Now I could recite in detail how disastrous a development on
this scale, located right at the head of the Test valley catchment, could
be for the most famous chalkstream of them all. But let’s suffice with the
headlines: the loss of thousands of acres of wildlife habitat. Urban
run-off. Sewage pollution. Massive water abstraction in a region that
relies entirely on the aquifers for water provision. Noise, air, traffic
and light pollution on a scale not seen since the new towns of the 1950’s.
The demise of yet more rural communities.
To be fair Winchester City Council the local authority, are,
or were until the latest government announcement, on the horns of a
planning dilemma. Do they build, over the next 20 years, the 14,000
dwellings as required by Government for the Winchester area by way of
piecemeal developments elsewhere or go for the Big Bang with the
Micheldever new town?
The Micheldever proposal is nothing new. For the 30 years I
have been involved with the Bullington Manor Estate, which neighbours
Micheldever, this development has reared its ugly head on many occasions as
the ownership has passed through the hands of various speculative
developers with proposals as large as 12,000 homes down to a rather more
‘modest’ 5,000. Each time the proposal has been defeated but there is big
money at stake. The current developers, the O’Flynn Group, paid £45m for
the land and are backed by Irish billionaire and racehorse magnate (he
owned the late Galileo, father of Frankel), John Magnier.
The current consultation closed earlier this week. The Dever
Society, who have headed the opposition to this application, won an
important battle last year that forced Winchester City Council to think
again about giving the go ahead to a new settlement, as the Micheldever
proposal is quaintly styled in government planning-speak. It seems that
Winchester will favour a development strategy that rejects new settlements
and prioritises the use of brownfield land for development, which
Micheldever is certainly not.
The hope must be that the Sunak policy, where national
housing targets remain but there will be new flexibilities to reflect local
circumstances, will finally give cause to see off the Micheldever plans, if
not forever, but at least for many years to come and that other equally
hard pressed chalkstream catchments are saved from the insidious creep of
over-development.
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