Local Development Framework Consultation

Oppose

Your plans indicate that both houses and small industrial units could be built on, mainly, the several large green fields at the South West corner of farmland belonging to Brian Brocklebank of Springbank Farm and also to the Church ( presumably C of E ? ) Those cottages on Grange Fell Rd that extend down the hill from the Post Office to well past Stone Terrace get their back yards and kitchens flooded by heavy rain running off the area of farmland in question from time to time and this occurs even though much of the rainwater is taken up by the fields. Many of the occupants are quite elderly, most not having access to online facilities and just put up with the ingress of water, happening as it does occasionally. I put it to you that the proposed building on this farmland will largely render it impermeable thus increasing hugely the certainty of flooding in these houses to a level not remotely thought about by your goodselves in the comfort of your offices. What do you propose to do about this ? and is your answer likely to be believable ? This plan of yours needs shelving until climate change turns South Cumbria into an arid zone.

I wish to make a further observation on the effect that these development plans would have on local house prices in the form of planning blight extending from now until 2025.
I live in that group of houses situated adjacent to and downhill from the farm land which is referred to as Land off Grange Fell Road ( Spring Bank Farm )
I cannot get Estate Agents in Grange to tell me what the value of my house will drop to, due to this planning blight. I was told that my guess was as good as theirs but there would NOT be any increase in value. My question is who pays for a loss ? If these planning proposals are not to go ahead then the sooner I and my neighbours are informed the better. I wake up at night thinking my house will barely pay for my funeral. Definitely not a good feeling.

There is public uproar in my corner of Grange Over Sands which the planners call the North West Grange, and which locally is called Springbank Farm owned by Brian Brocklebank and is earmarked for compulsory purchase to build a mixture of houses and what is described as commercial building. The consultation period runs for 6 weeks up to the 30th May ( day after tomorrow )
Now comes the crunch !! We local people, immediately affected, adversely, only found out when my neighbour saw a notice in Morrisons on Monday last week prior to the Bank Holiday. Despite a flurry of local activity we just about informed most of our neighbours by last Sunday and had a vociferous ( for Grange that is ! ) outdoor meeting to which we managed to get a photographer and reporter to meet us here yesterday afternoon, and one of our local Councillors, Tom Harvey, also got the news and came along.
We are extremely angry with the lateness of this news, and with this planning strategy, destroying good farmland and destroying the scenic beauty of countryside immediately adjacent to the National Park together problems of building with very restricted access and flash flooding and sewage/ drainage problems.
The Planners envisage around 400 houses over and above existing infill building and that with houses in this area proving very difficult to sell.

Incredibly, the Planners are talking about a new pool replacing both the old original pool and the White Elephant ( new pool ) which was jerry built with Lottery money plus public donations, and the Planners are astonishingly hoping for more Heritage Lottery money. This little paragraph is written to show what vivid imagination those in the SLDC possess.

Thank you for extending the consultation period to 5pm Monday 9th June thus enabling many of us to think more clearly about this matter.
The availability of brown field sites should be looked at in more detail before picking on prime green farmland which is destined to provide food in the near future with the way food and transport costs rise on a daily basis. My concern is the earmarking of farmland off the upper reaches of Grange Fell Road to provide space for both houses and employment.
The equivalent brown field sites belong to Mr Bateman who has already, it is alleged,done a deal with Booths supermarkets. My suggestion is that his numerous car sites at Lindale ( 4 sites to my knowledge, and 1 site just south of Kendal ) are a few too many, especially for Grange and Lindale and can be seen as vast car parks at a time when fuel costs and proposed car taxes look like turning cars into a new age dinosaur. My own car usage has dropped to once a week half day for shopping using so called economic diesel. At the age of 74 I cycle for both health and economic needs, and I see many older folk doing the same around Grange and surrounds.
A natural lessening of car use will reduce carbon footprints and encourage schoolchildren, very many of whom are frightened by the thought of cycling to school due to traffic and lack of simple facilities at schools to accomodate bicyles and here, on todays news, we have a government proposing walking and swimming and a large sum of cash to reduce obesity and increase fitness when all that is required are people on bikes. I look to myself as an example, cycling to school in the late 1940s and continuing this as a sport and recreation to my present age and remaining the same weight and waistline from 1950 when I left school to now, 2008 (10 stone, 32 inches)
It is all so very easy, it is not a secret society and I am sure there must be a few people in your office who will agree with what I am saying. The old saying about acting in haste and repenting at leisure still holds true.

With regard to the idea of building numerous cheap houses around the outskirts of Grange Fell Rd, as I look out of my front window this morning, I see 3 empty terraced houses in Beech Road, all second homes for people with money to spare, money that deprives local people of a home, in fact if I look further up Grange Fell Rd I see several others in just this immediate view. This is a disgraceful state of affairs. and needs to be really looked at by planners. I am an incomer who moved here with my family 20 years ago when houses were hard to sell and I bought mine from a local builder and invested all my income into Grange and district and paid the full local taxes and did, and continue to act as an unpaid clearer of litter around, mainly the upper part of Grange Fell Rd and Hampsfell and indeed further and this is why I am so annoyed by freeloaders who should be staying in legitimate B&Bs thus helping local people to earn a living.

20th May 2008
Reference:-The South Lakeland Local Development Framework, Core Strategy Preferred Options, PO13 - Grange Over Sands Functional Area 2025.

Northwest Grange Over Sands, Land off Grange Fell Rd.

I only found out about this yesterday from a neighbour who had seen a notice in Morrisons, Kendal, and find to my dismay that our opinions terminate on Friday 30th May.
As a resident immediately affected by some of the proposals should not I have been contacted directly ?
That said, I am very concerned as are many of my neighbours who I have been able to talk to today, regarding the run off of rainwater from the green fields which even with the current normal soak into the ground causes some flooding into the back yards of houses further down the slope from where we are. The proposed house building plan on these fields will aggravate this water run off to something close to the type of flooding seen in Windermere Rd for example and we will end up not having houses fit to live in.

Next, the sewer pipe which serves the 6 houses behind Beech Rd, one of which is my house, built 20 years ago, is, I believe, a 4 inch pipe which is just adequate for our six houses according to Lloyd Saunders who built these houses, our 3 in 1988. the 3 just behind us being built by his father, Jimmy, some years prior.
As for the potential loss of views to the north of us which is the only open view we have, the other aspects blocked by houses, this is the reason I bought my house in 1989 in order to get peace and quiet after 40 years in industry.

Reference:-The South Lakeland Local Development Framework, Core Strategy Preferred Options, PO13 - Grange Over Sands Functional Area 2025.

Northwest Grange Over Sands, Land off Grange Fell Rd.

I only found out about this yesterday from a neighbour who had seen a notice in Morrisons, Kendal, and find to my dismay that our opinions terminate on Friday 30th May.
As a resident immediately affected by some of the proposals should not I have been contacted directly ?
That said, I am very concerned as are many of my neighbours who I have been able to talk to today, regarding the run off of rainwater from the green fields which even with the current normal soak into the ground causes some flooding into the back yards of houses further down the slope from where we are. The proposed house building plan on these fields will aggravate this water run off to something close to the type of flooding seen in Windermere Rd for example and we will end up not having houses fit to live in.

Next, the sewer pipe which serves the 6 houses behind Beech Rd, one of which is my house, built 20 years ago, is, I believe, a 4 inch pipe which is just adequate for our six houses according to Lloyd Saunders who built these houses, our 3 in 1988. the 3 just behind us being built by his father, Jimmy, some years prior.
As for the potential loss of views to the north of us which is the only open view we have, the other aspects blocked by houses, this is the reason I bought my house in 1989 in order to get peace and quiet after 40 years in industry.

With reference to land off Grange Fell Rd, Grange Over Sands, this potential building site is marked with a small green square numbered 1 and is described as being for mixed employment/housing..
I have seen what happens to small 1 or 2 person businesses in this area and give some immediate examples.
1) A bicycle repair and wheel building concern where the bulk of the work consists of repairs to damaged wheels and gear mechanisms brought in by schoolboys with little money and the mechanic ends up doing this time consuming work for the price of a bottle of wine paid for by grateful parents.If the mechanic rented a small workshop to do this he would soon become a bankrupt. I know because I was that mechanic in my own back garden shed.
2 ) The lady trying to run a tiny sub post office and open 2 half days a week because that was what the Post Office paid her for and most of the work involved filling in a hundred and one official Post Office forms each week in her own time and unpaid.
3) A 2 person business involving computing software and setting up, over at Witherslack, losing many clients owing to the fact that they cannot cover sickness and holidays and the business goes to much larger organisations in Windermere for example and the couple find they have to sell their house in order to downsize and remain in the black.

These are the people expected to rent out a small office or workshop on a site built in a field at the top of Grange Fell Road. Absolute lack of vision coming from the Planners who occupy comfortable office jobs paid for by the Council Taxes.
I rest my case, please look at your plans again.

There is public uproar in my corner of Grange Over Sands which the planners call the North West Grange, and which locally is called Springbank Farm owned by Brian Brocklebank and is earmarked for compulsory purchase to build a mixture of houses and what is described as commercial building. The consultation period runs for 6 weeks up to the 30th May ( day after tomorrow )
Now comes the crunch !! We local people, immediately affected, adversely, only found out when my neighbour saw a notice in Morrisons on Monday last week prior to the Bank Holiday. Despite a flurry of local activity we just about informed most of our neighbours by last Sunday and had a vociferous ( for Grange that is ! ) outdoor meeting to which we managed to get a photographer and reporter to meet us here yesterday afternoon, and one of our local Councillors, Tom Harvey, also got the news and came along.
We are extremely angry with the lateness of this news, and with this planning strategy, destroying good farmland and destroying the scenic beauty of countryside immediately adjacent to the National Park together problems of building with very restricted access and flash flooding and sewage/ drainage problems.
The Planners envisage around 400 houses over and above existing infill building and that with houses in this area proving very difficult to sell.

Incredibly, the Planners are talking about a new pool replacing both the old original pool and the White Elephant ( new pool ) which was jerry built with Lottery money plus public donations, and the Planners are astonishingly hoping for more Heritage Lottery money. This little paragraph is written to show what vivid imagination those in the SLDC possess.

have seen a number of E-mails referring to the strategic development of farm land situated off Grange Fell Rd ( Northwest Grange ) and must give you the correct name of the farm and of the lane leading to it from Grange Fell Rd having read of Springhill Lane and also Springfield etc.
The lane is Springbank Lane, the farm is Springbank Farm, the owner a Brian Brocklebank and unless told to the contrary, I beleive that an underhand deal has been done between him and the SLDC on selling land to developers. Does the Freedom of Information Act cover such a deal ?

You might/ or not as the case may be, care to read the opinions of my son who moved to Edinburgh from here a number of years ago. His observations really are very very worrying. If what he says comes to pass in North West Grange Over Sands there will be big trouble I can assure you. I did not come to live here20 years ago in order to find myself living in the back streets of Manchester liable to get kicked to death by drunken youths off a council type estate. All I can say is God help Grange Over Sands.

Bloody hell!!!!!!!!!!! 400 houses????????? I wonder how they managed to get a compulsory purchase order. Must be looking at doing some sort of housing association idea to help out people who can’t afford the going rate. That’ll not be good for the value of your house, or quality of life. Some housing association houses went up over the back of Craig’s old house in our street. When we went to help them move out and shift furniture after work we couldn’t believe the amount of noise coming from those houses, and that was at ten at night.

Your plans indicate that both houses and small industrial units could be built on, mainly, the several large green fields at the South West corner of farmland belonging to Brian Brocklebank of Springbank Farm and also to the Church ( presumably C of E ? ) Those cottages on Grange Fell Rd that extend down the hill from the Post Office to well past Stone Terrace get their back yards and kitchens flooded by heavy rain running off the area of farmland in question from time to time and this occurs even though much of the rainwater is taken up by the fields. Many of the occupants are quite elderly, most not having access to online facilities and just put up with the ingress of water, happening as it does occasionally.
I put it to you that the proposed building on this farmland will largely render it impermeable thus increasing hugely the certainty of flooding in these houses to a level not remotely thought about by your goodselves in the comfort of your offices.
What do you propose to do about this ? and is your answer likely to be believable ?

This plan of yours needs shelving until climate change turns South Cumbria into an arid zone.