GRAHAM KEAN

  GRAHAM KEAN IN THE COUNTRYSIDE ENGINEER FOR AN INAPPROPRIATE 70 HOUSE DEVELOPMENT AT HERSTMONCEUX IN WEALDEN

HERSTMONCEUX MUSEUM LTD

F.A.O. Graham Kean                                                                                                TRACKED POST
Engineer & Countryside Officer
Wealden District Council
Vicarage Lane
Hailsham, BN27 2AX
                                                                                                                                    12 July 2018

Dear Mr Kean,

ANCIENT WELL & SUSTAINABLE WATER SUPPLIES

We write with reference to the Memorandum dated May 12 2015, in relation to the proposed development at land adjacent to Lime Cross Recreation Ground, reference number: WD/2015/0090/MAO.

In this Memorandum you make mention of a Counsel’s opinion and drainage onto third party land. We are concerned as to ground water drain off into from the slop adjacent to and above the ancient well that a number of organisations rely on for drinking water, as they have for many years.

We can see no reference to contamination of this well, though there are references to contamination of ponds and watercourses belonging to other ‘third parties.’

We wonder if the opinions that your Council obtained in relation to this planning application included any guidance on how to prevent the contamination of the ancient well from herbicides and pesticides that householders would be bound to employ in connection with their gardening and other domestic usage?

We would also ask you to confirm that it is usual to obtain legal advice external to your Council in relation to planning applications of this kind?

With the deadline fast approaching for lapse of this permission, could we ask that you treat this request for clarification as one of extreme urgency, requiring a reply within the next 14 days.

If we do not receive any reply within this time we will assume that your Council did not obtain advice in relation to the ancient well and/or the contamination that would arise as a result of the proposed development, and may rely on the content of this letter for all purposes in connection with seeking correction and securing of this sustainable water supply.

Thanking you in anticipation.

Yours sincerely,



for Herstmonceux Museum Ltd 

MAJOR OUTLINE APPLICATION HERSTMONCEUX WD/2015/0090/MAO - CONDITIONS

The officer dealing with the above application for Wealden District Council is Graham Kean. His Memorandum dated 12 May 2015 records these observation for Mrs Claire Turner:

1.2. In accordance with that condition:

A survey has been undertaken by the Sewerage Undertaker (Southern Water) which has resulted in a Section 98 Sewer Requisition in order to provide a suitable offsite sewer for the disposal of foul water from the development. Southern Water’s reference is SWS-S98-000519 v2, dated 10/11/2017 (copy of letter attached in Appendix 1) and has been accepted and payment made in order to progress; and · A full drainage design has been undertaken for the onsite foul drainage.

The site is located off Gardner Street, to the south-east of Herstmonceux, and is centered on national grid reference E563798, N112404.

Existing public foul sewers have been located within Gardner Street to the north. To the northwest, within Gardner Street, is a foul network which runs east-west before running north to a pumping station (Gardner Street WPS). The pump main from the existing pumping station runs south to Gardner Street and then west-east along Gardner Street, discharging into a gravity main approximately 300m east of the site. This gravity sewer runs north-east to the Windmill Hill Waste Water Works.

3.6. A second foul network runs from a point to the south of the site discharging into the Lime Park Herstmonceux Waste Water Works, approximately 300m to the south.

The existing site is greenfield and no existing connections to foul infrastructure have been identified.

4.2. Investigations were undertaken as to whether the existing Lime Park Waste Water Works could be connected to under gravity and it was confirmed that the works themselves were not adequately sized to receive flows from a further 70 residential dwellings and would require reconstruction and consenting.

4.3. Any foul drainage solution would need to be received by existing or new infrastructure to the north of the site and would require a pumped solution, to overcome the topography.

4.4. Under Section 98 of the Water Industry Act, Southern Water were instructed to progress a solution of the offsite infrastructure upgrades required to support the development. Appendix 1 contains the offer letter received from Southern Water under this process.

4.5. The technical solution offered by Southern Water is to provide new and improved infrastructure in Chapel Row and Gardner Street as part of the Section 98 Requisition.

A gravity system of foul drainage has been proposed, based upon the approved illustrative layout, which collects the waste from the 70 units and drains to the south-west corner of the site, adjacent to Chapel Row.

5.3. A private pumping station has been proposed adjacent to Chapel Row which will collect the foul flows and pump them into the proposed foul rising main provided by Southern Water under the Section 98 application.

Pumping station design (Private)

5.6.1. The design of the pumping station has been based upon the following design standards and documents:

· BS EN 752; and

· Building Regulations 2010 part H.

5.6.2. Storage capacity within the pump station has been provided in accordance with the requirements setout by Building Regulations, Clause 2.39. The receiving chamber has been sized to contain 24 hour inflow to allow for disruption of service. The following design criteria has been applied using the mix of residential units and flow volumes (in accordance with British Water Flows and Loads 4) below:

5.6.4. Due to the overall depth of the pump chamber installation (circa 6.5m) it is likely to be adversely impacted by groundwater, which has been profiled at a depth of 42.000m AOD in the area. Additional measures both in the final design and construction of the chamber will be required to counter buoyancy and groundwater infiltration of the excavation.

POTTY TRAINING - Using a potty correctly may be a new skill for your planning team to learn if they keep missing the bowl or forgetting to flush, or maybe even fumble the paperwork. Being patient and firm with them will help them get it right eventually, even if they sometimes feel frustrated at being pushed to do the right thing. They need to known that every person is entitled to a toilet no matter how much the council's legal team tell them to ignore the rules to cause harm to a challenging member of the public - and yes we can imagine how irritating it is to be caught out consistently by some members of the public - and yes of course that makes you dig in your heels even more - leading you into trying more dirty tricks and rule breaking. But will only that lead to more spillages? 

So, if you are going to plan a vendetta, hoping to harass someone to vacate Wealden land for the benefit of someone else locally who you favour, be sure that you don't get caught with your trousers down, forget to flush, or even pull your trousers up too soon. Be careful to stay in the groove by following statute to the letter and don't hope that all Judges or Inspectors will turn a blink eye with a funny handshake - there are many who are not members of that brigade and these are the airings that are sure to come back to haunt you to reveal what you did and why you did it. Sleep safe at night by doing the right thing. Do not try to deprive anyone of their state granted rights and put the lid down after flushing.

Graham Kean is the Countryside Engineer for Wealden District Council.

Can you imagine a planning officer in charge of a major development who does not know what a material planning consideration is? That is what we think we are looking at in the case of Clarion Group Housing Limited who are working with Thakeham Homes Limited and Latimer Developments Limited, following on from the applications of Tim Watson in 2014 and Gleeson Developments Limited in 2015.

This application is/was for 70 houses by way of a green field site that was purchased by Tim Watson as an investment many years ago. Tim Watson, a local estate agent, abandoned his application, presumably because of identity and a potential conflicts of interest locally, because, exactly the same application was filed with a name change in 2015 by Gleeson Developments Limited, presumably a smoke and mirrors device. If the parties may wish to clarify the situation for us, we'd be pleased to publish any corrections, but as it stands it reads as though their council pals managed to push this one through for old times sake.

Around three hundred local residents were opposed to the application, leading Marina Brigginshaw to give a presentation in the village hall at Herstmonceux, but despite this exceptional turnout, the Parish Council ignored those representations and approved the application. We do not know of any specific reason for the wishes of the public being ignored, and this may become the subject of investigation as to interests and declarations at both Parish Council and District Council levels.

It is suspected that members of Wealden passed the application to in some measure gain revenge on the previous occupier of the old electricity Generating Works. If that proves to be the case, then the grant of permission will have been an abuse of process.

We are though looking for other anomalies, such as the case officers not correctly advising the Members of this Council as to applicable statute, their Local Plan and National Planning Policy, where there appears to be more than one failure to advise - now the subject of investigation. 

For starters, Herstmonceux has only one small school and could not cope with the  additional children, adding to carbon miles to bus the children to other schools on a daily basis.

Access to the site is from a busy road at an inconvenient junction without the necessary visibility splay to cope with speed of 40 miles per hour and braking as trucks and the like enter the village from the east.

VISIBILITY SPLAY

The visibility splay is a potential issue according to Mr Lenton in his letter dated 22 January 2015 with reference to the applicant Gleeson Developments Limited:

"The stretch or road fronting the site is subject to a 30mph speed limit; however a speed survey has been undertaken close to the proposed access point in order to determine actual vehicle speeds. The results of this survey indicate an 85th % tile vehicle speeds of 40.6mph for vehicles approaching the site access from the north-west and 44.9mph for those approaching from the south-east.

The submitted plan (Drawing No. ITB9063 GA 002 Rev F) indicates the two visibility splays either side of the site access. One set indicates the sight lines based on the criteria contained in Manual for Streets for driver perception/reaction times and deceleration rates. Based on the 85th percentile recorded speeds this gives 2.4m x 67m to the left and 2.4m x 79m to the right. The second set indicates the sight line based on the speed limit of the road on the approach as per the guidance contained in the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges. This gives 2.4m x 90m to the left and 2.4m x 120m to the right.

I have calculated the visibility splay requirements based on the recorded speeds and using a combination of the guidance provided by Manual for Streets and Design Manual for Roads and Bridges. Based on this formula the visibility requirements are 2.4m x 105m to the west and 2.4m x 122m to the east."

ATT: Claire Turner                                                                                            TRACKED POST
Case Officer (Principal Planning Major Projects)

Planning & Building Control
Wealden District Council
Vicarage Road
Hailsham, BN27 2AX                                                                                                4 July 2018

Dear Mrs Turner,

REF: POTENTIAL CLAIM FOR DAMAGES AND/OR JUDICIAL REVIEW
PLANNING APPLICATION No: WD/2015/0090/MAO

We write with reference to a telephone conversation that you had with our planning consultant, and the subsequent visit to your offices on Monday the 2nd of July 2018.

We hope that you have may have had sight of our letter to your Chief Executive and Leader of the Council, but that if not, you bring this letter to their attention and that of the DPO.

It has been brought to our attention that when you were advised as to the potential contamination issue and our water supplies, that you said this was not a planning consideration, but rather a civil matter that followed the consent. It was noted that there has as yet been no application against reserved matters, but we anticipate a last minute rush to beat the September deadline, after which the permission lapses.

We wish to be included in the process and would remind you that as per the National Planning Policy Framework @ paragraph 196 (Decision Taking), you will see that the ‘Framework’ is a material consideration.

The fact that there is an ancient well that is fed from the adjacent field is therefore a material consideration with reference to the various applicable sections of that document (some of which you have quoted), that we cannot see is mentioned in any of the Conditions attaching to the consent, unless you can show us otherwise.

Our main concern here is that herbicide contamination will enter the well as glysophate and other garden (pesticide) chemicals, are known to be poisonous to humans. Such contamination would cause harm to persons drinking well water and anyone drinking bottled water from this ancient source.

The most obvious way to avoid contamination of the ancient well would be to keep the slope ahead of, and the soakage area left and right of the ‘well’ clear of housing. It may be appropriate to raise this with the owners/developers: Clarion and Thakeham Groups and we would welcome constructive dialogue on the subject.

We note that there are many inclusions in the ‘Conditions’ section of the Notice of Decision dated September 11 2015 and signed by Kelvin Williams, concerning dealing with surface water soakage, drainage and contamination, but no mention of the ancient well and those using it for their water supplies.

You do mention ‘Archaeology’ in Condition 4, to protect heritage assets. You mention contamination in Conditions: 6, 14, 15, 26, 27, 28 and 30. But once again there is no mention of potential drinking water contamination from the ancient well, where clearly, contamination of the groundwater (that feeds the well) and drainage is high on the agenda.

The only mention of the ‘Steam House Generating Museum’ is in condition 13. This concerns the planting of trees that you must know cannot be planted adjacent to a historic building or a common law footpath.

It may be possible to avoid contamination of the ancient well by negotiation with the owners of the site and we would urge you to consider that as a means to correct the defective ‘Conditions’ as they stand. Again, unless you can show us otherwise?

Your Council owes the District and the Village a duty to protect historic assets, and that includes the ancient well as being an intrinsic part of the Electricity Generating complex.

We would be grateful for sight of any correspondence in connection with this/these subject(s).

We would also like to know what remains to be concluded in relation to compliance studies and reports in order for the developer to be able to proceed with an application to negotiate Reserved Matters. We’d like a list of what are considered to be the ‘Reserved Matters.’

Lastly, we should like to be included in any negotiations with the developers as to ‘Reserved Matters’ where the above issues remain extant. We feel that without these matters resolved to the satisfaction of all parties, that sales or rentals of the proposed housing might present a problem, with owner/occupiers potentially becoming party to any proceedings that may arise if these matters are not agreed in advance. You can well imagine the cost of monitoring all of the properties in the vicinity to be able to apportion blame.

We hope that you will agree that the points we make are valid and well worth putting pen to paper over, rather than waiting to put the matter before the courts by way of claims various for failing to deal with them now, and we look forward to hearing from you as a matter of considerable urgency.

Yours sincerely,



for Herstmonceux Museum Ltd 

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

This site is protected under Article10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.