Llygad Llŷn
‘For everything to remain as it is, everything must change’ so said Tancredi to his uncle the Prince in Lampedusa’s novel ‘The Leopard’. Is this quote a slogan for our times and appropriate for the recent Inspector’s Report on Cyngor Gwynedd’s Unitary Development Plan?
Gwynedd is a Unitary Authority, there are 22 of them in Wales, in 1995/6 with the re-organisation of Local Government in Wales all the County, District, Town/Borough and City Councils disappeared and were re-established as Unitary Authorities. Each Authority has to produce a Unitary Development Plan (UDP) or equivalent, giving in this area, the citizens of Gwynedd, businesses and all interested bodies a framework as to how the Council will deal with a myriad of situations, from planning to population demographics until at least 2016.
As expected it’s been a long complicated and arduous process. It started in about 2001. By 2004 a Draft Deposit of the UDP was ‘road showed’ around the County for a period of about six weeks in the Summer. The result of this was another weighty document, the ‘Gwynedd UDP Pre-inquiry Proposed Changes’, it landed on our desks in September 2005. The next step was to present all this work, together with about 2,800 written comments/objections to the Plan to the Welsh Assembly Government Inspectors.
They began their work in Caernarfon at the beginning of 2006 and had by August that year listened to or noted each and every policy, comment, proposal and aspect of the UDP. The next stage was for the Inspectors to write up the recommendations in the Inspector’s Report. This report, in the form of a CD, containing 1,307 pages was received by the Council last month.
The report’s official title :– Gwynedd Unitary Development Plan – Inspector’s Report, will have far reaching implications for many aspects of our lives here in Gwynedd. After skim reading the 1,307 pages I got the gist of where the Inspector’s Report is going and what’s recommended. The report is in the form of ‘recommendations’. What’s the meaning of ‘recommendation’, is it advice, suggestion or counsel? I suspect that although Gwynedd could in theory ignore the Report’s recommendations, the sheer weight of the Inspector’s authority will mean that the Council will accept most of these.
So what’s he flagging up in these recommendations? One of these on the ‘no, no’ list is Policy CH4 – New Dwellings in Rural Villages. This was inserted by Gwynedd to try and meet the demand by locals to build new dwellings in the vicinity of a Rural Village provided they met strict criteria. This recommendation to get rid of this policy means that it will severely restrict developments in the countryside.
Another blow to rural developments is the recommendation to re-draw more tightly the Development Boundaries, again fewer opportunities to build outside the main designated development areas.
What does all this mean? Disappointment and disillusionment for the aspiring local home owners, and the finger of blame unfairly pointed at the Council.
What about Pwllheli? Some surprises here as regards land issues. Out goes the land on Abererch Road earmarked for the development of 30 houses, but more surprising still is the retention of the fields next door to Glandon/Spar garage on Caernarfon Road on the way out of Pwllheli. 2 hectares for an industrial estate and .79 hectare for houses (equivalent to about 25 dwellings). This ‘recommendation’, together with the blessing of the Inspector for developments on the old Hockey field Penrallt and the inclusion of the field opposite the old Churchyard, Denio makes for an interesting scenario. Get out your map of the area and see how close these areas are to each other. Will the extension of Pwllheli be up on to and over the hill in the next 50 years?
The general ethos of the Report is metro-centric; virtually all new housing to be confined to established urban areas with development in the countryside to a large extent ignored.
I’ve only touched the top of the tip of the iceberg as far as this Inspector’s Report is concerned.