Latest from CPRE Northamptonshire

27 April 2010
Extracts from a report to CPRE's East Midlands Regional Group (EMRG)

• CPRE Northants is now organised into 2 district sub-groups to match the 2 bodies responsible for the Milton Keynes-South Midlands Strategy development
  
• West Northamptonshire ...among the items we're keeping an eye on are:
  * High Speed Rail Link
  * Sizewell Airport
  * Very large ousing plans for Daventry (1 approved, 2 refused)
  * Proposed housing expansion of Northampton to the north
  
• North Northamptonshire
  * It seems that East Northants Council has succeeded in withdrawing its plan for Oundle, Thrapston and the Rural North, after 2 Examinations in Public, without incurring a penalty
  * An application to desposit Low Level radioactive waste at King's Cliffe has been rejected
  * Refusal of development at Wellingborough North was reversed at Appeal. It was agreed that the development at Wellingborough East has to be completed first.
  * Kettering Borough has given outline permission for major development at Kettering East but there are major problems of prividing road access to it from the A14. Highways Agency insists this be resolved before development commences.
  
• County-wide
  * Despite having one of the lowest wind speeds in the country, large numbers of wind farm applications continue to come in. We now have a volunteer working specifically on this.
  * Affordable housing is rural areas is hard to obtain, often because it has to be on land outside the village causing resentment from locals. This needs to be set against the fact that a very large percentage of applications for house extensions, raising the value of cheaper housing stock.
  * Local Foods Campaign is doing well. Grants are enabling the work to continue, and helping to pay for a Development Officer to run the campaign.
  * 70 villages took part in the Stop the Drop anti-litter campaign in April 2010
  * Our annual Planning Roadshow for parish councils has again been very successful
  * Our extensive programme of social events continues, aiming to raise enough money to ensure we can continue to employ our excellent Development Officer in future years.