Core Strategy (Issues and Options): Riverland (Amenity, Biodiversity and Proximity) Part Two
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Enclosed at its perimeter by four roads, (the A164, the A 1035, the A165 and the B1249), and by the many settlements that are variously connected by them is an extensive area of land that is coursed through by the River Hull and the different sorts of tributary that feed into it. For the sake of brevity and a name I will call this place “Riverland”. Riverland exists on the map in much the same sense that it did 200 years ago. Then, the road names weren’t there and the A165 was a somewhat sinuous shadow of its present form, but as an extent of landscape surrounded by discrete but identified and connected human settlement it has stayed itself. To judge by the National “Tranquillity” Map, recently produced by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), Riverland has remained a patch of quietness even though its surroundings have become busier. This, I believe, is the key to the importance of Riverland since the East Riding LDF, in whatever form it finally takes, will ensure that those surroundings become busier still.
In the draft Regional Strategic Study (RSS) mentioned earlier, a method of Settlement Hierarchy was used to identify four, so called, Principal Towns in the ERoY – namely Beverley and Driffield and Goole and Bridlington – which were to be considered as of equivalent status below Hull, identified itself as a Regional City. According to the draft RSS, Principal Towns should be the main focus for housing, employment, shopping leisure education, health and cultural activities and facilities. Consequently, East Riding’s LDF will have, as centres of development, the four Principal Towns identified by the RSS Settlement Hierarchy However, the Issues and Options consultation paper on the Core Strategy, (CS-I&O), considers several options as to the degree of development of these Principal Towns, (and seeks your preference between them). Whatever option is chosen will inform the approach to development finally adopted in the LDF.
Recognising the important relationship between the East Riding and Hull means that some housing development will be reserved for the major Haltemprice settlements of Cottingham, Willerby and Kirkella, Anlaby and Hessle. However, the emphasis in future housing development, (between 35% and 55% depending on the option adopted), will likely lie with the Principal Towns.
The housing requirement set by the Government, during the period for which the LDF applies, (2011 – 2026), is a minimum of 1.190 dwelling per annum. This means that between them the Principal Towns will have to accommodate, at a minimum, between 417 and 655 new dwellings each year. However, as the Issues and Options paper points out, (CSI&O: 4.91), the level of completions over the period 2003/04 – 2006/07 was some 40% higher than the requirement. Moreover, when “affordable housing needs” are taken into account, it is suggested, (CSI&O: 4.95), that a “headline figure of need” of 1455 dwelling per annum be regarded as “an indication of the scale of the problem rather than a target figure” and it is further stated that to meet such a target would require 4,000 dwellings to be built per year, (and again presumably, with 35% - 55% of the burden of new development falling on the Principal Towns). Some development will be earmarked for types of settlement lower in the Settlement Hierarchy, the so called Local Service Centres, by which I understand is meant an identified number of smaller towns of the size of Pocklington. These will, (depending on the option adopted), absorb between 45% and 30% of the new housing. Below these in the Settlement Hierarchy come the Market Villages for whom the extent of development is intended to allow for local business and community needs only: (between 15% and 10% of new development but with an aspired to emphasis on affordable housing – (see Table 7 CSI&O)). Which of the East Riding settlements will be identified as Market Villages remains to be seen but the general idea is to steer development in rural areas towards a specified number of villages.
The present population of the East Riding is about 315,000. But current population predictions estimate an increase in the East Riding Population to 2029 of 77,000 people. Of course, if this is a Home Office figure it’s probably an underestimate.
In any event, what the above implies is a considerable increase in urban development in Driffield and Beverley and possibly in one or two of the lesser settlements around Riverland as well. Protecting Riverland as an amenity should therefore, become more important as time passes.
We should be careful not to devalue Riverland with commonly used tools like the Landscape Character Assessment since it is bound to suffer thus by invidious comparison with the distant Yorkshire Wolds. And whatever deficiencies appear from considerations of its Landscape Quality, these are in large measure a consequence of the use to which Riverland has customarily been put. What matters is the proximity of the urban settlements everywhere around it, (though particularly in the West), and that these settlements are being planned to significantly enlarge. What also matters is the fact of the river at the quiet heart of Riverland and the wonderful totality of that environment.
With Riverland there lies the rare chance for a managed remoteness on the doorstep of every inhabitant of the urban settlements nearly-distant around it and with benefits as well for the flora and fauna that flourish within. Moreover proximity to such an asset provides a justification for greater housing densities in the planned extensions to the surrounding urban environment and at a time when the efficient use of land is everywhere a priority. The 5 or 6 SSSIs that flourish within Riverland should remain – but with their biodiversity protected in a wider landscape itself accessible on foot and cycle, (CSI&O 7.29, 7.30 and 7.31). Access is presently quite good throughout Riverland. Nevertheless, the footpath network can sometimes seem inconsistent and even incoherent. It warrants extension and general improvement and the focused use of ERYC monies to support extended rights of access within it, through contractual agreement between council and landowners, could be a fruitful and justified use of Council resources. The benefits of open spaces do not have to come through the purchase or gift of defined parcels of land, which are then classified as “Open Space”. Footpaths afford most of the same benefit but extending much more widely though the landscape, give a wider sense of right and stakeholder-ship in it. High and rising fuel costs will increase the value in a landscape of “proximity” and in my view it is this which raises Riverland to a place beside the Wolds in the East Riding’s inventory of landscape assets. The draft RSS “recognises that the East Riding has relatively few trees and areas of woodland and encourages tree planting, especially within areas of functional floodplain.” (CSI&O 7.33). Riverland is a place aching for enhancement by a managed programme of tree and other plantings as well as by extension of a footpath network to get them public access.
But in general, Riverland needs to be left to be rather than be made to be. In my view, it is a place that in the interest of all its inhabitants, human and otherwise, should be left to the walking and cycling that the LDF so much wants to encourage.
A key issue for the CS-I&O, when considering countryside areas, is to balance the provision of tourist accommodation with the potential for adverse impacts on the environment (6.36 CS-I&O). Very often, for its inhabitants, the local amenity of an area exists precisely where the “visitor environment” is not and a distinction in land use, in emphasis at least, needs to be made between “visitor” and “resident” landscape assets. What the East Riding of Yorkshire does not need, as a place to live rather than to visit, is capitulation to the special pleading of tourism and landowners for more and more caravan and holiday parks in rural locations. As a local amenity, what Riverland does not need is the sort of enhancement with which the coastal strip of the East Riding has been afflicted, (6.33 CSI&O).
Money-making is the easiest thing in the world to justify and any profit however it is made will always have an excuse. That is why we are where we are now.
However, if tourism is one threat to local amenity a more immediate threat is from Wind-Farms. Presently two Wind-farms threaten Riverland. The first of these is at Routh for which planning has been refused but on behalf of which an appeal against the ERYC decision is pending. The second threat, at Rotsea, exists presently only as a proposal but the nature and scale of what is proposed is well known and full planning approval is expected to be sought in due course.
Both of these threats should be resisted.
As I have tried to emphasise above, a principal value of Riverland as a landscape resides in its proximity to the significant areas of urban settlement all around it, several of which can be expected to undergo continual significant enlargement during 2011 - 2026 but all or which would benefit from Riverland’s near-distant remoteness. However, it is actually quite a compact landscape and very often, with what is visible from here and there within it, there comes the sense of it entirety. A wind-farm situated at Rotsea and right at the heart of Riverland will overwhelm this landscape and the Routh wind-farm, though more peripheral and with smaller turbines, would dominate its southern half even so.
The idea that any wind-farm could provide a focus for “green tourism” is simply fatuous. Aversion now and avoidance later are the natural responses to such rural industrialisation.
The CS-I&O document points out that the RSS expects 41MW of electricity to be generated from renewable energy in the East Riding by 2010 and 148MW by 2021 and that taken together the proposals so far submitted have a combined potential capacity to deliver over 230MW of capacity, (nearly double the target set for 2021) – (CS-I&O 6.67 and 6.68). Elsewhere in the document, attention is drawn to places elsewhere in the East Riding such as Withernsea and South East Holderness which with the “decline of the British seaside resort” now suffer from “issues related to their peripherality” and their position east of Hull and where the challenge remains to find new ways to boost the local economy by encouraging new forms of employment (CS-I&O 2.35). There would be a huge opportunity cost to pay for losing Riverland to a few scarcely needed Megawatts of wind-farm Capacity and where there are other locations within the East Riding which would be more suitable.
Would a place like Riverland be a draw for employers? I think so Moreover, it could be a draw for precisely the kind of employment that the EYoC is trying to attract. I am not talking here of business sectors such as tourism or “food and drink” of which we have plenty. Nor am I talking about the Logistics and Ports or Manufacturing and Engineering also identified as business sectors operating within the East Riding offering the greatest potential to improve the area’ economic performance but which will tend to preponderate along the “East West multi-modal freight transport corridor” aligned West to East between Goole and Hull (CSI&O 6.40). What I am talking about are those business sectors which require a more contemplative context for their success, namely the digital and creative industries, (and even the financial sector). Presently these are concentrated in and around Hull, (the BBC), and Howden, (the Press Association). But why not also, in the vicinity of the urban settlements around Riverland, where imaginative policies for rural diversification coupled with good policies for building design or re-use could revitalise the local economy but preserve landscape amenity?
Riverland has the potential for a park-like amenity commensurate with every-day use. And, in the national context at least, it would be peerless as such.
We should be careful what we do with Riverland which should have a place of special consideration in the Core Strategy document and in the Local Development Framework that it is intended to inform.
As indicated above each different group of LDF Objectives has a chapter devoted to itself in the CS-I&O document, (chapters 4 – 8 inclusive). Within each chapter each group of LDF Objectives is considered at the level of a number of sub-headings or “issues” and the options available for each of these issues are then considered. So for the Spatial Strategy group of LDF objectives there are 10 issues considered which are listed SS1 – SS10 and for each issue two or more “options” are offered. Thus SS1 concerns itself with Flood Risk, (to allow development in high risk flood zones or not), and SS9 with the Distribution of Development, (Focus on Haltemprice, or Strengthen the role of the Principal Towns, or strengthen the role of Haltemprice and the Principal Towns, or continue Current Trends). For the Prosperous Economy group of LDF objectives there are no less than 11 “issues”, (PE-1 to PE-11). It is at this level of the CS-I&O document, that another document, the Sustainability Appraisal, seems important. This paper, produced independently of the ERYC purports to gauge the options available to each issue by a set of Sustainability Appraisal Objectives of which there are 20 listed and which amount, I suspect, to the Government’s policy wish list, (but in any event are not to be confused with the Proposed Objectives for the LDF mentioned above and with which we started out). They include, for example, an objective to improve air quality, (SA Objective Number 7), and one to reduce crime and the fear of crime, (SA Objective Number 2).
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