CLARION HOUSING GROUP LIMITED
AFFORDABLE | CLIMATE | DEVELOPERS | ECONOMY | FLOOD | HISTORY | HOMES LADDER | MORALS | POVERTY | PROPERTY | SLAVERY | TAXES | SLUMS | VALUATIONS | WEALTH
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GREENBELT - Digging up Greenfield sites for quick profits from windfall planning consents is ruining the heritage of the nation. Once it is gone, it is gone. Britain is short of genuinely affordable housing that developers are loath to provide where all they want it the money. It may be that Clarion Housing and Thakeham intend building affordable units on this site. They should also bear in mind the requirement for sustainable development in United Nations terms. Copyright photograph © April 26 2018, Herstmonceux Museum Limited. All rights reserved. You may not copy this picture except for educational use.
Clarion Housing Group Limited (Clarion) was created by a merger between Affinity Sutton Group Limited and Circle Anglia Limited in December 2016. It is a Community Benefit Society with charitable rules and is parent to 28 companies (excluding joint ventures).
Unregistered Entities - Clarion is parent to a number of companies the most significant being:
Details of recent name changes:
WD/2015/0090/ HERSTMONCEUX VILLAGE CONDITIONS A - Z INDEX
WATER CONTAMINATION - If houses are built on the hill that supplies the last surviving well in Herstmonceux, all of those who presently enjoy a sustainable water supply are likely to be poisoned by pesticides from the gardens of the proposed housing. In addition, where the hard standings of a proposal for 70 houses are to be gully drained to a point lower than the twin wells, soakage that supplies the wells will be diverted away potentially starving the wells of water and increasing pesticide accumulations from the proposed garden areas. The amusing cartoon above portrays the situation that perhaps the developers were not aware of, when they bought into a situation that they should have been able to rely on - if there had been a competent appraisal by Wealden District Council, the County Archaeologist and the Environment Agency. Unfortunately, the council concerned and the advisers to the original applicants appear to have been less diligent than they might have been in the rush to profit from a windfall situation. The developers in this case are confirmed to be: Clarion Housing Group, Thakeham Homes and Latimer Developments. Previously, the site was owned by Tim Watson and then Gleeson Developments. We understand that Mrs Claire Turner and Christopher Bending are two of the planning officers now with responsibility for this application which reached the detailed (reserved matters) stage in August of 2018.
Details of recent transfer to the society:
GEOGRAPHIC
SPREAD AND SCALE
POSSIBLE REASONS FOR CALL IN OR JUDICIAL REVIEW - There are many reasons to doubt the validity of the grant of planning consent on this site where Kelvin Williams was the officer presenting information to the Area Plans South planning committee, and his presentations concerning Berwick have been shown to be ultra vires. We do not yet have the recordings of Mr William's assertions but are looking into obtaining a copy to review what was said to the members of this council and if the law quoted was accurate.
For one thing, it appears from this aerial photograph that there are many more public footpaths than are shown on the ordnance survey maps. We are hoping to gather more information as to different years and testimony from persons who have lived in Herstmonceux for over 20 years.
Proposals for sewage disposal appear to us to constitute a health risk and may well be unsustainable. This was a windfall site, not part of the quota for Herstmonceux village, which goes some way to explaining why it is that there are no schooling places for the children of the proposed residential development.
JOBS
(THE
GUARDIAN) - ABOUT CLARION HOUSING GROUP LIMITED
CLARIONS CLAIM TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
According to their website, Clarion Group claim that as part of their commitment to being a responsible business, Clarion Housing Group has created a sustainability strategy covering the whole of their Group and their approach to environmental
sustainability:
"Our focus
RAPE OF THE LAND - Greenbelt in the UK is being eaten up to fatten property developers up and buy them new Bentley and Rolls Royce motor cars, in the process destroying village life with unsustainable cramming and loss of open spaces, footpaths and the like. In the picture above you see soakage tests under way, in line with an ancient well at the foot of this hill. Not only are they raping the countryside but also poisoning a historic water supply. Copyright photograph © April 26 2018, Herstmonceux Museum Limited. All rights reserved. You may not copy this picture except for educational use.
WD/2015/0090/ HERSTMONCEUX VILLAGE CONDITIONS A - Z INDEX
CLIMATE CHANGE ACT 2008 & THE NATIONAL PLANNING POLICY FRAMEWORK
The Climate Change Act 2008 spells out the standards for emissions that add to global warming. These include houses that are as near energy self-sufficient as they might be and electric or other zero carbon vehicles.
The objective is to get the United Kingdom below 1990 emission levels by the year 2050. It's a tall order no matter how you look at it, requiring new houses to be built with energy harvesting features, none of which are evident on any plans as we write and must be included. Especially where Clarion claim to endorse sustainable policies.
ABOUT HERSTMONCEUX VILLAGE & PLANNING APPLICATION WD/2015/0090/MOA
The village at Herstmonceux is served by a very few local shops and one junior school that is overloaded. Locals are being priced out of the housing market steadily - a trend that is not in accord with a sustainable society. How then will a dubious windfall grant of permission for seventy houses that were not in the local plan, suddenly find the services for those houses - where services are already stretched? Most villagers believe that this was a moment of madness on the part of the Area Plans South Committee, where they followed flawed guidance from Kelvin Williams, quite possibly as was granted in the village of Berwick, but was undone when a Judicial Review revealed flawed advice from Wealden's planning officers.
THE APPLICANTS
The original application to develop this land was filed in December 2014 in the name of Tim Watson and (possibly joint) land owner Sue Goldsmith. This application was withdrawn and a second identical application was filed in January of 2015 in the name of Gleeson Developments Limited. The proposal was approved subject to negotiations as to reserved matters which included drainage for the 70 houses proposed.
According to Wealden's Administration & Technology Manager, the applicant, Clarion Housing Group is working with Thakeham Homes Ltd, a company that appears to specialise in village developments, as far as we can see from their website. This is not surprising given the veritable land rush in 2014-2015 when councils were handing out consents like confetti hoping to make up for their lack of foresight in the provision of affordable housing in years gone by.
According to their website: "MJ Gleeson plc specialises in urban housing regeneration and strategic land trading. Latest Share Price: £ 567.00p at 11th January 2016." It is important to note the "Land Trading" element in the context of planning approvals that may have been pushed through on a very narrow margin and with some advice by planning officers that was not full, contained misquotes as to statute and the Local Plan, and failed to advise on other material considerations.
OBJECTIONS
Apart from the fact that there are no places at the local school and public transport is one bus every hour from Stagecoach - with journey times to Eastbourne of around an hour, Herstmonceux benefits from a very rare generating building from the turn of the century that is now a working Museum, and that Museum is linked historically to the Windmill at Windmill Hill. At the moment you can see across the field from the public footpaths to both buildings - one of the rarest views in the world - and a reminder of the days when windmills ground flour for a local bakery to bake the daily loaves.
This generating building relies on water from an ancient well and the well is at the foot of the hill on which Gleeson Developments would like to build around 70 houses. A blot on the landscape maybe, but it gets worse. Water from the hill feeds the ancient well. It follows that any land contamination from the construction process, or in years to come from the domestic development, will filter down to the water table and enter the well water. The water level in the well rises and falls with rainfall from the gently sloping hill. There is no escaping this fact. But so far there have been no assurances or confirmation of a Bond to cater for future claims.
HINKLEY,
CALIFORNIA - GROUND WATER CONTAMINATION - The
town of Hinkley, California,
located in the Mojave Desert, (about 121 miles driving distance
north-northeast of Los Angeles) had its groundwater contaminated with
hexavalent chromium starting in 1952, resulting in a legal case against
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and a multimillion-dollar
settlement in 1996. The legal case was dramatized in the film Erin
Brockovich, released in 2000.
TAINTED CONSENT
That would mean that every person buying a house on this field would be first in the chain of litigation claims. All the householders would need to do is allow herbicides and pesticides from their gardens to enter the watercourse. The same goes for engine oils and paints.
Knowing that this is sure to be a future issue, the Museum operators will need to constantly monitor activities in the field next door to be able to prove who the culprits are. The house owners, even if they are at fault, will then need to claim against their house insurance - and they may well find that they are not covered where no 106 Agreement exists and there is no Bond to cater for contamination claims. If their home insurance covers claims against negligent development, and/or the grant of a permission that then proves to be void, their homes would have to be demolished. In such cases the developers would need to compensate the home buyers for not making appropriate provision and/or otherwise safeguarding the planning consent.
It may also be that where this field suffers from flooding at the other end, that has to be provided for at the design stage, that remedial and preventative drainage is likely to alter subsoil water flow characteristics - leading to wider claims, such as with landslip. It all depends on the soil characteristics and geological strata juxtaposition.
At the moment the local authority are being asked to explain which of their officers provided information to the committee who passed the application. Other questions also need to be answered as to Declarations of Interest, since this application was passed by only one vote. It may well be that after scrutiny, the planning consent is deemed to be void. Members voting on applications need to do so on an informed basis. If there is any failure to advise on the part of the officers, such as Kelvin Williams, the district planning officer. The Chief Executive officer of this council is Charlie Lant.
CONSTRUCTION
In light of the above, every stage of the construction process will need to be monitored to be sure that if the development goes ahead despite the know issues, that there is a photographic record of who did what. We are off to a good start with exploratory holes being dug at the top of the hill near an specimen oak and another exploratory hole or trench being dug not many feet from the ancient well.
FOR THE RICH & THOSE ON BENEFITS
On their website Gleeson say: "Owner occupiers shoulder responsibility for their homes & are stakeholders in society, which is why we refuse to sell our homes to private landlords. We are happy to see our customers profit from their purchase but we do not wish to put the profit into the pockets of private landlords."
The truth is that the houses that will be built on this field in Herstmonceux will be bought by private landlords for renting. This is what is happening in the village and outlying hamlets. Why? Because working families cannot afford to live in Herstmonceux, with own transport being a prerequisite and these days that means two cars per family. Families on low incomes will qualify for Housing Benefit and on that benefit landlords grow fat. It is only with Housing Benefits that these houses will be occupied - making the affordable housing situation worse.
CLARION HOUSING G CONTACTS
.....
CLARION CUSTOMER CARE
Existing home owners should contact the Customer Care department:
6 More London Place
WATER RIGHTS - Clarion Housing Group and Thakeham Homes are in danger of spoiling an ancient well that supplies water to many concerns in this vicinity. In the picture you can see a hired digger scooping out trenches to test drainage by pouring in water and measuring the rate of absorption by the soil. It seems to us that if you build houses on the ground that feeds the ancient well, that contamination from garden treatments such as Roundup and engine oils, etc., will find its way into this well leading to claims against the owners of the houses who would have been sold a pup, and/or against the Council for approving the proposal, by way of a negligence claim, and/or against the vendors or developers. Any way you look at it the developers and Council concerned should take steps to ensure that no development takes place until the proper tests and evaluations have been completed, and after that stage, to ensure that any houses built in this location will not be on a path that includes the water table that feeds the ancient well.
Any failure to conduct the proper tests and house situation, along with safe sewage disposal, may tempt the Secretary of State to call in the application. We imagine that all of those with a financial interest in this piece of greenbelt will want to resolve issues before it starts to get complicated. Copyright photograph © April 26 2018, Herstmonceux Museum Limited. All rights reserved. You may not copy this picture except for educational use.
LINKS & REFERENCE
https://www.latimerhomes.com/ https://thakeham.com/ https://www.clarionhg.com/ http://www.pge.com/ http://mj.gleeson-homes.co.uk/ http://www.gleeson-homes.co.uk/ http://www.taylorwimpey.co.uk http://www.taylorwoodrowinternational.com
Taylor
Wimpey
WD/2015/0090/ HERSTMONCEUX VILLAGE CONDITIONS A - Z INDEX
LOS
ANGELES (LA) TIMES APRIL 2015
This
year, a final cleanup plan is moving toward approval. Last month, a
long-awaited, five-year study to determine how much contamination
PG&E may be responsible for finally got underway.
Since
then, hundreds of residents have left. Property values dropped because
of the stigma surrounding the town, and PG&E launched a buyout
program.
Starting in 2010, PG&E offered to either provide clean water or buy properties of residents whose wells tested positive for chromium.
Smith
said that when the program was announced, there was a high level of
anxiety in the community and many residents wanted to sell their
properties rather than take the water. The company, he said, wants to
see Hinkley thrive.
Between
2010 and October 2014, when the program was formally discontinued,
PG&E purchased about 300 properties, he said.
But
despite the progress, many Hinkley residents still worry about how much
chromium 6 will remain in the water. PG&E is required to clean up to
the levels at which chromium 6 naturally occurs in the groundwater — a
number known as the background level.
Although
levels of chromium 6 nearest to the compressor station — where no
residents remain — exceed that by large numbers, PG&E's testing in
domestic wells elsewhere in the community shows chromium 6 levels below
10 parts per billion, most often between 0 and 5, Sullivan said.
Banks
solicited help from John Izbicki, a U.S. Geological Survey research
hydrologist who has studied naturally occurring chromium 6 in the Mojave
Desert. With pressure from residents, PG&E acknowledged that its
earlier study was lacking. It is paying for a five-year study led by
Izbicki that is expected to conclusively determine the background level.
GENUINELY AFFORDABLE HOME EXAMPLE - A nicely integrated solar home - as far as we know the 1st proposed. Flatpack building offers truly affordable housing for a sustainable society. A sustainable society is one where landlords do not earn immoral earnings from the backs of the young. the whole basis of Conservative politics is to keep the landed gentry, landed. A circular economy is one that is fair. High rents are simply not fair.
Why should some people have to work all of their lives and never own their own home. If you work it out, those paying extortionate rents to private landlords will be paying more for accommodation during their lifetime than those who can afford to get on the property ladder.
One solution is to build more affordable houses. Every citizen should start out on the basic premise that he or she is mortgage-able. That can only be the case if society makes it so. At the moment the State discriminates against the poorer members of society in Article 14 terms, with councils geared up to pay high rents, but not prepared to ensure that affordable houses are available to rent or buy in their area.
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