get involved.

The good news is that this presentation was recorded and we expect to publish the YouTube video on this website in the next week or two for those that were unable to attend and those that wish to show the contents of this meeting to their local friends & family and to share on social media.   Watch this space.

In the meantime, please feel free to visit our Fundraising page.  We are fundraising, just in case, we need to take legal action against Chiltern District for wrongful removal of Greenbelt status.  We have a strong case and Chiltern may back down before then.  If funds are not used, all donations will be returned.  Any remaining balance of used funds will be returned on a pro rata basis.  

​Although news updates have been thin in recent months, Brown Not Green (BNG) has been working very hard throughout this year. 
 
We have all been awaiting the Council’s decision to the Green Belt Consultation that was undertaken last year and various dates were rumoured for an announcement, each one superseded by a further delayed announcement date. 
 
We were very optimistic that a decision on the Lye Green Chesham site would be announced in November but just recently a statement has appeared on the Chiltern District Council website suggesting further delays and that the final Draft Local Plan (presumably incorporating the outcome of the Green Belt Consultation last December, would not now be forthcoming until March / April 2018!   See http://www.chiltern.gov.uk/planning/localplan2014-2036
 
As there has been a lot of other work going on behind the scenes BNG felt it was now appropriate to host an Open Meeting in Chesham Town Hall on Sat 14 October at 12.00 noon to update everyone on the machinations behind this long running issue and to raise awareness that the Green Belt around Chesham is still under threat. The meeting will be chaired by the Rt Hon Cheryl Gillan MP but there will be a detailed presentation made by our local Chartered Planning Surveyor, Phillip Plato before a Q&A session afterwards. 
 
We remain very concerned about the potential for the Chesham site to lose its Green Belt protection and be developed for 900 houses.  Whilst the main landowner has now publicly asserted he will not release the larger area of land necessary for the scale of housing being proposed, it will be explained at the Public Meeting why the site to the North-East of Chesham remains under threat.
 
In summary, we are hoping for the best but must be prepared for the worst. 
 
As such BNG feel they must prepare for a legal challenge to these proposals and at least have funds in place for hiring a specialist planning barrister to provide legal representation to our 1,800 supporters when the Local Plan Inquiry is held possibly sometime in 2018.  We will explain how we plan to do this and if not needed, how funds would be returned to donors.  However, BNG feel we must use this time to be prepared to challenge any decision given the continuing uncertainty surrounding the Council’s proposals that have the potential to adversely affect anyone living or working in Chesham
 
This is because, once the final Draft Local Plan is announced, there is a very strict timetable for making formal submissions and we must be ready.  Accordingly, at the forthcoming Open Meeting on Sat 14 October, we hope to inform the wider community what we have been doing these recent months and we also intend to announce the start of our fundraising campaign for hiring the appropriate professional legal representation when the final Draft Local Plan is released. 
 
Anyone interested in attending is welcome.  Admission is free. We also hope to provide a summary of the meeting on this website in due course if you cannot make that date but please tell all your friends & neighbors to come if you cannot make the date.  If you can help distribute leaflets about this meeting before the 14th Oct please contact BNG via this website and be sure to check back here afterwards for further updates.

The Brown Not Green (BNG) team have spoken to the principle landowner who wishes it to be known that he does NOT support the Council's proposals other than for a much smaller area of housing development on roughly 25% of the site.  He has confirmed he will not sell the rest of the site.  This is confirmed in a recent addition to the Emerging Local Plan Evidence Base on Page 45-46 of the Housing Delivery Study for Buckinghamshire - Wessex Economics (August 2017).  

Aylesbury Vale District Council have agreed to take most of the unmet housing needs from neighbouring Chiltern, raising the question why has this Green Belt proposal not been dropped already.  There is always the threat of a compulsory purchase order (CPO).  This would be a costly and timely exercise for the Council so would not be a preferred route for them to take, however, the threat of a CPO should not be under-estimated.

Chiltern have delayed making any public response on the matter but have launched a Strategic Review of the Green Belt proposals.  BNG are not impressed and are preparing to fund legal representation against the emerging Draft Local Plan and at the Planning Inquiry.  Fund raising details to be announced shortly.

With thanks to Jim Conway of the Chesham Society for directing us to this:

Re:  https://democracy.buckscc.gov.uk/mgConsultationDisplay.aspx?ID=3290 

Bucks County Council are holding a consultation around their draft ‘Development Management Policy: Managing the transport and travel impact of new developments'.  The aims of the Policy which confusingly appears to consist of 31 separate (sub)policies is to to make sure that growth happens in the right way. Its policies will inform new developments and ensure they meet Buckinghamshire’s needs. It provides developers with the information they need to prepare successful proposals in Buckinghamshire.  

As Jim describes on the Chesham Society website:  A checklist for developers to follow, to "ensure their residual cumulative (transport) impacts are not severe" - which seems a fairly modest objective.

The Policy states;  Transport Assessments and Statements can be used to establish whether the residual transport impacts of a proposed development are likely to be “severe”, which may be a reason for refusal, in accordance with the National Planning Policy Framework. (p24)

I think this draft policy is good news for us as I cannot see what mitigation could reasonably be put in place that would positively impact Chesham's transport challenges should they decide to build 900 homes on Green Belt Preferred Option #1 to the North East of Chesham.  Any Transport Assessment and Statement saying otherwise should probably be seriously challenged.  

That said I would like to have seen a clause in the Policy that could take retrospective action against developers for empty promises or unforeseen negative traffic & parking impacts that were not forecasted in their Transport Statements and Assessments.  This may help reduce the cavalier approach displayed some of the larger developers who pay lip service to their Statements or make unrealistic assumptions like expecting residents to cycle or walk up Nashleigh Hill or White Hill.

It is worth taking the time to fill out the very short survey.  Not least to tell them how inadequate the survey is to provide feedback on a 31-policy document.  ​The consultation will be open until 25th September 2017 and your responses will contribute to the final draft of the policy which the Council will consider for adoption later in the year.