The Bitter Truth

1. The whole Lancaster District has just 3% of all its land designated as Green Belt. 11% of the little we have, along the Bay Gateway, was taken as a strategic site and has never been built on, yet developers want to take even more of the tiny amount that is left. 

 

2. In the City Council’s Call for Sites map there are a lot of sites put forward for development that are not designated as green belt. These should be built out first. Yet developers prefer green belt sites because they are often, as in our case, in attractive locations thereby securing maximum profits.

 

 

3. Green belt in our District was designated to serve a specific purpose, ‘the primary goal of the North Lancaster green belt is to prevent urban sprawl  and the merging of towns and villages’. The green belt between the villages of Slyne with Hest and Bolton le Sands has for decades and continues to effectively prevent the merging of the two historic villages. It has encouraged the urban recycling of land and prevented urban sprawl, all key conditions for green belt designation. The relief of the land also very effectively enhances this separation. 

 

 

4. A development building on half of the designated green belt area will compromise the effectiveness of the remaining green belt. A green belt review would conclude that any remaining green belt was performing its purpose only weakly leaving it open to losing designation and being itself lost to development. 

 

 

5. The City Council declared a Climate Emergency and with a people’s jury agreed that ‘Development in the Green Belt must be avoided.’ Encouraging development in the green belt is not a sustainable option for a number of reasons.

 

 

6. As with a lot of green belt sites being as they are, located on the edge of urban settlements, there is insufficient infrastructure to support large scale development. School and pre school places are limited. Parking around both of the nearest schools is already a big safety issue, the development’s location means many will use a car to access school. The location of both nearby schools is not conducive to accommodating a large volume of cars dropping off and collecting children and so any levy developers pay for impact on infrastructure will make no difference to this situation. 

 

 

7. Such a large number of new homes will put pressure on the already over stretched local provision of GP appointments resulting in more vehicle journeys, increasing the carbon footprint of the proposed development. 

 

 

8. Green belt sites used for development inevitably result in commuting. Slyne with Hest and Bolton le Sands are primarily dormitory villages. A6 is already a busy arterial road. There is virtually no local employment in the proposed area. 250 homes would mean a minimum  of 250 cars but potentially over 700 vehicles as many homes have 3+ vehicles now and lots of extra commuter journeys every day. Aside from the convenience factor of car use, bus services only run every hour, forcing people to use cars. 

 

 

9. There are no large retail outlets in the vicinity and so residents will need to travel some distance to access such services, resulting in more vehicle journeys. 

 

 

10. From Lancashire County Council’s Homes/ Lancashire Insight/  Area Profiles/ Lancaster District/ section 5 Environment and Transport,  ‘the total emissions from transport are particularly high in Lancaster. There are also much higher levels of particulate and sulphur dioxide emissions than most other authorities. In 2020 41.7% of the district's total of 1,267.7 tonnes of NOx were attributed to Road transport.’ 

 

 

11. The houses provided will for the majority not be truly affordable homes as their location’s stunning views across the Bay will command top prices. So loss of green belt will not contribute to solving the country’s housing crisis. 

 

 

12. Lapwings regularly use these fields, they are a Red listed species and should therefore be protected from loss of habitat. 

 

 

13. There is much ancient and mixed hedgerow in the fields providing habitat for small mammals and insects such as butterflies. 

 

 

14. Due to good habitat for prey, the area is also a hunting ground for owls and foxes. Bats and hedgehogs also use this land. 

 

 

15. The dark skies the land offers in between the two villages, allow the night sky to be seen away from light pollution and phenomena such as the aurora borealis can be viewed locally. 

 

 

16. The green lung the land provides offers a breathing space for locals between villages. It is a tranquil area where the views are stunning. Long views of the Lakeland Fells can be enjoyed by all. The sense of being out of the urban areas of Lancaster is strongly provided by the site proposed for development and the whole of this green belt area.

 

 

17. If the site were developed then such glorious views would be obliterated or seriously compromised for an enormous number of people from all over our District.

 

 

18. If the site is developed, the remaining piece of green belt will absolutely be also developed. Story homes already have it ear marked. If the Slyne with Hest area of the green belt is developed, the formally adopted Slyne Conservation Area will be negatively impacted.Part of this document refers to its setting including the long views from this area afforded by the green belt land to its northern and western edge. 

 

 

19. Lots of cattle with foot and mouth disease are buried in this area.

 

 

20. The relief of the site is such that development will result in surface water drainage issues. Historically, the public recreation area to the south of the site, enjoyed by a huge range of people of all ages, acts as natural soak away for the fields above.

 

 

21. Despite drainage works, this important public amenity regularly floods during periods of heavy rainfall. As our climate is changing and we receive more frequent heavy rain episodes, this  situation is only going to become worse. A development of the scale proposed is inevitably going to impact on flooding issues. 

 

 

22. The existing drainage infrastructure is at or nearing capacity and would require considerable investment to accommodate the extra load caused by this proposal.

 

 

23. Assuming 450 homes could be built across the green belt site in total and an existing  population of the two villages being around 8500, this would represent around 16% increase in the local population. This is a very large and sudden increase and disproportionate to the size of the existing settlement 

 

 

24. If the proposed site alone were to be developed, this would be an increase in population of around 18%. Such large increases are disproportionate to the size of the existing villages and place an unacceptable burden on local services and infrastructure.