Firstly, just to note that the SHELAA is at its draft stage at the moment, it is open for an informal consultation with parish councils and public, before it has its official consultation in Spring 2019. This means that nothing within this document has been confirmed or approved. The SHELAA invites landowners to put forward suggestions for area’s both residential and business based, that could possibly be developed. This is known as a “Call for sites”.
Chiseldon Parish Council received the draft SHELAA on Monday 1st October the same day as it was released to the public. We were not aware of the contents beforehand. As mentioned above, the procedure known as the “Call for sites” would have happened before hand but we were not party to this procedure.
As we received the map the same day as the public, we were not aware of the proposal in advance, this is why we requested additional information from SBC.
As this was part of the “Call for sites”, and the SHELAA is in draft form, there is more scope for SBC to consider all sorts of areas, before it goes through its consultation phases to create the final approved document. AONB sites are offered a degree of protection, but this protection is not absolute.
A developer can propose any planning permission request they desire, it is then down to SBC, along with consultees to approve or reject that planning permission based on legal argument.
Once the Parish Council holds the relevant information to enable us to give residents all the facts, we will hold a public consultation so that residents can fully learn what the proposed plans and options are. We will post this on Facebook, and our website and try to make as many people as possible aware. We are currently finalising dates and location for a public meeting and will advise on this as soon as we can.