Parish Council Planning Meetings May 2014

There were two important Parish Council meetings this week.

On Tuesday, the Parish Council held their Development Strategy Committee meeting, which Rob Leeson attended. Two key outcomes from the meeting were:

  • Work is expected to start soon on the Hook Neighbourhood Plan. The Parish Council are looking for volunteers to be part of this work, so if you are interested in getting involved, please contact Christine Randall at the parish council (christine.randall@hook.gov.uk).
  • The Development Strategy Committee resolved to recommend that Hook Parish council should object to any application which would take the total number of additional houses for Hook over the 600 for the village that was in the proposed Local Plan. The committee concluded that there had been no evidence presented that the village could accommodate numbers in excess of 600 and that therefore, based on the evidence available, they thought that additional development would be socially unsustainable.

Hook Action Against Overdevelopment welcomes these moves.

​On Wednesday, the Parish Council Planning Committee discussed both the North East Hook and Hop Garden Road applications. ​The councillors welcomed comments from members of the public ​which​ ​they used to ​supplement​​ their own observations – thank you to the residents who went along and shared their many concerns.

​The Parish Council unanimously objected to both developments on numerous grounds. Please remember, it is not the Parish Council who determine the fate of the applications; the Parish Council are a consultee, but it is the District Council who make the decisions on whether to grant the applications.​ Hook Parish Council’s objection letter on the NE Hook application can be viewed on the Documents tab of the planning application at http://publicaccess.hart.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=N356SZHZ0EL00 (dated 09 May 2014). They have not yet submitted their objection letter for the Hop Garden Road application.