Latest news on the Save Our Green Belt campaign

URGENT - PLEASE DONATE TO SAVE OUR GREEN BELT - NEW THREAT FROM THE PORTMAN ESTATE

In early 2022, Portman Estate lodged an application for planning consent to build a massive housing estate of 450-500 homes on our Green Belt adjacent to Amersham Road, and hundreds of you objected to it.
 
Bucks Council's Planning Officer, quite rightly, recommended that the application be refused and the planning committee refused the application on 11 grounds including the fact that the land is Green Belt and "very special circumstances" do not exist to develop it.
 
Portman Estate have now appealed against this decision and have asked that the appeal be dealt with by way of an Inquiry. An Inquiry is the most formal (and expensive) type of planning appeal because it involves barristers and experts presenting evidence and cross-examinations, rather like a court case. The Portman Estate are evidently prepared to spend money on trying to win the appeal. If the arguments against developing our Green Belt are not effectively presented, there is a risk that the appeal is granted and a precedent is created for not only this application but all the others which would be likely to follow. 
 
Our view is that in order to stand the best chance of defeating this appeal and protecting our Green Belt from future similar challenges, we must attend the Planning Appeal Inquiry and present expert evidence with our barrister present to cross-examine the applicant's expert's evidence. To fight the appeal will cost a significant amount of money (and more than the funds we have left over from the daft Local Plan fight) because Portman have required the appeal to be dealt with as an Inquiry rather than solely by submission of written evidence and we will need to engage our barrister and planning consultants to represent us. The Inquiry is scheduled to last 16 days in October 2022.
 
Unfortunately the Planning Inquiry will require more funds than we have and so we have had to take the decision to ask for donations to cover the costs of our barrister and experts. We believe that Portman Estate are gaming the system. Unfortunately, the timescale is very tight. Our experts must be in a position to prepare for the hearing and therefore we need donations urgently to enable us to stand up for Beaconsfield.
 
Early indications are that we will need an additional £55,000. Please can you donate to protect our Green Belt? We would need 1,100 people to donate £50 or 550 people to donate £100, but please donate whatever you can. The people of Beaconsfield have come together before to save our Green Belt and we know we can do it again.


 

If you would like to look at the application in more detail, the planning reference is PL/21/3151/OA and you can view the application on Bucks Council planning portal here: https://pa.chilternandsouthbucks.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=QXDFQCESGOU00
 
Thank you, we really appreciate your support, we cannot do this without you.

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