The plans of Newcastle Borough Council to build houses on the Golf Course have significant implications for our Neighbourhood Plan with respect to the housing, transport and environment sections in particular.

The Sentinel and Signal Radio have both published articles about the Borough Councils plans for the Golf Course as part of the ‘Keele Growth Corridor’ formerly known as the ‘Western Urban Extension’.  The Plans are proposing 1000 houses on the Golf Course and with 200 more  on land off Park Road, Silverdale together with a expansion of the University with a second development site next to the current site plus other developments within the Campus.  Keele Parish Council have worked with Newcastle in the run up to the release of these plans but do not support the Masterplan in its current form.  We broadly support the proposed development at the University but cannot support the plans to build this number of houses.  No work has been done within the plan on developing the necessary transport infra-structure, supporting existing businesses nor on the environmental impact.  The Parish Council continue to work with the Borough and would hope that the scheme will be amended.  If not, the Parish Council will vigorously oppose it should it go forward to inspection as part of a Local Plan.

https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/major-plans-revealed-1200-homes-2006551

Agenda: Keele Neighbourhood Plan Group 2^nd November 2017 19:00 Keele Management Centre

1. Report of meeting with Newcastle Borough Council Planning Department
2. Policy Options Documents: Housing, Finance, Environment, Transport, Business
3. News Letter
4. Policy Consultation event
5. Next steps

Plan group meetings are open to anyone who would like to attend.

We have a Community Feedback Event for the Neighbourhood Plan Questionnaire at 7 p.m. in Keele Village Hall on June 14th. There will be refreshments, a chance to ask informal questions and a presentation followed by a public discussion. Please do come along and let others who might be interested know about the event.

The major item in our meeting of the 11th April was a presentation by Bernard Besly on his preliminary analysis of the results. I would like to personally thank Bernard for the huge amount of hard work and expertise which he put into this process. I would also like to thank Education Survey and Research for undertaking the difficult job of digitising 152 written responses. Some very clear patterns emerge from the data and we decided on the following five provisional policy headings for the next phase of the plan:

Housing: the development of this policy awaits the completion of the Houing Needs Survey which in turn is dependent on the LA comleting its Strategic Housing Market Assessemnt. We anticipate a completion in early July. att
Transport: parking and road safety remain major concerns. A close link with the developing university masterplan and a promised holistic review of parking issues in Keele by Staffordshire County Council will be key in developing this policy.
Local Facilities: village facilities such as the pub, St Johns, shop and the village hall are significant assets. The policy will be concerned to ensure their sustainability as well as considering futher facilities such as a village green.
Business: Links with the university and the university’s master plan, the rural economy and supporting SME’s will all form an important part of this policy.
Environment: conserving the character, distinctiveness and heritage of the parish in a rapidly changing world.

I have attached Bernard’s presentation. Our next meeting will be at 19:00 on Tuesday 9th May, the venue is to be finalised but will not be the village hall.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me regarding the attached results. I would note that our question on housing assumed that additional houses would be built in the parish and could be seen as a leading. This was discussed in the design phase of the questionnaire and it was decided to include a question on what sort of housing residents would like to see developed as the Neighbourhood Plan exists to guide development and cannot prevent it. Nevertheless some respondents did note they wanted no further houses or only limited development as we anticipated. To remind us all, the lower ceiling for development lies outside our control and sits with the Borough and its developing Joint Local Plan. We can influence what is built and where.

Analysis of results from residents questionnaire

Questionnaire

Returns are now closed.  The overall response rate for areas outside of Campus was 72%.  Returns for campus were lower but strong in areas known to have high levels of long term occupancy.  Overall return rates were 44%.  I short, well done everyone who help either in acting as a Neighbourhood Rep or by filling in the questionnaire.

We are very grateful  to Helen and Melanie of the Education Survey & Research Service for transcribing the data from over 150 questionnaires and for Tim Denning and Mike Johnson for offering advice on analysis.  We are taking a number of routes to this but an initial approach is to generate word clouds to show themes and patterns for subsequent analysis.  As an opener, the cloud below shows answers to the question “What three things do you most like about living in Keele.  Meanwhile the student questionnaire is underway and should close at the end of March.

Our questionnaires are now just about all in but we are still open for late returns. Percentage returns are very healthy. The Student Questionnaire is now ready for distribution and will be mailed to all resident students in the next few days. Less good news is that Newcastle’s new Strategic Housing Market Assessment has been further delayed and will not now be available until the end of June. This means that our Housing Needs assessment will not be available until then as it needs the projections from the new SHMA. We knew it was going to be a long journey and we have plenty to be getting on with!