Wednesday 3 February 2016

Castle Eden crematorium plans rejected - yet again

We were at the county council's strategic planning committee again yesterday afternoon, along with members of Castle Eden parish council and residents from the village, to speak in opposition to Dignity plc's highly contentious proposals to build a crematorium on land opposite the former brewery site in Castle Eden and adjacent to Castle Eden Golf Club (please see posts dated Thursday 5 February 2015, Saturday 20 June 2015 & Thursday 23 July 2015 for a detailed history of our involvement in this matter).



We are delighted to report that once again the members of the planning committee listened carefully to our objections and refused consent for the development. We based our opposition on a number of carefully considered and reasoned factors including a loss of residential amenity, increased traffic generation, impact on the golf club, a return of crime at the access road to the site and finally the real dangers posed by stray golf balls, particularly from the 3rd and 4th tees at the neighbouring golf club.

Members of the planning committee were persuaded by our opposition arguments and rejected the application on the grounds that the development would compromise safety for people on the site of the proposed crematorium. This is precisely the same conclusion reached by the national planning inspector when a previous, almost identical, planning application submitted by Dignity plc was dismissed on appeal last year. 

This is now the third time that Dignity plc's plans for a crematorium have been rejected, twice by the strategic planning committee at county hall and once by the national planning inspector. 

We sincerely hope that Dignity plc will now react in good faith and finally acknowledge the total opposition locally to their proposals and then do the decent and dignified thing and focus their attentions elsewhere, leaving Castle Eden and its residents in peace.

We have published below the arguments we used when we addressed planning committee members yesterday:

Members of this planning committee rejected an almost identical planning application to this one in April 2014.

The reasons then were stated as:

“the development, by reason of its nature & location, would diminish the levels of amenity that residents of Castle Eden can reasonably expect to enjoy and would adversely affect the enjoyment of users of the surrounding countryside”

We struggle to see what is different now.

We would again like to emphasise the strength of objection last time in noting that there was absolutely no community support. This total objection remains. This application has been described to us by a resident as a square peg in a round hole. We also note a significant increase in risk associated with traffic generation at this location.

Very little has changed in this new application. The applicant has proposed an extra barrier with an open access road during the day and has also suggested moving the Garden of Rest to the centre of the site.

Critically though, the problem of stray golf balls and the risk and fear of crime have not gone away.

Remember DCC planners did not highlight these problems, the Inspector did at appeal.  We believe there are shortfalls & omissions in the original committee report and together we will demonstrate these failings have been repeated.

We do not accept there is sufficient justification to reconsider this application as outlined in paragraphs 123/4 of the committee report.

There is legislation to prevent aggressive developers submitting repeated applications, trying to wear down opponents by attrition. Planners have chosen not to use it and we think this is a mistake.

Phil Barclay, who is on the Management Committee of Castle Eden Golf Club, and a resident of Castle Eden, will talk in detail about the dangers posed by stray golf balls but we would like to say a few words first about how this application will affect the Golf Club itself.

We attended a demonstration on the golf course to get an idea of how far and how hard golf balls can be hit from the tee boxes on the 3rd and 4th holes.

We were amazed at the distance golf balls can travel. There is no doubt that if a person was hit with a golf ball struck with that ferocity it would cause serious injury, and perhaps worse, as many previous examples will attest.

At the demonstration, from the 4th tee box, the ball was being hit more than 100 yards beyond the boundary of the proposed crematorium site, so if there was a miss- hit then all buildings, car parks and public areas would easily be in range, and thereby at risk of being hit.

We have spoken with golf club officials on several occasions and we are all concerned that the planners show no evidence of having considered case law affecting sports clubs and adjacent developments. 

In their objections to the planning application members of the golf club highlighted several very relevant cases we should be learning from.

There is a fundamental point here about allowing developments in areas where it is known there will be consequential claims for nuisance and damages.

We’ll briefly give two examples:

The nearby Lintz Cricket Club is relevant in this regard. Cricket balls were damaging houses that were allowed to be built on the boundary of the cricket field. Lord Denning determined that “the newcomer status of the plaintiffs was fatal to their claim and they “should never have given permission for the houses to be built”

A case from 2014 in Hampshire is also relevant.  A house owner on a cricket club boundary lost his case, Justice Lang ruling that the proposed development created unacceptable risks, not merely for occupants of the house but also for the cricket club in the form of potential legal liabilities. The planning permission was subsequently quashed.

We feel that planners ought to reference such cases in committee reports and we would be interested to know the county council’s legal position if an application is allowed, in the knowledge that claims for damages are highly likely?

We are bemused how the report can state with confidence “there remains a risk the occasional golf ball would land in the publicly accessible areas” and there would be “an acceptable level of safety”.

Our reading of the report is that only the architect commissioned by Dignity, who has never even set foot on the golf course at Castle Eden, supports this line. Yet it is not accepted by the Management Committee of Castle Eden Golf Club, whose collective knowledge of the course must be better than that of anyone else.

Tim Jenkins, the golf pro at Castle Eden, Jonathan Gaunt, a golf course architect with an extensive international CV and experience and Graeme Storm, a professional golfer who plays on the European golf tour, all highlight the danger of stray golf balls and the associated risk of serious injury.

We would quote from Jonathan Gaunt’s report “where a local authority has taken professional advice (from two golf course architects) the planning refusal, or consent, needs to make reference to this – in terms of responsibility, should an incident occur in the future as a result of an errant golf ball.”

It should be noted that Mr Gaunt feels “there is an unacceptable risk of serious injury or fatality to employees working within the margins, or to a member of the public straying from the designated area.”

And finally, please note that even Dignity’s own architect concedes in his report, as quoted in section 117 of the committee report “that of the thousands of golf balls struck every year on holes 3 and 4 it is not possible to guarantee that one will not cross the 80m margin and land within the public areas of the proposed crematorium.”

In other words, they cannot guarantee that a stray golf ball will not land on any part of the proposed site, including those accessible to the public.

We believe that is a critical point and we would ask you to keep it foremost in your mind when it comes to reaching a decision on this application.