Langham Action Committee
Helping to defend the unique character of this North Norfolk village
Thursday, 20 February 2025
North Norfolk Local Plan Examination
Tuesday, 12 March 2024
Update on Fox Hill Plantation
In December 2022 North Norfolk District Council refused permission for a ‘change of use of land to storage of caravans and boats, siting of 39 storage containers, siting of portable building for office use and erection of boundary fence’ at Fox Hill Plantation on the Morston road.
The applicant appealed the decision last October, a matter we covered then.
The Planning Inspectorate has just dismissed the appeal. An earlier application, in 2020, was also turned down by NNDC and it seems unlikely now that the scheme will ever go ahead.
(Meanwhile we have been monitoring the NNDC website for any news about Lanpro’s proposal for land west of North Street. Nothing has yet come up, and it has been about a year since residents were sent the circular describing the plans.)
Sunday, 5 November 2023
Update on Lanpro and Glavenhill
The company operates on a portfolio basis for land promotional activities and some of the projects complete whilst others do not. Costs incurred with the projects that do not obtain planning permission and do not complete are written off once planning has been rejected. The company’s shareholders, directors and other investors support the company until funds from successful completed transactions are repatriated to the company.Its modus operandi, then, is to fly kites and see which of them find a favourable wind. The outlay so far has apparently been limited to the proposal document and the presentation in the Village Hall that followed it.
Saturday, 28 October 2023
The beet campaign
Sunday, 22 October 2023
The folks who lived on the hill
Saturday, 21 October 2023
The razing of Fox Hill Plantation
You may already know that another planning application was submitted for Fox Hill Plantation on the Morston Road.
The history of planning applications for this site may be viewed here. The latest application, having been rejected by NNDC, has gone to appeal.
The proposal would see the copse turned into a site for 39 storage containers, with additional storage for caravans and boats, as well as a facility for portable buildings for office use, together with the erection of a boundary fence. It was rejected some time ago. The site is in the North Norfolk Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and would be served by an unclassified road close to a primary school. The change of use would increase the level of traffic – particularly of goods vehicles, some of them heavy – between Morston and the church crossroads, adding to the problems in North Street.
Such a development is unlikely to provide much in the way of job creation; the coast is at capacity for boats already. The potential harms outweigh whatever benefits a development like this would bring to the area.
North Norfolk has some of the darkest night skies in the country. A storage compound of the sort proposed would undoubtedly have security lights. These would affect the whole area between Langham and Morston. And because the site is situated on a hillside, there is also the possibility of polluted runoff affecting adjoining fields.
If you wish to make any comments online please quote the appeal reference
APP/Y2620/W/23/3319567
and go to the Planning Inspectorate’s website. Letters should be addressed to
Safia Kaiser
The Planning Inspectorate
Temple Quay House
2 The Square
Bristol
BS1 6PN
The deadline for comments is 6 November 2023, so please act as soon as you can.
The more opposition we can raise, the better the chances of scotching this scheme once and for all, so please also consider copying your comments to NNDC. Emails should be sent to planning@north-norfolk.gov.uk and letters to
The Chief Planning Officer
North Norfolk District Council
Council Offices
Holt Road
Cromer
Norfolk
NR27 9EN
Saturday, 14 October 2023
The Burne-Jones window
Image © cambridge2000.com
Image credit: Evelyn Simak; licence
Of the theological virtues, St Paul averred that ‘And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity’. (King James Bible, 1 Corinthians, 13:13.) In later English versions of that verse, the word is translated as ‘love’. The Latin word is caritas, which has the sense of the Greek ἀγάπη (agapē), denoting brotherly as opposed to sexual or parental love. C S Lewis uses the term to denote the highest variety of love known to humanity: a selfless love that is passionately committed to the well-being of others. It is an acceptance that in each of us is reflected the divine.