Thorley Lane East Woods Update: Details of two previous REFUSED planning applications on the site
I have dug out the details of two previous planning applications on the site of the woods, and have had them published on the East Herts website. You can see the details here:
1994 Application (3/94/1094/OP):
https://publicaccess.eastherts.gov.uk/…/applicationDeta…2002 Application (3/02/2114/OP) :
https://publicaccess.eastherts.gov.uk/…/applicationDeta…According to the council documents, both applications were REFUSED by the council, taken to appeal and REFUSED at appeal too.
With two planning applications having already been rejected on the site, it makes me believe that it would be very hard for anyone to successfully gain planning permission today.
The land remains Green Belt and there are still Tree Preservation Orders on the site. This has not changed. I can see no way in which building houses on the Woods would be in the public interest or further the aims of local planning policy.
Cllr David Snowdon
Deputy Leader and Chairman of Finance Committee, Bishop’s Stortford Town Council
East Herts District Councillor
The main reasons given against the proposed developments in 1994 and 2002 were:
- the protected status of the woodland with TPOs;
- the proposal being inappropriate development within green-belt land, which forms a green wedge in the context of wider residential developments;
- the immediate loss of some trees, together with the general decline and instability in others due to root damage and a reduction in the rooting area;
- the development being visually intrusive;
- the development undesirably consolidating existing sporadic development and disrupting the pleasant rural character of this part of Thorley Lane; and
- the development being out of keeping with the pleasant rural character of the woodland and the appearance of the area generally.
It is important to note that these two planning applications (one of which went right up to appeal to the Secretary of State) envisaged the construction of a single dwelling on a corner plot within a small part of the Thorley Lane East Woods. This is, obviously, far less intensive and intrusive in scale than the current proposal of 12 development plots affecting the entirety of the current woodland site.
Interestingly, the Planning Inspectorate acknowledges that, whilst Thorley Lane East Woods may become isolated from the open countryside on account of the residential developments occurring across the town (in the form of Thorley Park and subsequently St. Michael’s Mead) and the changing character of the neighbourhood, it is expressly stated in the refusal decision that the wood is an “important and attractive feature in its own right which contributes to the quality of the local environment”.
If it was worth saving then, on the basis of the proposed limited encroachment, it is certainly worth saving now, when we are facing proposals for the wholesale destruction of the entire wood.
