Walters site planning application: OBJECTIONS NEEDED PLS!!
https://planning.npt.gov.uk/detail.asp?AltRef=P2009/0841&zAltRef=P2009/0556
contacts; [email protected] [email protected]
They have failed to bully us off the moutain.
We've forced them to stop their illegal road closures & blockages of rights of way.
They're probably now realising that their new TRO application may not go their way, so...
They are putting in a plan to excavate a 'borrow-pit' at the old quarry SW of the Arena. They appear to be doing this for no reason other than to close off byway 21, (and consequently 22 & 23).
This is the text of an objection sent in, if anyone wants to borrow some of the key points for objection.
Please circulate to others.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Geoff White
Head of Planning
Neath Port, Talbot CBC
The Quays, Brunel Way,
Baglan Energy Park,
Neath, SA11 2GG
Mr White,
Ref: P/2009/841 Applicant: Walters UK Ltd (posted 22/9'09)
Former quarry working at former Maesgwyn opencast near Banwen. Proposal borrow pit for stone to be used in the construction of the Maesgwyn Windfarm. Byway 21 crosses through part of site.
I would like to make a representation by way of an objection to the application detailed above.
I do have a few initial comments in relation to this application however.
§ This application was posted on the Planning Portal on the 11th September.
§ Your site notice was not posted, however, until the 22nd September, (I believe that it bears the date the 21st Sept).
§ So, I trust that the 21 day consultation period will run from the 22nd Sept?
§ This application appears, (to the untrained eye), to be a total abomination.
§ The paperwork has obviously been received by Neath, Port-Talbot Planning on the 11th September.
§ The applicant wishes to commence work by virtue of having received planning permission during OCTOBER 09!!
§ The work lasting for a total of 18 months!
§ Im gob smacked that the Planning Department even accepted this application! If I submitted a planning application for a house and wanted to start building it in a few weeks time I imagine the NPT Planners would give me short-shrift! But, then again, I suppose I dont have £100M in the bank! (They say money talks!)
Additionally;
§ The application is PURPORTEDLY for permission to use a disused former quarry on Maesgwyn site as a borrow-pit.
§ Most of the documentation, however, relates to the original application for the Maesgwyn wind farm??
§ Much of this documentation is several years old.
§ There are some plans which appear to relate to the quarry / borrow-pit issue, however I personally found these almost impossible to interpret. They are very technical plans for the professional, (Civil Engineer), however there does not appear to be an easily read site map for the lay-person.
§ I feel that this is essential to allow people to properly understand the scope of the application, i.e. how large this borrow-pit is to become and how it will interact with the surrounds and, in particular, the public rights of way.
§ The problems with inspection of the planning documents have been compounded by the fact that I have been unable to access the Planning Portal website from 2 Libraries. I was unable to access it from the public terminal at the Port-Talbot Civic Offices.
§ I did eventually manage to access it at the Neath Civic Offices, but found that many of the documents refused to open due to access errors. It really does leave people wondering whether these IT failures are pre-planned!
§ As a consequence of all these problems, Ive been chasing around all day, trying to get a proper look at these plans however, Im hardly any better off than I was when I started the day!
So, my objection has to be based upon a series of educated guesses & suppositions;
I believe that this application represents the latest ploy by the Landowner to hamper legitimate public access to this site. Having failed to bully & intimidate the public off the mountain, having failed in its use of a partisan Police element and now probably realising that their application to extend the scope of the Traffic Regulation Order will also fail, they are trying yet another tack.
I would ask NPT CBC to refuse permission to excavate the borrow pit at the proposed location if it will impact upon public access along byways 21, onto byway 22 & byway 23. There may be restrictions also on the other rights of way. The reasons I would request this application is refused;
1) The Planning Application has not been submitted in a timely or appropriate manner.
2) Neath, Port-Talbot Council has failed to make the prerequisite planning documentation properly available thus far.
3) The documentation which is available is not easily comprehensible and most doesnt relate to this application.
4) Much of the documentation is also 3 years out of date.
5) Essential work has not been carried out, such as sound assessment testing.
6) The application, in short, appears to have been recently conceived & hurriedly submitted. I would request that it is dismissed out of hand for those reasons.
7) The public consultation process appears to have been poorly managed in its totality.
If the application is, however, given full consideration, I would request it is refused for the following reasons;
1) The construction of this wind farm was agreed a year or so back and a number of conditions were imposed, (although the applicant has gone back to the Council on a number of occasions since to apply for several of these conditions to be removed). This stone extraction element to assist with the building of the wind farm should clearly have comprised part of the original application so that the entire application could have been opposed in it s totality when it was originally submitted.
2) This site extends over 1,600 acres. Walters UK Ltd has operations at many other sites which would, I imagine, encompass quarrying operations. There must be many other locations from which this rock could be obtained, which will not impact upon public rights of ways.
3) Neath, Port-Talbot has only about 20 miles of byway road (BOAT) remaining. Most of this remaining byway exists at Maesgwyn site. The Landowner is well known for being antagonistic to Public Rights of Way & Public Access, (causing many issues at other sites as well as this one). The Landowner should not be permitted to dispose of public roads or other rights of way at whim.
4) The further loss of public rights of way at this site, (Byway 21), would contravene my human rights1, as well as those of others who legitimately enjoy lawful use of this site and the amenity of public rights of way therein. The County Borough Council would lay itself open to an action for compensation, should they be disposed to permit this byway to be obstructed, breached or closed by the expansion of the quarry / borrow-pit.
5) This company wishes to continue to unlawfully operate a Motorsports facility here, (when they have not attained appropriate permissions for change of use, etc.) The public access over this site means that they are unable to do this easily, so they continue to try to erode access by any means which they can think of, (supported by a few local pet politicians & miscellaneous officials!) In spite of continued & prolonged correspondence with NPT CBC, there has been no apparent attempt at enforcement of the obvious planning breaches at this site which imperil members of the public using the rights of way, as well as causing considerable annoyance to local residents. Similarly, the local Police force has ignored all requests to enforce on site where the Landowners Agents or clients of the Motorsports facility are in breach of UK traffic law, (although Police action against often innocent & legitimate, road users at this site is rapid, heavy-handed & disproportionate).
6) The CBC has a duty to keep public rights of way open & free from obstructions2.
7) If the Council allows this application, they will potentially be in breach of Human Rights / Disability Rights legislation3. Disability Rights & Disability Discrimination Laws will be contravened if the byways are made inaccessible to the many disabled people who currently access this site. Those without disabilities will be able to make their way to byway 22 & byway 23 by walking, cycling or on horseback those who can only get there by using motorised vehicles will effectively be blocked from the site. Again, the County Borough Council would lay itself open to an action for compensation, should they be disposed to permit this byway to be obstructed, breached or closed by the use of the quarry as a borrow-pit.
8) 2.7.7 Public vehicular access rights (excerpted Neath, Port Talbot Rights of Way Improvement Plan)
The only statutory right of public access to the countryside by motor vehicular traffic is provided by the relatively small network of public byways in the County Borough. These are important public rights of way which are open to all users, not just those who wish to drive motor vehicles along them. They will be maintained to an appropriate standard based on their historic character under the Council s annual public rights of way maintenance programme. The County Borough Council will continue to protect the public right to drive motor vehicles on byways . (The Councils own Plans should be given proper weight).
Should it be decided that this application is approved. Action will be required under the Neath, Port-Talbot Rights of Way Improvement Plan (2.2.8 Policy DM8 Protecting public rights of way from development.) The Countryside Section is required to respond to the Planning Section within 21 days regarding applications for planning consent which affect public rights of way. The County Borough Council will ensure that public rights of way are protected through site design or path diversion as may be appropriate in each case, (a diversion through the Walters Arena to link up with byway 22 being the most obvious solution).
This objection has been submitted in ample time, I would be grateful, on this occasion, if you would ensure that my objection makes it to the planning committee! (A clerical oversight prevented my objection to the Waste Transfer Station at Maesgwyn being passed on for the consideration of the Planning Committee). If you believe that there are any comments within this objection which cannot be considered, please let me know as soon as is practical to enable me to resubmit my objection.
Regards,
1 Human Rights Act 1998 & European Human Rights Legislation)
Article 1 of the First Protocol: the Right to Property / Protection of Property:
Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided by the law and general provisions of international law. The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of the state to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties. [The term 'possessions' is widely defined, it includes all property and property rights.] The UK Court of Appeal has previously ruled in favour of a private citizen whose rights had been denied access to a right of way he had previously enjoyed access to.
Article 14: Freedom from discrimination. 3.105
Discrimination means treating people in similar situations differently, or those in different situations in the same way, without proper justification. Article 14 of the ECHR gives you the right to protection from discrimination in relation to all the other rights guaranteed under the Convention. It means that you are entitled to equal access to those rights. You cannot be denied equal access to them on grounds of your status. I would contend that the continued prevarication over investigation & enforcement of accusations of repeated traffic law infringements by Walters Motorsports Personnel & Clients, whilst conducting such investigations & enforcement with prejudice against members of the public on site shows discriminatory practice.
6 (1) It is unlawful for a public authority to act in a way which is incompatible with a Convention right, (i.e. disregard for the protection of property or demonstrating discriminatory practice).
2 Section 130 of the Highways Act 1980 places a duty on the local authority to preserve and protect the public's rights and their enjoyment of all highways
3 Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (which came into force in October 2004) gives disabled people rights of access to everyday services that others take for granted. Under the Act, service providers are expected to take reasonable steps to remove, alter or provide reasonable means of avoiding physical features which make it impossible or unreasonably difficult for a disabled person to make use of a service. The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 ensures that discrimination law covers all the activities of the public sector, including the management and maintenance of the byway network.
https://planning.npt.gov.uk/detail.asp?AltRef=P2009/0841&zAltRef=P2009/0556
contacts; [email protected] [email protected]
They have failed to bully us off the moutain.
We've forced them to stop their illegal road closures & blockages of rights of way.
They're probably now realising that their new TRO application may not go their way, so...
They are putting in a plan to excavate a 'borrow-pit' at the old quarry SW of the Arena. They appear to be doing this for no reason other than to close off byway 21, (and consequently 22 & 23).
This is the text of an objection sent in, if anyone wants to borrow some of the key points for objection.
Please circulate to others.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Geoff White
Head of Planning
Neath Port, Talbot CBC
The Quays, Brunel Way,
Baglan Energy Park,
Neath, SA11 2GG
Mr White,
Ref: P/2009/841 Applicant: Walters UK Ltd (posted 22/9'09)
Former quarry working at former Maesgwyn opencast near Banwen. Proposal borrow pit for stone to be used in the construction of the Maesgwyn Windfarm. Byway 21 crosses through part of site.
I would like to make a representation by way of an objection to the application detailed above.
I do have a few initial comments in relation to this application however.
§ This application was posted on the Planning Portal on the 11th September.
§ Your site notice was not posted, however, until the 22nd September, (I believe that it bears the date the 21st Sept).
§ So, I trust that the 21 day consultation period will run from the 22nd Sept?
§ This application appears, (to the untrained eye), to be a total abomination.
§ The paperwork has obviously been received by Neath, Port-Talbot Planning on the 11th September.
§ The applicant wishes to commence work by virtue of having received planning permission during OCTOBER 09!!
§ The work lasting for a total of 18 months!
§ Im gob smacked that the Planning Department even accepted this application! If I submitted a planning application for a house and wanted to start building it in a few weeks time I imagine the NPT Planners would give me short-shrift! But, then again, I suppose I dont have £100M in the bank! (They say money talks!)
Additionally;
§ The application is PURPORTEDLY for permission to use a disused former quarry on Maesgwyn site as a borrow-pit.
§ Most of the documentation, however, relates to the original application for the Maesgwyn wind farm??
§ Much of this documentation is several years old.
§ There are some plans which appear to relate to the quarry / borrow-pit issue, however I personally found these almost impossible to interpret. They are very technical plans for the professional, (Civil Engineer), however there does not appear to be an easily read site map for the lay-person.
§ I feel that this is essential to allow people to properly understand the scope of the application, i.e. how large this borrow-pit is to become and how it will interact with the surrounds and, in particular, the public rights of way.
§ The problems with inspection of the planning documents have been compounded by the fact that I have been unable to access the Planning Portal website from 2 Libraries. I was unable to access it from the public terminal at the Port-Talbot Civic Offices.
§ I did eventually manage to access it at the Neath Civic Offices, but found that many of the documents refused to open due to access errors. It really does leave people wondering whether these IT failures are pre-planned!
§ As a consequence of all these problems, Ive been chasing around all day, trying to get a proper look at these plans however, Im hardly any better off than I was when I started the day!
So, my objection has to be based upon a series of educated guesses & suppositions;
I believe that this application represents the latest ploy by the Landowner to hamper legitimate public access to this site. Having failed to bully & intimidate the public off the mountain, having failed in its use of a partisan Police element and now probably realising that their application to extend the scope of the Traffic Regulation Order will also fail, they are trying yet another tack.
I would ask NPT CBC to refuse permission to excavate the borrow pit at the proposed location if it will impact upon public access along byways 21, onto byway 22 & byway 23. There may be restrictions also on the other rights of way. The reasons I would request this application is refused;
1) The Planning Application has not been submitted in a timely or appropriate manner.
2) Neath, Port-Talbot Council has failed to make the prerequisite planning documentation properly available thus far.
3) The documentation which is available is not easily comprehensible and most doesnt relate to this application.
4) Much of the documentation is also 3 years out of date.
5) Essential work has not been carried out, such as sound assessment testing.
6) The application, in short, appears to have been recently conceived & hurriedly submitted. I would request that it is dismissed out of hand for those reasons.
7) The public consultation process appears to have been poorly managed in its totality.
If the application is, however, given full consideration, I would request it is refused for the following reasons;
1) The construction of this wind farm was agreed a year or so back and a number of conditions were imposed, (although the applicant has gone back to the Council on a number of occasions since to apply for several of these conditions to be removed). This stone extraction element to assist with the building of the wind farm should clearly have comprised part of the original application so that the entire application could have been opposed in it s totality when it was originally submitted.
2) This site extends over 1,600 acres. Walters UK Ltd has operations at many other sites which would, I imagine, encompass quarrying operations. There must be many other locations from which this rock could be obtained, which will not impact upon public rights of ways.
3) Neath, Port-Talbot has only about 20 miles of byway road (BOAT) remaining. Most of this remaining byway exists at Maesgwyn site. The Landowner is well known for being antagonistic to Public Rights of Way & Public Access, (causing many issues at other sites as well as this one). The Landowner should not be permitted to dispose of public roads or other rights of way at whim.
4) The further loss of public rights of way at this site, (Byway 21), would contravene my human rights1, as well as those of others who legitimately enjoy lawful use of this site and the amenity of public rights of way therein. The County Borough Council would lay itself open to an action for compensation, should they be disposed to permit this byway to be obstructed, breached or closed by the expansion of the quarry / borrow-pit.
5) This company wishes to continue to unlawfully operate a Motorsports facility here, (when they have not attained appropriate permissions for change of use, etc.) The public access over this site means that they are unable to do this easily, so they continue to try to erode access by any means which they can think of, (supported by a few local pet politicians & miscellaneous officials!) In spite of continued & prolonged correspondence with NPT CBC, there has been no apparent attempt at enforcement of the obvious planning breaches at this site which imperil members of the public using the rights of way, as well as causing considerable annoyance to local residents. Similarly, the local Police force has ignored all requests to enforce on site where the Landowners Agents or clients of the Motorsports facility are in breach of UK traffic law, (although Police action against often innocent & legitimate, road users at this site is rapid, heavy-handed & disproportionate).
6) The CBC has a duty to keep public rights of way open & free from obstructions2.
7) If the Council allows this application, they will potentially be in breach of Human Rights / Disability Rights legislation3. Disability Rights & Disability Discrimination Laws will be contravened if the byways are made inaccessible to the many disabled people who currently access this site. Those without disabilities will be able to make their way to byway 22 & byway 23 by walking, cycling or on horseback those who can only get there by using motorised vehicles will effectively be blocked from the site. Again, the County Borough Council would lay itself open to an action for compensation, should they be disposed to permit this byway to be obstructed, breached or closed by the use of the quarry as a borrow-pit.
8) 2.7.7 Public vehicular access rights (excerpted Neath, Port Talbot Rights of Way Improvement Plan)
The only statutory right of public access to the countryside by motor vehicular traffic is provided by the relatively small network of public byways in the County Borough. These are important public rights of way which are open to all users, not just those who wish to drive motor vehicles along them. They will be maintained to an appropriate standard based on their historic character under the Council s annual public rights of way maintenance programme. The County Borough Council will continue to protect the public right to drive motor vehicles on byways . (The Councils own Plans should be given proper weight).
Should it be decided that this application is approved. Action will be required under the Neath, Port-Talbot Rights of Way Improvement Plan (2.2.8 Policy DM8 Protecting public rights of way from development.) The Countryside Section is required to respond to the Planning Section within 21 days regarding applications for planning consent which affect public rights of way. The County Borough Council will ensure that public rights of way are protected through site design or path diversion as may be appropriate in each case, (a diversion through the Walters Arena to link up with byway 22 being the most obvious solution).
This objection has been submitted in ample time, I would be grateful, on this occasion, if you would ensure that my objection makes it to the planning committee! (A clerical oversight prevented my objection to the Waste Transfer Station at Maesgwyn being passed on for the consideration of the Planning Committee). If you believe that there are any comments within this objection which cannot be considered, please let me know as soon as is practical to enable me to resubmit my objection.
Regards,
1 Human Rights Act 1998 & European Human Rights Legislation)
Article 1 of the First Protocol: the Right to Property / Protection of Property:
Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided by the law and general provisions of international law. The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of the state to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties. [The term 'possessions' is widely defined, it includes all property and property rights.] The UK Court of Appeal has previously ruled in favour of a private citizen whose rights had been denied access to a right of way he had previously enjoyed access to.
Article 14: Freedom from discrimination. 3.105
Discrimination means treating people in similar situations differently, or those in different situations in the same way, without proper justification. Article 14 of the ECHR gives you the right to protection from discrimination in relation to all the other rights guaranteed under the Convention. It means that you are entitled to equal access to those rights. You cannot be denied equal access to them on grounds of your status. I would contend that the continued prevarication over investigation & enforcement of accusations of repeated traffic law infringements by Walters Motorsports Personnel & Clients, whilst conducting such investigations & enforcement with prejudice against members of the public on site shows discriminatory practice.
6 (1) It is unlawful for a public authority to act in a way which is incompatible with a Convention right, (i.e. disregard for the protection of property or demonstrating discriminatory practice).
2 Section 130 of the Highways Act 1980 places a duty on the local authority to preserve and protect the public's rights and their enjoyment of all highways
3 Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (which came into force in October 2004) gives disabled people rights of access to everyday services that others take for granted. Under the Act, service providers are expected to take reasonable steps to remove, alter or provide reasonable means of avoiding physical features which make it impossible or unreasonably difficult for a disabled person to make use of a service. The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 ensures that discrimination law covers all the activities of the public sector, including the management and maintenance of the byway network.
