We would like to say how delighted we are with the verdict from 5th January’s SWAT Planning Committee Meeting to overturn the Cleeve Hill housing application, adding another reason to the nine already cited as to why it is such a wrong-headed scheme.

It has validated our initial motivation to set up the action group (CHAG) in November 2021, and fulfilled the hopes of all our members and supporters (between 150-200 Facebook members and email contacts). We are extremely grateful to all of these people for their practical and financial contributions to the campaign whereby, when we set up the Gofundme page, we were able to raise over £4,000.

This came from generous donations from many individuals and groups, and enabled us to commission a legal planning expert, who wrote a powerful objection and appeared at the meeting on our behalf. We also had wonderful support from the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (who referred us to the solicitor) and who spoke very powerfully at the meeting.

We believe that our constant communication with council officers, politicians and interested parties over the past year have contributed to the application becoming a ‘squeaky wheel’, that they were unable to let pass without proper investigation, and all our many hours of research, investigation, reading, and writing, the meetings and and the door-to-door canvassing of support, have enabled us to slowly turn this application, that was poised to be passed (it only failed by one vote in 2020), into a success story for local people and our community.

It shouldn’t have to be this way. We should be able to rely on our systems to protect us from bad planning applications, but we have demonstrated that if you are prepared to put in the work then the outcomes can go in our favour. We hope this will encourage others to oppose similarly unsustainable developments and take back some control over our local environment.

Jan Martin, Alison Mills

For Cleeve Hill Action Group

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