e-petitions - Landscape buffer for Manor Road and Woburn Road, Marston Moretaine

We object to the village extension known as South West Marston Moreteyne in the outline planning application CB/18/01969/OUT land between Brogborough, Lidlington and Marston Moretaine.

We call on Central Bedfordshire Council to require the developer to provide a strategic landscape buffer (a mix of parkland, woodland and grassland) together with advance planting or screening, between the existing southern edge of Marston Moretaine (Manor Road and Woburn Road) and any new development, of the same scale/depth as will be provided around Lidlington (we believe this would be about a third of the field behind Manor Road and along the residential section of Woburn Road).

Supporting details:

1. Local Plan:

The Central Bedfordshire Council local plan sets out how the Marston Vale New Villages are to be delivered.

Policy SA2 states ‘The development will form a series of new villages appropriately separated and screened from neighbouring settlements by green and blue infrastructure.’

The Council has acknowledged that policy SA2 ‘does not specifically refer to village extensions’.

Legal opinion obtained from a planning barrister advised that policy SA2 does not permit an extension to Marston Moretaine.

Policy SP5 then provides that development will only be permitted where it would not result in the physical or visual merger of villages or, where it can be demonstrated that appropriate mitigation (such as buffer) would prevent any harm from arising.

The Council’s Sustainability Appraisal Supplementary Report identifies such harm and proposes green buffers to mitigate this. However, the Council now denies that policy SP5 applies to Marston Vale New Villages.

2. Outline planning application:

The application does not include a landscape buffer between Marston Moretaine and South West Marston Moreteyne.

Yet the Environmental Impact Assessment notes the extension will cause a ‘major-moderate adverse visual effect’ for Manor Road residents.

The planning barrister advised that the application conflicts with local plan policies SA2 and SP5 by not providing a landscape buffer along the existing southern edge of Marston Moretaine.

3. Council’s promise (a legitimate expectation):

A legitimate expectation arises where a public authority makes a representation that is clear and unambiguous, to a person (or persons) entitled to rely on it. Put simply, the law expects public authorities to keep their promises and to do what they said they would do.

During the local plan public consultation and examination the Council said (as reported in the Cranfield & Marston Vale Chronicle) there would be ‘clear separation between existing towns and villages and the new developments’ and that comprehensive and quite extensive master planning work had demonstrated that ‘separation can be provided between existing settlements and the new villages’.

The planning barrister advised that these representations created a legitimate expectation that the Council would provide a landscape buffer for Marston Moretaine.

Sign the e-petition