An account of the Parish Council meeting, 5 September

The meeting was attended by Sarah Bütikofer, NNDC Councillor for Priory Ward.

Till now Langham Parish Council has been under strength, with five councillors; item 4 on the agenda was the co-option of two new members, James Priest and Louise Goodenough. James Priest was co-opted without objection, whereas the co-option of Louise Goodenough was opposed by Cllr Alan Smith, and Cllr Patrick Allen abstained.

Cllr Allen, during the reception of declarations of interest (item 2), confirmed that he owns the land concerned in the proposal to build on the site west of North Street. Louise Goodenough is the Chair of the Langham Action Committee.

Item 8 concerned the village survey about the development. On this occasion, in accordance not only with the provisions of the Localism Act but the Local Government Association’s code of conduct for councillors, Cllr Allen recused himself from the discussion by leaving the room for its duration. Cllr Walker summarised the survey responses, noting that the majority of respondents had concerns about and objections to the proposal.

Although no formal motion was carried about the Parish Council’s attitude to the proposal in light of these findings, we must assume that, as a body, it will oppose any application for planning permission for this development that may be made.

Parish Council meeting, 5 September

Just a reminder that the Parish Council is due to meet at the Parish Room next Tuesday, 5 September, at 7.00 pm. As of today the agenda has not been published on the PC website, but we expect the survey results to be discussed and to learn what position the Council has taken regarding the Lanpro proposal.

The Parish Council Poll

Langham Parish Council has published the results of its survey to gauge opinion about the proposed development on land to the west of North Street.

There are 308 people on the Register of Electors, though anyone could respond. 147 responses were submitted. Respondents could choose one of four answers to each question, varying from (1) ‘I support this’ to (4) ‘I do not support this’.

The questions asked are in some cases so worded as to be ambiguous, and nearly ten per cent of respondents expressed difficulty here. Nonetheless the results give some idea of the sentiment in the village. If we group together responses (1) and (2) as fully or generally supportive, and responses (3) and (4) as generally or fully against the proposal, we get the following result:

For: 202; against: 784. Thus by a factor of almost 4 to 1, opinion in the village is against the proposed development.

The Langham Hall barns

Beginning in 1722, the proprietor of Langham Hall Farm erected a range of flint-and-brick barns in North Street. The largest of these was called the Great Barn; other structures, including a nineteenth-century cart-shed, were added later. Not much more seems to be known about these: if anyone has any information or anecdotes to share, please leave a comment. As farm buildings they remained in use until the seventies.

By 1979, though, they had become redundant and the site was sold to the newly established Langham Glass.

Paul Miller had learned his trade from leading European glassmakers at King’s Lynn Glass, and aged only 21 became a Master Glassmaker. Subsequently Wedgwood bought King’s Lynn Glass from its founder, Ronnie Stennet-Wilson, and Mr Miller continued working there, creating many of the unusual glass animals and paperweights that are so collectible today.

A Langham Glass badger

He and his wife Sue wanted one day to set up their own glassworks. They proposed not only to make crystal of the highest quality but also to invite members of the public to watch glassmakers at work. Because of its size, the Great Barn made an ideal venue, and its height allowed a steel gallery to be installed. From this visitors could look down on the various processes, including the fascinating techniques of the glassblower.

Langham Glass became a very popular tourist attraction, with many thousands of visitors a year, so popular indeed that by 2005 it had outgrown its premises. It moved first to Tattersett Business Park, and in 2013 to its present home in Fakenham.

Langham Glass at Tattersett – image credit: Stacey Harris; licence

Once the Millers had decided to leave the village the question arose: what was to be done with the Great Barn and its attendant buildings?

In May 2006 planning permission was granted for a £7m project (pdf) to build 25 houses on the site; the Great Barn was to be converted into four individual dwellings. The developer was Avada Langham Ltd, a sister company of Avada Country Homes. Permission was dependent on providing also a boutique (i.e. small and luxurious) hotel on the site, this being insisted on by NNDC as part of its policy to encourage tourism and create employment: the hotel was predicted to generate 40 to 50 jobs in the local economy, 15-20 of them in the hotel itself. Avada Langham Ltd was to contribute £500,000 towards affordable housing in the Langham area and £58,000 to Langham Village School.

It was envisaged at the start that the majority of the houses would become holiday homes; the linked pdf file above also explains the mooted management relationship between the owners and the hotel.

There was much opposition in the village. One person even pursued a judicial review but withdrew just days before the case reached the High Court.

The 2008 financial crash and subsequent recession did not exactly help things along either, and work did not start until June 2014. Parish Council chairman Dave Curtis said, ‘There has been a range of opinions on the Parish Council about this development over the years but, personally, I have always been supportive of it as it will bring jobs and a new amenity to the village.’

Parish Council vice-chairman John Hope said, ‘I still feel this is a very large development in a very small village. It has been approved, so we now have to accept it. I hope most of the jobs promised are full-time jobs because that is the only benefit Langham will get from this, as far as I’m concerned.’

Given the proximity of the school, Norfolk County Council reduced the speed limit in North Street to 20 mph.

While work was going on there was much noise and disturbance. Again and again dumper trucks carried spoil down to a pit at Seeley’s Barn and left the roadway filthy; a crane rose against the skyline and pile-driving was added to the Langham soundscape. But even antipathetic locals had to admit that the tradesmen employed on the site seemed to know what they were about.

Ian Johnston, the owner of Avada Langham Ltd, is a house-builder and not a hotelier. His heart had never been in the idea of running the hotel, and in 2016, when the building was still under development, he put it up for sale.

In June 2017 it was purchased by the Bijou Collection, owned by the Cutmore-Scott family, whose expertise in the hospitality industry had till then been focused on their wedding venues. Sam Cutmore-Scott, elder son of the founders and already a director of the company, took over the hotel and supervised its completion: an enterprise costing millions of pounds. The hotel was named ‘The Harper’ as a tribute to Stanley Harper Cutmore, Sam’s maternal grandfather, who with his brother Jim ran Cutmore’s Mechanics in Barrack Street, Norwich – and whose work ethic still inspires the family today. As a further nod to him, and to the glassworks, the decor, featuring much iron, copper and slate, is faintly redolent of Britain’s industrial past.

The Harper was due to open on 1 April 2020. Preparations were in full swing when the lockdown was imposed. A very difficult and uncertain time followed, but when Sam was finally able to reopen the bookings were encouraging and the enterprise is now doing well: Delia Smith was one of the first guests through the doors.

As envisaged by NNDC, the hotel is unashamedly upmarket. It attracts wealthy visitors from London and Cambridge and elsewhere. Use of the hotel facilities is restricted to hotel residents only, which has been a source of some ill feeling in the village given the history of the site, but the point has been made by the Cutmore-Scotts that, were it otherwise, non-resident visitors would have to park along North Street.

Recently the Bijou Collection also bought the adjoining Hall, which was on the market for £1.95m. It is being thoroughly refurbished and updated and will be incorporated into The Harper.

The Yard at The Harper

The Parish Council questionnaire – 2

We wish to make it clear that the survey papers distributed yesterday are the work of the Parish Council; we were given to believe that the survey would be made some weeks ago, and covered it in this post.

The Parish Council questionnaire

The Parish Council has told us that it is about to distribute a questionnaire to find out what residents think about the proposal to build 35 houses on land west of North Street.

You can simply say you are for or against the proposal, or qualify your approval of it if certain conditions are met.

There are five basic reasons to be in favour of the proposal.

1. It will enrich the landowner involved, who is coincidentally the Vice Chair of the Parish Council;

2. It will enrich the developers;

3. It will provide employment for construction workers for the 18-24 months during which the site is being landscaped and the houses put up;

4. It will increase the population of the village, currently about 350, by some 50-100 souls;

5. It may provide some measure of affordable housing in Langham.

If you broadly approve of the scheme but have reservations, the questionnaire offers the following options:

1. You need reassurance about safe entry to and exit from the development;

2. You would like to see a reduction in the number of houses proposed or a guarantee that the number would not increase from 35;

3. You would like a proportion of the homes to be affordable;

4. You would like to see ‘legal protection to ensure that the homes cannot be used as second or holiday homes (if we think this could be possible)’;

5. You have other concerns.

Safe entry to and exit from the development

Access to the site must be made either from North Street or Binham Road. In either event, most of this extra traffic will use the crossroads by the church. The line of sight when emerging there from North Street is bad enough, but coming the other way, from Field Dalling Road, it is positively dangerous: so dangerous in fact that drivers must nose forward into Binham Road in order to see what’s coming.

An exit into Binham Road would also be dangerous, given the way the road curves, even if the existing and historic (it was once the village school) Parish Room were to be demolished; Lanpro have mooted providing a new village hall.

Prompted by a previous planning application for the same piece of land, the Highways Department at Norfolk County Council voiced grave concerns about the implications for road safety.

They also commented that the village is in need of more footways. Walking east from the Cockthorpe road, one can follow for a while the safe footway provided during construction of the St Mary’s estate, but at Astley Cottage this runs out and one must cross the road, again with a poor line of sight, to a narrow footway which becomes even narrower when approaching the crossroads. Having crossed over and with the church on one’s right, this narrow footway soon ends. After that, almost all the way to the Blakeney road, one must walk in the carriageway – which is often obstructed by parked vehicles.

Most of the length of North Street is served by a safe footway on its east side, but in Field Dalling Road there is no footway at all.

Fewer houses

Reduction in the number of homes below a certain point, particularly if some of them are to be designated as affordable, may make any development uneconomic. Developers fiercely resist such a reduction. However, it is possible that the figure of 35 dwellings has been put forward with the intention of appearing to compromise later by settling for fewer, a suspicion given credence by the fact that the number proposed in 2019 was only 27, four of which were to have been flats.

Affordable homes

The definition of ‘affordable’ is elastic and is discussed in this BBC article from 2016. In rough terms, an affordable home is sold at something like 80% of the market value. Developers may be required by district councils to include a number of such properties in their plans, but of course each one reduces the profitability of the development, so there is much negotiation about this before full planning consent is given.

Assuming that the new market-rate houses proposed for Langham are comparable to those on the St Mary’s estate, albeit with much smaller gardens, the affordable homes would cost something in the region of £400,000.

Using the basic mortgage calculator found here, and assuming the purchasers can supply a £50,000 deposit, and assuming the current mortgage rate of 4.5%, they will need to find £1945 a month to service a £350,000 repayment mortgage. Over the full term they will pay £583,398, which includes interest of £233,398. These are of course approximate figures. The historic bank rate since the seventeenth century has been about 5%. Given the current rate of inflation, we could soon see it go considerably higher than that.

Restrictions on occupation

In its questionnaire the Parish Council itself expresses doubt as to whether covenants restricting the occupation of these houses will be enforceable, a doubt we can only endorse. In any case, such covenants would reduce the value of the houses and make the whole scheme less financially viable.

In legal circles it is known that restrictive covenants can be and are breached all the time. If such breaches remain uncontested at law, the covenants eventually become null and void.

As to the designation of a country property as a second home, it is common practice for someone living in, say, London to designate the London house as the second home and the country property as the primary residence, neatly circumventing whatever impositions a local authority seeks to make.

Other concerns

These are many and various. The scheme if built would run a coach and horses through numerous NNDC core strategy policies, especially concerning development in the countryside and in ‘small growth villages’, of which Langham is a prime example.

If you want to look these policies up on the NNDC website, they are as follows:

SS 1: Spatial Strategy for North Norfolk

SS 2: Development in the Countryside

SS 4: Environment

SS 6: Access and Infrastructure

HO 1: Dwelling Mix and Type

HO 2: Provision of Affordable Housing

HO 3: Affordable Housing in the Countryside

EN 1: Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Broads (PDF)

EN 2: Protection and Enhancement of Landscape and Settlement Character

EN 8: Protecting and Enhancing the Historic Environment

EN 9: Biodiversity & Geology

EN 10: Development and Flood Risk

CT 1: Open Space Designations

CT 5: The Transport Impact of New Development

CT 6: Parking Provision

In brief, this is a greenfield site lying within both the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Langham Conservation Area. Building over it will irreversibly change the character of the village and put unwonted pressure on local infrastructure, especially the road system.

For these reasons alone the proposal is highly unsuitable and, we submit, without merit.

The site

Image credit: Gaynor Pannier

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.)

An account of the Parish Council meeting on 9 May

A large and perhaps unprecedented gathering of parishioners, numbering at least 60, crowded the Village Hall on Tuesday night to listen to the proceedings of the Parish Council. The item on the agenda that brought the majority of them there was the proposal put forward by Lanpro to build 35 houses on land at the NW corner of Binham Road and North Street. The Vice Chairman of the Parish Council, Mr Patrick Allen, has a pecuniary interest in this proposal. He was present at the meeting.

Instead of recusing himself as the law requires, and instead of leaving the room as the Local Government Association code of conduct recommends, Mr Allen remained seated when this matter came before the Council. He claimed that, since no formal application has been put before the planners at NNDC, he was not required to absent himself from the discussion.

Indeed he took a vocal and defensive part in it. As for the others on the Council, the Chairman expressed half-hearted approval of the proposal, while the others, bar Anne-Marie Coe, expressed no cogent opinion at all. Ms Coe acknowledged the situation and suggested further discussion with parishioners about this matter prior to any future planning application, and her statements are much appreciated.

The audience politely articulated their concerns and their need to be heard by the Parish Council. When asked whether, as representatives of the village, the councillors ought to have a collective view on the issue as it stands, they disagreed, again saying that the proposal is merely that and not yet a formal planning matter.

Mr Allen was met with hoots of derisive laughter when, challenged about the utility of imposing covenants of one sort or another on the developers, he loudly declared, ‘I’m in charge!’

All this contrasted bizarrely with the previous proceedings of the Council, detailing the minutiae of parochial affairs such as cutting back unruly hedges or replacing the defibrillator, or accounting, to the last penny, the parish’s assets, income and expenditures.

By the date of its next meeting a pre-planning application may have been submitted. We shall no doubt all attend that meeting too, in order to ascertain whether our own parish council has managed to form a view about one of the largest single developments ever proposed for Langham.

Minutes of the Committee Meeting, 8 May

Minutes of the meeting of the Langham Action Committee held on Monday, 8 May, 2023 in Old Manor Farm House, starting at 6.00 pm.

Present:

Louise Goodenough (Chair)

Jonathan Barnes

Frank Blundell

Sam Cutmore-Scott

Adam Pitchford

Fiona Priest

Apologies for absence:

Laura Osborne

1. New member

The Chair proposed the co-option of Sam Cutmore-Scott and this was seconded. A warm welcome to Sam was expressed by all.

2. The Parish Council meeting on 9 May

Discussion took place on likely numbers of public participants, what objectives were to be achieved, the manner and format of the meeting, and its possible direction. It was decided that the Committee should focus its attention on three main areas:

1. Ensuring compliance with disclosure rules

2. Asking what has changed since the 2019 rejection of a similar proposal

3. Attempting to obtain the Parish Council’s view on the current proposal

3. Achieving objectives

It was decided to appoint only one spokesperson, Sam Cutmore-Scott, to represent the Committee at the Parish Council meeting on 9 May. Sam will use his experience and knowledge to question the Parish Council and adapt his questions as discussions there develop during the period allowed for public participation. Unless the Chair of the Parish Council changes the order, this will be item 14 on its agenda. We appreciate that others may also wish to speak; only 15 minutes are allowed for questioning the Councillors.

4. Date of next meeting

To be decided.

The meeting closed at 7.15 pm.

Parish Council meeting, 9 May

The next scheduled meeting of the Parish Council will be held next Tuesday, starting at 7.00 pm in the Village Hall. We have requested of the Parish Clerk that the matter of the housing development proposed by Lanpro be included in the agenda of that meeting.

Mr Patrick Allen is the Vice Chair of the Parish Council and has unofficially disclosed that he has a pecuniary interest in the proposed development.

Section 31 of the Localism Act, 2011, requires him to recuse himself at that meeting from all discussion of the proposed development. He may not ‘(a) participate, or participate further, in any discussion of the matter at the meeting, or (b) participate in any vote, or further vote, taken on the matter at the meeting, but this is subject to section 33.’ Section 33 deals with dispensation from this requirement, which as far as we are aware has not been issued.

The Local Government Association has issued a ‘Model Councillor Code of Conduct’ for the guidance of its members. This document is available [pdf] on the NNDC website, which implies that NNDC expects its councillors, and by extension the parish councillors over whom it exercises authority, to observe its terms. In Appendix B we find the following directive:

4. Where a matter arises at a meeting which directly relates to one of your Disclosable Pecuniary Interests as set out in Table 1, you must disclose the interest, not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter and must not remain in the room unless you have been granted a dispensation. If it is a ‘sensitive interest’, you do not have to disclose the nature of the interest, just that you have an interest. Dispensation may be granted in limited circumstances, to enable you to participate and vote on a matter in which you have a disclosable pecuniary interest.

Table 1 includes as a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest ‘Any beneficial interest in land which is within the area of the council.’

Thus we expect Mr Allen to leave the room when the subject of the proposed development comes under discussion.

A meeting of the Parish Council is a public event. Anyone may attend and observe, and there is a 15-minute period when the Council takes questions from members of the public. We suggest that everyone interested in the development proposal should attend. The Chair has the right summarily to close the meeting if it becomes rowdy, and so we (unnecessarily, we are sure!) urge those present to behave with the restraint and decorum that so characterise those of us lucky enough to live in Langham.

Minutes of the Committee Meeting, 1 May

Minutes of the meeting of the Langham Action Committee, held on Monday, 1 May, 2023 in Old Manor Farm House, starting at 6.00 pm.

Present:

Louise Goodenough

Adam Pitchford

Jonathan Barnes

Fiona Priest

Laura Osborne

Frank Blundell

1. Election of Chair

Louise Goodenough was unanimously elected as Chair.

2. Pre-planning application for erection of six dwellings opposite the Rectory (case number IS2/23/0039)

NNDC has rejected the application. The reasons for the rejection and the corresponding policy numbers should be looked at in detail to help with objection to the North Street / Binham Road proposal.

3. Breaches of the terms of the Localism Act, 2011, by Langham Parish Council

The Parish Council has not published its Register of Interests on its website. The Chair and Vice Chair of Langham Parish Council have not registered their interests with NNDC. Jonathan had drafted a single-document complaint letter which was distributed to all members to review. All members agreed to the letter. Jonathan will submit to NNDC.

4. Parish Council Meeting on 9 May 2023 at 7.00 pm

Frank had spoken to the Parish Clerk and the North Street / Binham Road planning proposal has been added to the agenda. As our time will be limited it was suggested that we ask just one question which will need to be decided at the next Action Committee meeting. Frank will email everyone on the mailing list to remind them of the date and time of the Parish Council meeting.

5. Blog / Keeping the community informed

Jonathan proposed that the blog strapline be changed to include a celebration of the unique character and history of Langham village. Regular posts could be made to bring attention to some of the interesting historical features and / or buildings in the village, as well as any events happening. Jonathan would draft the content and the committee would review before posting. The committee members agreed. Louise mentioned that Local Lynx could also be used to keep the village up to date. A member of the community who was unable to attend the meeting in the Village Hall on 28 April had requested an update; Jonathan will publish a report on the blog.

6. Date of next meeting

Sunday, 7 May at 6.00 pm in Old Manor Farm House

The meeting closed at 7.15 pm.