Burntwood Action Group

This letter has been sent to Lichfield District Council in response to the new Lichfield District Core Strategy Policy Directions April 2009 document. We believe that this letter can represent all of our Local Residents and in doing so confirms and preserves the acceptable position we have achieved from the previous consultation process. It is the committees belief that there is no merit in residents answering the LDC yes/no questionnaire as that exercise does not cover the core issues relating to future building in Burntwood & Hammerwich.

We would encourage any individual residents who may wish to write directly to the LDC to do so.  BAG continues to represent the Burntwood Area in opposing Green Belt Development and any resident is welcome to comment or contribute to our cause via this webpage.

As promised 6 members of the BAG Committee attended the meeting along with representative from other sections of our Alliance Group. We are please to report it was reiterated at this meeting that there were no proposals to develop any “greenbelt” land to the east of Burntwood. However the fight is far from over – LDC have decided that the revised Local Development Core Strategy Plan will be issued for further consolation. The Authorities have agreed to forward this documentation directly to us. On receipt of this information we will keep you all informed as what will be required of us. It may be that we can respond as a group or we may have to repeat our successful petition campaign.

On March the 18th the Environment and Development Oversight and Scrutiny Committee meeting took place. We have already reported on what took place during this meeting, however we now have the format of the meeting available for download. Simply click here to view it or right click and choose “Save link as” or “Save target as” to save it to your computer.

This will help to give you a summary of the meeting and what was decided.

Link – Core Strategy Preferred Options: Consultation Responses

Download the Local Development Framework Core Strategy Consultation Responses by right clicking here and choosing “Save target as” or “Save link as”.

This report considers the responses made to the recent Core Strategy Preferred Options consultation. It also recommends a process of further consultation on the direction of policies. Reference is made to Burntwood in this document and it’s well worth a read.

Links – Report – Lichfield District Council

On 24th February representatives of the following seven groups met to discuss the possibility of a joint strategy for opposing plans for development on greenfield sites in the Lichfield-Burntwood area:

Beacon Street Area Residents Association Borrowcop & District Residents Association Burntwood & Hammerwich Action Group Burntwood Action Group Leomansley Area Residents Association South Lichfield Residents Group Woodhouses Action Group.

Burntwood Action Group hosted the inaugural meeting and its representative Cyril Wilson outlined its vision of an alliance of local Groups opposing Lichfield District’s plans in its Core Strategy to build 8000 homes, mainly on green belt.

Whilst the main focus of some of the Groups was on other issues, all agreed that protection of our surrounding greenbelt was an issue that was worth joining forces to fight for.

A letter approved by all those attending has been sent to Lichfield District Council to inform them of the formation of this alliance and to ask its officers to provide a representative of each Group with the following:

· Dates, times and venues of all meetings relevant to the Core Strategy.
· Permission to attend appropriate meetings as observers.
· Minutes of each of those meetings.
· Agreement that any votes be on a “named vote” basis so that individual councillor’s votes are recorded in the minutes.
· Lists of councillors names on relevant sub-committees.

Copies of the letter were sent to the Chief Executive of Lichfield District Council, all its councillors and the Member of Parliament.

The formation of the alliance was agreed by all those present and the following joint strategy was adopted:

· A full exchange of information between groups.
· Combined pressure on councillors.
· Joint approach to Lichfield District Council to make them aware that we are concerned about protecting all our surrounding green belt and are not just NIMBIES.
· Future meetings to be on a rolling basis with the next one to be hosted by South Lichfield Residents Group.

We have now published our first newsletter which you can read here. This should be appearing in letterboxes across the area very soon indeed. If you want to pass this onto someone who hasn’t received it or doesn’t have a computer, just right-click here and choose “Save Target As” to put it on your computer – then just print it out and pass around.

We also have new ways for you to be part of our campaign – click here to add your email address and we will inform you of news as and when it happens. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Should you have any questions or queries, just hit the “Contact Us” button and we’ll get back to you. We also have a poll on the right-side of the site which you can take part of – show your support by placing your vote!

We would like to thank everyone for their support so far. We achieved in excess of 2000 letters of protest to the council.

So far all funding for the campaign has come from the pockets of the committee. Any donations would be gratefully received as we still have plenty to do. Cheques should be made out to “Burntwood Action Group” and delivered or posted to..

Burntwood Action Group
37 Farewell Lane
Burntwood
Staffs
WS7 9DW

We’ve received some excellent coverage of our campaign in local newspapers. You can read how the Lichfield Mercury have covered developments.  Just click this link to find out more.