Latest information 21st July

The July Cheltenham Borough Council meeting was held (virtually) on Monday. Importantly the Cheltenham Plan has at last been officially adopted.

Latest information as at March 17th

Our Local Green Space application has been found sound and justified, the full report is below.

The Inspectors Report to Cheltenham Borough Council
by Wendy J Burden BA DipTP MRTPI
an Inspector appointed by the Secretary of State
is now completed - 17 March 2020

• this landmark Report signals the end of a long process to determine the strategic future of the Leckhampton Fields. Although the battle to defend the Fields from unsustainable development goes back more than 20 years (and still continues), this most recent phase of the Joint Core Strategy (JCS) and Cheltenham Plan has been a very intense period of some 8 years.
• at the start of the JCS, the Leckhampton Fields were designated as a strategic site and assumed 1,124 dwellings. At the end of the JCS, we had defeated the 650 Bovis/Miller proposal on the grounds that it would have destroyed Valuable Landscape and that traffic implications would be severe, lost the land controlled by Tewkesbury Borough Council to Redrow's high density development of 377 houses, but reduced the scope of any further development of the Fields by the removal of its designation as a strategic housing site (meaning less than 450 houses could be built on that land). We also won the argument that our precious Valued Landscape within the Fields could be protected in perpetuity by classification as a Local Green Space (with its precise boundary to be designated within the Cheltenham Plan).
• within the Cheltenham Plan, we sadly witnessed another unjustifiable increase in proposed housing on the northern part of the Leckhampton Fields from 200 to 350 houses (inconsistent with the outcome of the JCS), plus the controversial addition of a new 900 pupil Secondary School on parts of our proposed Local Green Space. This new housing development by Miller and the new school have yet to achieve planning permission and have still to overcome substantial planning concerns on the impact of additional traffic.
• also within the Cheltenham Plan, we now have formal confirmation of our Local Green Space, a noteworthy and major success, given the Inspector's initial reservations about the overall size of our proposal and whether it was consistent with national policy.
• achieving Local Green Space designation is a result of close work between your Parish Council, LEGLAG, your elected Councillors and MPs, and other expert campaigners. We have much to be proud of and we thank our residents for their enthusiastic and valuable support during this long and difficult process.

Latest information as at January 27th

Current position on the Cheltenham Local Plan examination

Participants should regularly check the 'examination documents' section of the examination library for all up to date correspondence and documents submitted in relation to the examination.

27 January 2020: The council's response to the Inspector's request for further information has been published as ED041. Comments to the council's response are invited from respondents who made comments on the Main Modifications consultation by 5pm on Friday 14 February 2020 and should be submitted directly to the programme officer, tracey.smith@cheltenham.gov.uk.

Please see the Parish Council's response to the consultation in the document section below.

Please note that the Cheltenham Borough Council's Main Modifications consultation has now closed but you can still find details using the link below which can be accessed via the examination website.

The Proposed Main Modifications Consultation ran from 4 November 2019 to 16 December 2019 and key Main Modifications documents [ED038] have also been published on the examination library webpage.