Comment by Roger Woodburn

Mr Woodburn has just contributed this comment to the post What is Proposed, but we feel it merits a post of its own – Ed.

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Set out below is the gist of the comments I sent to LANPRO after their ‘presentation’ at the Parish Room. The recent meeting did very little indeed to allay or answer my concerns.

I have a large number of concerns about this proposal in terms of (i) the underlying motives for proposing it, (ii) the justification / alleged benefits for the village and (iii) the details so far provided by you.

The proposed site is a greenfield site and what is more it is good agricultural land. This flies in the face of the UK’s need to increase its own food production, reduce imports and their associated carbon footprints.

The main beneficiaries will be the land’s vendor and the site’s ‘developer’, not the village.

Langham is described by you as a strong community; this is self-evidently not the case. The village pub closed through lack of support, likewise the previous shop (Wizard’s End Stores). There are significant numbers of properties that lie empty for long periods during the year - three in our road (St Andrew’s Drift ) alone. Attendance at village events such as quizzes, coffee mornings, and the Street Fayre is low. It should be clearly noted that during the development of the original Langham Glass site the community was assured that a village shop would form part of the development; nothing came of the assurance. It would require an absolute guarantee for the latest proposed shop to be opened and sustained for several years for the proposal to have any credibility.

The expression ‘well designed low density layout’ is used by you about the housing density. By no stretch of the imagination can the proposed density be described as low in the context of this village. It is roughly three times that of the current residences in the surrounding area.

In order to attract young families to the area requires employment opportunities. There are extremely few opportunities locally that would pay employees at a rate that would enable them to obtain and service a mortgage for an ‘affordable’ home. Your mention of the Harper and Langham Hall implies low skill work in the hospitality business, or in the shops and services you mention in Blakeney, Holt and Wells. Your use of the expressions ‘notable proportion’ and ‘majority proportion’ in relation to the proposed houses mean very little indeed and provide a way out of any serious commitment.

The protection you propose for ensuring that the houses are not used as second homes is laudable but very likely unenforceable as the Government is committed to scrapping s.106 agreements of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and nothing yet has been proposed in its place.

The ground plan shown at the public presentation appeared to be inaccurate as it does not show the narrow loke that runs up from the west end of Marryat’s Loke to join the path at the end of St Andrew’s Drift. The path to and from the development and St. Andrew’s Drift is not shown clearly.

The access arrangements proposed for both the Binham Road and North Street would render the already narrow roads more dangerous. The public parking areas will likely be used by The Harper’s staff and residents’ second cars.

The biodiversity area shown on the draft layout in dark green on the north side is so small as to be essentially worthless as it is surrounded on three sides by buildings with no wildlife corridor by which many species could arrive. (The expression ‘ecological area’ which you use is scientifically meaningless.)