COUNCIL CUTS DOWN PROTECTED TREES AND BEETLES OFF

Planning Application FN/48/07  one chalet bungalow on land at the corner of Beech Road and Elm Rise, Findon.

Two very different statements, neither of them totally accurate, but the end result would be the same.   This planning application is for a 4 bedroom chalet house on a piece of protected woodland.

Of course the council would not cut down these trees but giving planning permission would have the same effect.   THIS WOOD IS HOME TO STAG BEETLES, an endangered species.

An application to build on this site was refused in March 2006 because of Tree Protection Order FN/01/99.   This was granted as recently as 11/01/2000.  The applicants argument (and also the councils) is that as the trees are only sycamores they are not worth saving and that the wood only has a life of 8 years!!  This is ridiculous.   The T.P.O. refers to 7 groups of multi-stemmed Sycamores but also refers to the site as woodland.

This wood acts as a green lung and wildlife refuge for this part of the village, all the more so since the building of 9 houses opposite has destroyed many trees and gardens.   It is home to birds from Rooks to Wrens, to Squirrels and Hedgehogs.  

Also seen are Grass Snakes and Common Lizards.   The stinging nettles provide food for the caterpillars of many British Butterflies. 

It also provides habitat for the STAG BEETLE.   At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, our Government accepted responsibility for conserving threatened species and producing a UK Biodiversity Action Plan listing the species under threat.  This included the STAG BEETLE.

This planning application should be refused on environmental grounds and also on the size of house which is out of keeping with the adjoining bungalows.

If you feel, as I do, that our supposedly rural village is being overdeveloped then I urge you to write and object to FN/48/07....

Write to Head of Planning,
               Arun District Council,
               Arun Civic Centre,
               Maltravers Road,
               Littlehampton, West Sussex BN17 5LF

also to the Findon Parish Council
                  Clerk to the Council, Molly Bland,
                  4 Steep Lane, Findon, West Sussex.

Thank you for reading this and don't forget as the song says "You don't know what you've got till its gone.    They have sold paradise and put up a parking lot".   So write now.      Norman Allcorn, 16 Beech Road, Findon, West Sussex.

11th November 2007

I would like to thank all those who supported me in my efforts to save this supposedly protected wood, which is home to the endangered stag beetle.  Unfortunately due to a loophole in planning law, we won the battle but lost the war.

At the Arun planning meeting on 17th October, three of us from Findon spoke against the plan for a four bed chalet house, referred to by the applicants and planners as a bungalow.   We spoke about the size of the house but concentrated on the Tree Protection Order and the Endangered Status of the Stag Beetle.

Several councillors indicted that they were against this development and then, and only then, did a planning officer got up and say that they could not stop something being built on this site.

Apparently a planning application has to be started within five years (now three) but there is no limit on when it should be finished.   Therefore this site was still "live" to use their words, after 47 years despite all that had happened since.   The meant, she said, that the T.P.O. from 1999 was invalid as was the refusal of a bungalow last year.

The quoted references were FN/6/60, 22 flats, 21 cottages, 44 bungalows and 15 terrace bungalows.

And FN/7/61, 9 bungalows and gardens.

It was argued that, although no work had been done on this plot, the estate had been started therefore it counted as started!!!

On examination FN/6/61 did not include this site, in fact it showed it as vacant.  

FN/6/60 did show a bungalow planned but, as any one who knows the Findon Farm Estate would realise, this plan was considerably altered.

There were only 4 flats built and no terrace bungalows.

Thus it seems to me that this is extremely thin evidence to base this decision on.   If This is the law, then I believe that it should be changed.   It is said that sometimes the law is an ass.   How much time must elapse or circumstances change before this rule no longer applies, 50 years, 100 years, 200 years !!!!!

We now have a plan for a four bed chalet.   The only concession that the planners would make was to lower it slightly into the ground.      Norman Allcorn.