Plans will have a ‘marked impact’ on many residents
As reported in last Friday’s Chronicle, members of our group did indeed meet with representatives of the Barnsley West Consortium about the proposals for site MU1.
However, we would like to set the record straight by explaining what the meeting was about.
In particular, the phrase ‘behindclosed-doors meeting’ (used in the Chronicle’s Comment column) conjures up visions of dodgy deals being brokered in secret in the modern equivalent of a smokefilled room.
This most certainly was not the case. Rather, the purpose of the meeting, as far as we were concerned, was to explore the feasibility of providing a means of presenting the proposals to the public in a more ‘user-friendly’, easier-to-understand manner.
For some reason, the Barnsley West Consortium seemingly has chosen not to mention this important point.
Nor, contrary to what the consortium’s spokesperson does indicate in the article, did we seek to discuss the proposal itself, something we made clear at the outset of the meeting.
The proposals contained in the two current applications probably represent the largest scheme that the council has ever had to consider.
They include several major components such as housing, employment units, a new link road and substantial earthworks.
For that reason, the applications are necessarily complex and so require close attention and scrutiny.
This is especially important as something like 200 homes border directly onto the site and there are many more close to it.
As a result, the proposals will have a marked impact on the living conditions of a large number of local residents.
Unsurprisingly, given the scale of what is proposed, both applications are accompanied by an enormous amount of supporting documents, some of which are very long indeed – the current transport assessment (submitted during the consultation period, incidentally) runs to 2,300 pages.
This makes it practically impossible for members of the public to properly consider the proposals and to submit meaningful comments if they so wish.
The applications are further complicated as major amendments have been made to the proposals since they were first submitted in 2021.
Plans and documents have been amended, withdrawn, superseded and augmented with entirely new ones in a somewhat haphazard way.
Even though all the relevant material can be viewed online on the council’s website, or on paper via cardboard boxes dumped unceremoniously at Gateway Plaza’s reception, trying to understand just how much people are going to be affected by the proposals is, to say the least, a highly daunting and probably off-putting exercise.
The two applications are further complicated as, unusually, they are both ‘hybrid’, meaning that some parts of them are seeking full planning permission whilst other parts are in outline where the acceptability in principle is being sought with full details to follow subsequently.
All this makes the applications even harder to understand.
Indeed, this appears to have confused the consortium themselves as we note that even their spokesperson asserts that ‘the applications are for outline permission’. This is patently incorrect.
Keep It Green’s strong objections, and those of the community, to the site MU1 development proposals remain.
For your further information, we sent a letter to the Pegasus Group, the agents for the consortium, on December 29, 2023, requesting a meeting. Incidentally, prior to that we had sent a similar request to the leader of the council but he refused to meet us.