Planning Application Decision

Rugby Borough Council has reached the following decision on a planning application submitted in July:

• Plots 4 & 5, Top Park, Top Road, Barnacle - variation to existing temporary planning permission to change the permitted occupancy of plots 4 and 5 - approved.

The full decision on this application can be viewed here.

Lower Road Telephone Box

We're all familiar with BT's famous red telephone box (or the Gilbert Scott designed 'K6' kiosk, to give it it's proper name). First installed in 1936 to celebrate King George V's silver jubilee, there were once 70,000 of them all across the UK.

Unfortunately, the almost universal ownership of mobile phones today means that the red telephone box is used less and less, and when BT is looking to cut costs, the telephone kiosk is frequently on the hit list. It is claimed that currently only 40% of public telephone boxes generate enough usage to cover their operational costs.

BT have recently contacted the parish council to say that the telephone box in Lower Road, Barnacle is to be scrapped because it has not generated enough use to justify its retention. I must admit to being quite surprised to find out that it had been used 90 times in the last 12 months (I would've guessed at a tenth of that figure), but it seems that two calls a week just isn't enough for BT, and the telephone is going to go.

However, it is possible for parish councils to take over the ownership of decommissioned telephone boxes (without, I stress, any working equipment inside). There remains a huge fondness for the traditional red telephone box, and when villages up and down the country are losing their amenities (and often with that, their character), Shilton Parish Council agreed at its last meeting to take over the ownership of the telephone box in Lower Road and maintain it as a traditional feature of the village street scene.

It won't cost much: BT will sell us the telephone box for £1 and it'll cost around £17 per year in electricity to light it up at night. The process of adoption isn't straightforward (it never is!) with Rugby Borough Council, Ofcom and E.ON all becoming involved, but I'll keep people posted on here as to progress, including when the parish council formally takes over the ownership of it.

It'll then join the 350 other red telephone boxes across the UK that have been taken over by local communities to preserve this iconic symbol of British life. And if anyone has any ideas as to what to do with the inside of an empty telephone box, do get in touch!

Planning Application Consultation and Decisions

This week, a planning application has been submitted by:

• The Stables, Wood Lane, Shilton - erection of an agricultural storage building.

Full details of the application (including site plans) can be found by clicking here. All comments on the application must be received by Rugby Borough Council by Friday 2 October.

Rugby Borough Council has also reached the following decisions on planning applications submitted over the past few weeks:

• The Old School House, Church Road, Shilton - erection of a two storey link extension, erection of a two storey rear extension and provision of a first floor to the linked outbuilding - approved.
• Barnacle House Farm, Top Road, Barnacle - outline permission for the erection of an agricultural worker's dwelling - refused.
• Weavers Cottage, Lower Road, Barnacle - erection of a first floor rear extension - approved.

The full decisions on these applications can be viewed here, here and here.

Planning Application Consultation

This week, a planning application has been submitted by:

• Plots 4 & 5, Top Park, Top Road, Barnacle - variation to existing temporary planning permission to change the permitted occupancy of plots 4 and 5.

Full details of the application (including site plans) can be found by clicking here. All comments on the application must be received by Rugby Borough Council by Friday 4 September.

Death by Consultation

People tend to view the purpose of parish councils as either one of two things. They're there to deliver important services to the local area to be paid for from the Council Tax, or they are to be the advocate for local residents and should express the parish's wants and needs to borough councils, county councils and beyond. From my experience, Shilton Parish Council does plenty of the latter and a bit of the former (although I sometimes wish it was the other way round).

In an effort to be seen to involve the public in important decision-making, the parish council can be inundated with consultation documents seeking our opinion, on behalf of local residents. This does, of course, mean that you have to have an opinion on things that probably the week before you had no opinion on at all, and preparation for council meetings becomes an exercise in cramming in order to have a vague idea about what it is we're discussing. The upshot is that you soon become a bar room expert on things you never thought you would (although whether my life is enhanced to any degree by a working knowledge of Regional Spatial Strategies is something to consider at another time).

The parish council meeting last week was a good example of this. We were asked to give an opinion on:

• West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy Phase Three Revisions Options
• Warwickshire County Council Local Transport Plan 3: Transport Goals and Issues
• Warwickshire County Council Community Emergency Plans
• Rugby Borough Council Proposed Submission Core Strategy Development Plan
• Coventry City Council Core Strategy Development Plan
• Coventry City Council Rights of Way Improvement Plan
• two local planning applications

Different opinions are discussed, responses agreed and sent off, and the collective views of the people of Shilton and Barnacle are feed into the strategies and plans that will affect region, county, borough and parish for the next ten years.

Does any of it make any difference? The cynic will say no, but very occasionally a policy gets tweaked, or a plan slightly amended, and just for the briefest of moments it all seems worthwhile.

Suggested Bookmarks

If you're reading this blog on anything like a regular basis, you'll no doubt be quite happy to source your information online. And to help with that, I aim to periodically share links to website, forums, blogs and other online content that may be of interest.

To start things off, Warwickshire County Council are running a trial channel on YouTube where they will post video footage of news stories about council matters across Warwickshire. The first (and to date only) post is a story about the construction of the Rugby Western Relief Road, which can be viewed below:



The Warwickshire County Council YouTube channel is linked here.

Planning Application Consultation

This week, a planning application has been submitted by:

• Weavers Cottage, Lower Road, Barnacle - erection of a first floor rear extension.

Full details of the application (including site plans) can be found by clicking here. All comments on the application must be received by Rugby Borough Council by Monday 10 August.

Rugby Draft Core Strategy

Back in May, I blogged about the process that was being undertaken by Rugby Borough Council to identify the land required to meet the accommodation needs of gypsy and traveller families in the borough. You may recall that an additional 60 pitches were to be needed for the traveller population wanting to live in the borough between now and 2012. Twelve of these pitches had already been provided near to Ryton-on-Dunsmore, and therefore land for the remaining 48 pitches still needed to be found.

The latest stage of the process that will eventually lead to the identification of land in the borough that is suitable for the development of gypsy and traveller sites has been Rugby Borough Council's approval of its draft Core Strategy at a meeting on 29 June. The Core Strategy sets out Rugby's vision for how land in the borough will be used up to 2026, particularly relating to new housing and employment development. And as part of the need to identify land for housing development, the Core Strategy sets out a criteria against which to judge applications for gypsy and traveller sites needed to meet the demand for the extra 48 pitches.

The criteria says:

Where there is identified need, planning permission will be granted for gypsy and traveller sites provided that the following criteria is clearly satisfied:

• the site is within or adjacent to the boundary of an urban area; or
• the site is within or adjacent to the settlement boundary of a Main Rural Settlement; and

• is located within a reasonable distance (up to 2km walking distance) of local services and facilities including a convenience store, a GP and a school;
• the site is cumulatively appropriate and proportionate in scale to the nearest settlements, its local services and infrastructure;
• vehicular access onto the site via the public highway is appropriate;
• the site is capable of sympathetic assimilation into the surroundings;
• if screening is required, suitable landscaping and planting will be provided and maintained by the developer; and
• development of the site will not cause unacceptable nuisance to existing neighbours by virtue of noise and other disturbance caused by movement of vehicles to and from the site.

If the site is located within the Green Belt, the application must demonstrate that all reasonable alternatives have been explored before the application is submitted.

However, the approval process that needs to be followed before this criteria actually becomes borough council policy is long-winded and it is not expected that it will become a 'finalised' Core Strategy until June 2010, when it will receive Central Government approval. After that date, the borough council intends to apply the criteria in order to identify particular locations within the borough that would meet all of the conditions specified. This will be done through a Gypsy and Traveller Site Allocations Development Plan Document (remember that name!), which Rugby are currently expecting to be finalised by summer 2011. This plan will identify, on a map, the likely gypsy and traveller sites that Rugby would give planning permission for in order to meet the need to provide the additional 48 pitches in the borough by 2012.

Frustrations remain about how long the whole process is taking, but this is the way it has been decided it has to be done. I'll update on here as and when progress is made. In the meantime, you can read the whole of the draft Core Strategy document here (page 55 sets out the site criteria), and more information on the process from Rugby's own website here.

Planning Application Consultation

This week, a planning application has been submitted by:

• The Old School House, Church Road, Shilton - erection of a two storey link extension from the rear of the main dwelling, and erection of a two storey rear extension and provision of a first floor to the linked outbuilding, including dormer windows and integral garage provision.

Full details of the application (including site plans) can be found by clicking here. All comments on the application must be received by Rugby Borough Council by Friday 7 August.

Wood Lane Speed Limit Alterations

A number of people have been concerned for some time at the speed limit along Wood Lane (between Shilton and Barnacle) and particularly the 60mph limit at the junction with Charles Lakin Close.

In response to these concerns, Warwickshire County Council are proposing to reduce the speed limit along Wood Lane so that it will be 30mph along the whole length of the road, between the junctions with Bulkington Road and Lower Road.

The improvement works (which seem to me to involve new speed limit signs and reminders along the route of Wood Lane) will take place in the autumn and cost a total of £6,000.

A plan showing the current speed limit along the road can be viewed here, and a plan showing the new proposals for the road can be viewed here.