Representation by Mrs Kathleen Edna Crook (Mrs Kathleen Edna Crook)
- Date submitted
- 9 January 2019
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
This registration as an interested party is made by Archie Read MRICS, a qualified chartered surveyor, acting for and on behalf of Mrs Kathleen Edna Crook, a Tier One landowner who has received a s.56 notice under The Planning Act 2008. The Crook family are local farmers who own and occupy land within the Scheme red line. They breed and rear cattle as well as cultivating arable crops, such as wheat, barley and oilseed rape.
- Treatment of the Stopped up Allington Track and Future Ownership
1.1. The Scheme proposes to stop up a section of the existing Allington Track immediately adjacent to the existing junction of the unclassified road with the A303. It is unclear at present whether the Scheme proposes to remove the existing metalled surface. Mrs Crook respectfully suggests in the strongest possible terms that this should be done and the area returned to a natural state. Not to do so would be failing in a duty of care, effectively discarding an area of brown field built environment once it has become surplus to requirement. Furthermore, leaving the current surface to degrade once routine maintenance ceases would risk leaching and contamination in the future. Other decommissioned metalled surfaces within the Scheme are to be broken out. The Allington Track should not be dealt with any less sensitively if the Scheme requires a section to be stopped up.
1.2. Both landowners adjoining the proposed section to be stopped up are Tier One landowners who will be subject to compulsory purchase under the current proposals. It is their wish and respectfully suggested as the most appropriate course of action that the freehold of the stopped up section, that will by that very action become surplus to highway requirement, be transferred to the adjoining landowners in equal proportions from the centre line of the existing carriageway.
- Re-instatement / Accommodation Works
2.1. Detailed designs and specifications relating to reinstatement and accommodation works such as boundary treatment/accesses, barriers/gate arrangements, future boundary maintenance etc is not currently available. If matters relating to re-instatement and accommodation works remain unresolved or outstanding then Mrs Crook may seek to address these further within the Examination process.
- Binding Undertaking in Respect of Position Statement
3.1. Consultation has taken place on behalf of Mrs Crook with Highways England and its advisers in respect of the proposed Scheme with the mutual objective of producing a ‘Position Statement’ detailing agreed matters. The completion of that document and similar documents with other Tier One landowners should reduce the necessary scope of the Public Examination. In order to achieve that objective there are two pressing requirements. Firstly, an increased commitment of resource by Highways England to address outstanding matters and supply necessary information in a timely fashion. Secondly, a written binding undertaking from the appropriate authority that all matters agreed in Position Statements are fully legally binding and irrevocable in nature. The early provision of such an undertaking would greatly assist progress.
- National Farmers’ Union (NFU) Representation
4.1. The NFU will be registering as an interested party on behalf of affected members and Mrs Crook may wish to further rely upon appropriate representations made by the NFU on her behalf.
- Additional Matters
5.1. This registration is intended to raise awareness of the scope of issues within the Scheme that are of concern to Mrs Crook. It is understood that further consultation will take place and provision for a more detailed written representation will arise. Mrs Crook wishes to reserve the right to include within that written representation any further areas of concern that may have been omitted in error, that may arise as additional detail is provided or become apparent through the ongoing consultation process.