OUR TWO local GP surgeries have fared magnificently well in a survey of patients by the NHS.
The people who actually use Highfield Surgery and the Simpson Centre, which includes Penn Surgery, put the GP practices in the top five in Buckinghamshire for overall satisfaction. Highfield came third and the Simpson Centre fifth.
Just over 100 patients were picked at random to give their views. At Highfield 89 per cent rated the surgery good and 88 per cent at the Simpson Centre. The national average was 75 per cent.
The reception and admin teams were judged to be helpful by 95 per cent of patients at Highfield and 88 per cent at Simpson; while 90 per cent at Highfield and 94 per cent at Simpson felt the health professional they spoke to was a good listener.
You can view the survey results in full on this link https://www.gp-patient.co.uk
Taylor Wimpey has a second go at building 544 houses in the Gomm Valley
DEVELOPER Taylor Wimpey has made a new attempt to build a major housing estate and other facilities in the Gomm Valley, between Hammersley Lane and Cock Lane, Tylers Green.
Its first application was rejected by a Government planning inspector last September.
He concluded that the A40 London Road would gridlock on the basis of traffic flow predictions presented to his inquiry.
Since then Taylor Wimpey has spent thousands commissioning a new system of predicting future traffic flows which it says is much more sophisticated than the previous model and which was suggested by the inspector.
Now the company says the new model shows there will be a negligible effect on traffic jams on the A40.
In fact, it claims motorists and bus passengers will only add 21 seconds to their A40 journey in the morning rush hour and 25 seconds in the evening peak.
Buckinghamshire Council is expected to make a decision on the revised application in November.
Taylor Wimpey’s magic wand – see a special report at the end of this blog.
Fish die; ponds are waterless in the driest summer for 49 years
THE LONGEST dry spell since the drought year of 1976 resulted in village ponds drying out and scores of small dead fish floating to the surface of Widmer Pond on Tylers Green Common, presumably through lack of oxygen.
Chepping Wycombe Parish Council, responsible for maintaining Widmer Pond, turned on taps to replenish the pond but it was too late for many fish.
Penn Parish Council, which maintains the other ponds in the village, none of which contain fish, said levels had dropped more than usual this summer.
Mike Morley, who chairs Penn’s Recreation and Open Spaces Committee, said: “We seek and follow advice from groups such as Chilterns Conservation Board or the Freshwater Habitats Trust who suggest that ponds should be allowed to fill and dry out naturally. Wildlife will adapt.
“Although water may not be seen in the likes of Wash Pond (in Beacon Hill) there is a deep organic layer in the bottom which is holding water.”
The dry weather meant that local arable farmers were able to begin harvesting in July, earlier than usual, but yields were said to be less than average.
Local news
Smartphone concern – Tylers Green Middle School has joined other primary schools in the area to work on guidelines for smartphone use. A survey of school parents earlier this year found many were concerned about how to set boundaries around screen time and use of social media.
Columns replaced – A routine inspection of the street lighting columns in Elm Road/Hazlemere Road has found that 11 need replacing, two of them before the end of the year. The parish council agreed to replacing all 11 at a cost of nearly £19,000.
Recycling achievement – The demolition of the 1960s extension to the former Penn School was completed last month, with 95 per cent of the material demolished being recycled. The remaining Victorian building is being transformed into a luxury hotel complex, to be called Rayners Penn, in a £93million project. Contractors are being appointed for the next stage of the work.
Palestine call – Sarah Green, Penn and Hazlemere MP, (Lib Dem Chesham and Amersham) has lent her name in support of an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons calling on the Government to recognise the state of Palestine.
Church retirement – Peter Simpson, the minister of Penn Free Methodist Church, retired last month after 35 years in the role.
School retirement – Mr K. Hazell has retired as a caretaker and lollipop man at Tylers Green Middle School after seven years service.
New role – Cathy O’Leary, former Village Voice editor, has been co-opted as a parish councillor on Chepping Wycombe Parish Council, which covers Tylers Green, Loudwater and Flackwell Heath.
New bounce – The parish council is to spend around £5,000 replacing the worn out trampoline in the children’s play area in Ashley Drive recreation ground.
New boilers – More efficient boilers have been installed to heat Tylers Green First School in time for the new school term.
Autumn jumble – The next Penn and Tylers Green scouts jumble sale will be held in the village hall on Saturday 18 October.
Council says it can’t afford to oversee privacy rules so it shuts down public debate instead
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE Council has at last come clean over its controversial decision to block publishing comments from the public on planning issues.
The council made its decision without consultation earlier this year and it met with a furious response from residents groups.
The Penn and Tylers Green Residents’ Society said it was “sidelining public voices during a critical time when national government pressures are mounting for mass housing development.” The Beaconsfield Society said the move was “madness” and “deeply concerning.”
Initially, the council’s cabinet was told the ban was needed due to changes to the rules of what’s called the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), a set of nationally agreed rules governing privacy.
But the council then changed its tune and said that wasn’t the case. It said it had simply “reviewed its approach to protecting the personal information of individuals under GDPR rules,” but didn’t elaborate.
Now the council has told Wycombe (and Tylers Green) MP Emma Reynolds that it can’t afford to employ people to oversee data protection laws.
“We have become increasingly concerned that personal data, including sensitive personal data, may be inadvertently published online in breach of our legal responsibilities,” Cllr Michael Bracken, deputy cabinet member for planning, told Ms Reynolds.
“The only way to try to ensure that the council does not run the risk of breaching data protection laws would be for a team of officers to read and redact the representations prior to publication.”
He added: “Despite careful stewardship of council finances, we are simply not in a position to employ people to undertake this task.”
Neighbouring local authorities are more transparent and accountable on the issue however.
Councils covering Windsor and Maidenhead, South Oxfordshire and Berkhamsted (Three Rivers) all publish public views once council officers have checked them in the unlikely event of a data breach. Dacorum Council (Hemel Hempstead area) redacts addresses but publishes comments.
*In a further act of censorship, Buckinghamshire Council has told Penn Parish Council that councillors will not be able to see public comments on the Buckinghamshire Local Plan, which is due to the published this month. The plan will indicate where Buckinghamshire Council will likely allow new developments in the coming years. Instead, Bucks said it will produce a “statement of consultation” , edited by planning officials, which will incorporate any public comments made.
The end of an era – after 200 years the Howes exit the House of Lords
THERE’S been an Earl Howe in the House of Lords for 204 years – most of them resident at Penn House – but by the time Parliament finishes its current session the existing Earl Howe will no longer be part of it.
He, along with the other 91 hereditary peers, will be officially banned from sitting in the Lords once the King puts his signature to the bill removing their right to sit there. Final amendments to the bill are being thrashed out this month.
The current, and seventh, Earl Howe didn’t remotely expect to be a peer when he was born Frederick Curzon 74 years ago.
But when his cousin, the sixth Earl Howe, died without an heir in 1984 he suddenly found himself with a new title and a new home.
“My wife and I lived in a small terrace house in London. She was a teacher and I was working in a bank,” he told the BBC.
“All of a sudden I had a call to say I’d inherited the title.
“It was a shock to the system – particularly when you arrive on a dark January evening, the front door creaks open and there is a butler saying ‘Welcome home your Lordship’. It didn’t feel like home at all.”
But Freddie, as his friends call him, soon found that politics was something he was rather good at. When the Conservatives were in power he was, at different times, a health minister, a junior defence minister and for nine years the deputy leader of the House of Lords. When they weren’t in office he held shadow posts.
In addition the affable lord has a raft of local roles, including being president of the Penn and Tylers Green Residents’ Society and patron of the Chiltern Society.
As for the House of Lords, he told the Beeb: “I love the place. I’ve found it very fulfilling. And just occasionally you feel that you’ve done a little bit of good.”
Green Belt battle 1: victory for banker who wants to turn a field into an orchard
The field at the top of the picture will become an orchard. Picture Sara Agar Interiors
LEADING entrepreneur Tristan Ramus has won his battle to convert a field at the back of his Penn mansion into an orchard and wildflower meadow.
He says it will increase biodiversity but critics, including Penn parish and local Buckinghamshire councillors, said it was an attempt to convert agricultural land into a garden and was against Green Belt policy.
But in approving the scheme at Penn Grove in Witheridge Lane planners have sided with Mr Ramus, a multi-millionaire and founder of the private investment firm Twenty 20 Capital.
Their report said: “The demonstrable and substantial ecological uplift offered by this proposal provides a compelling justification for an exception (to Green Belt policies).”
One of the public objectors to the scheme was the late TV doctor Michael Mosley who, in one of the last acts before he died last year, said the scheme encroached on public rights of way and was out of keeping with the area.
Since then letters and emails written by members of the public have been withheld from public view because, unlike other councils, Buckinghamshire Council refuses to publish views by individuals.
Green Belt battle 2: defeat for developer who says new Government rules have moved the goalposts
MEANWHILE Hammersley Lane in Tylers Green finds itself a test case for the Government’s new relaxation of Green Belt planning laws.
Developers had their plan to build two houses on Green Belt land next to Hilltop refused by a Government planning inspector last year who concluded the scheme would “harm the openness of the Green Belt”.
However the developers, Narvo Asset Management, resubmitted the scheme following the Government’s change of emphasis on Green Belt development.
They argued the land isn’t “proper” Green Belt under the Government’s new definition but “Grey Belt” – small areas of land within Green Belt where permission for building should be presumed.
Buckinghamshire Council still rejected the plan however. It conceded the land is now “Grey Belt” but said tests still had to be met.
In this case, it said, if the development went ahead the people living there would have to rely on cars to get around because there’s no public transport or easy walking route.
Consequently, with parish council and local councillors support, they said the plan is unsustainable and inappropriate in Green Belt.
The views of members of the public will be withheld from public view because, unlike other councils, Buckinghamshire Council refuses to publish views by individuals.
The developers still have an option to appeal and let another Government planning inspector finally decide.
Green Belt battle 3: councillors overturn planners recommendation and refuse planned estate at Beaconsfield
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE councillors decided to risk an expensive planning appeal – again providing a test case for the Government’s Green Belt policy – when they rejected their planning officers advice to conditionally accept a big housing scheme off the new Beaconsfield Eastern Relief Road.
The 24 hectare (59 acre) site, to the west of the new by-pass, is currently agricultural land in Green Belt. The landowners, the Portman Estate, want to build around 330 houses, a 60 bed old people’s care home and a community building.
But councillors rejected the outline application by six votes to five. They said the damage the development would bring to the Green Belt did not outweigh the benefits. It would ruin the landscape, destroy good agricultural land and create a large urban sprawl.
This is the second attempt to develop the site. An earlier attempt to build 500 houses was rejected by a Government planning inspector following a big campaign by residents (poster picture above) who paid for planning lawyers to represent them.
This new attempt, with fewer houses, some community facilities and new Green Belt rules may prove more difficult to combat.
This time a total 267 letters and emails from members of the public were submitted but not a single one of them has been published because of Buckinghamshire Council’s policy not to allow the public to view individual comments.
None Green Belt (although it should be) battle 4: Ashwells delay borders on farce
WHEN developers the Hill Group received outline planning permission to build homes on the field at the top of Ashwells, Tylers Green, five years ago they expressed their belief that people would be moving into the first of the completed homes in the middle of this year.
Some hope. The scheme for 109 homes is still on the drawing board.
And so it goes on.Their latest submission in July has drawn a seven point objection from Chepping Wycombe Parish Council. (Although Buckinghamshire Council refuses to publish public comments it has said that by the end of August there had been 28 objections; non supportive)
Parish councillors say the proposed access to the estate will be dangerous for parents and pupils visiting Tylers Green Middle School. And they’re furious the developers propose using part of their land for traffic calming without, they say, even consulting them.
Buckinghamshire Council and the developers are hopeful that final agreement can be reached later this autumn, seven years after it was announced the land was being released for development.
Don’t hold your breath.
The system is creaking…
*Buckinghamshire Council says it is so overwhelmed with planning applications at the moment its planning officers are currently taking 26 days longer than normal to validate new applications in the Chilterns and South Bucks. It’s taking nearly a year for major plans to be determined and over five months for minor ones.
Wycombe Wanderers billionaire boss puts his money where his mouth isn’t
MIKHEIL Lomtadze, the billionaire owner of Wycombe Wanderers, doesn’t say much. Well, not in public at least.
In fact it’s widely thought he hasn’t even visited the club from his home in Kazakhstan since he bought it in May last year.
But, in a highly unusual case for football, his actions are proving much louder than his words.
Mr Lomtadze’s management team, backed by his money and his vision, are transforming the League One side from a modest club with a proud tradition into what they hope will be a footballing powerhouse.
In July the club completed a multi-million pound upgrading of the training ground in Marlow Road into a state-of-the-art facility, equal to anything in the Premier League (take a look at a 15 minute jaw-dropping video on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGbbObDoLic if you are interested).
Then last month the club reached a deal with Buckinghamshire Council to invest in and operate the playing fields and golf course at Farnham Royal on a 75 year lease.
If they get planning permissions (the council will still own the site but take a back seat in running it), the club intends to create a new artificial playing pitch for community use with a football training centre and academy; modernise the golf course to a nine or 12 hole layout to attract a wider audience; and increase and diversify access to other sports for this area’s young people.
The site is already the base for the national baseball and softball teams and that will continue.
The aim is to ‘do a Brentford FC’, who went from the lower leagues to Premiership consistency by identifying and developing young players and using the very latest coaching and analysis techniques to exploit their full potential.
It’s a long way from the days when supporters swapped ends on the sloping pitch at Loakes Park at half time so they could be behind the goal for both halves of the game. But that’s progress for you.
The end of a cricketing chapter
KNOTTY Green Cricket Club plays its last game as an independent club this month after more than a century of village cricket at the ground in Forty Green Road.
The club has three teams in the Thames Valley Cricket League but has been struggling to make ends meet.
High Wycombe Cricket Club is set to take over the running of the cricket ground and says it is in talks with Penn and Tylers Green Cricket Club for it to be used by Penn’s third team.
The ground may also be used to expand women’s cricket and introduce walking cricket for older people. The Wycombe club says it is also prepared to keep the Knotty Green CC name and invite existing players to continue their association.
Regional news
Museum closes – The River and Rowing Museum in Henley closes this month after 27 years because it was unable to make a profit. The trustees are seeking new homes for the museum’s 35,000 artefacts.
Supermarket sweep – For a town with a population of around 20,000 Amersham is well served with supermarkets. There’s a big Tesco on the site of the old bus station and pork pie factory; an M&S and Waitrose in the High Street and Aldi opens this month on the site of the old Jaguar garage. Now Lidl is entering the fray with plans to build a supermarket on the site of the former council offices in King George V Road.
Dog fines – Council fees for looking after stray dogs in Buckinghamshire are being increased. Owners will have to pay £235 if their dog is kept in the dog pound for one day, raising £30 a day to £445 if the dog is not collected for eight days. Owners of non-microchipped dogs will pay an additional £20.
Weed awareness – Nearly three quarters of offenders caught for the first time either smoking or dealing cannabis were sent on cannabis awareness courses instead of receiving a fine or prison in the Thames Valley Police area last year. The scheme is similar to speed awareness courses for motorists and is being trialled in partnership with a drug charity to see if it reduces the number of drug offences.
Swanee river – The annual census of swans on the River Thames – Swan Upping – showed an increase in the swan population this year compared to last year’s worst ever results due to bird flu, pollution, vandalism and floods destroying nests. There was a particularly high number of cygnets between Marlow and Henley.
Pub conversion – Buckinghamshire Council has approved plans to convert the former Happy Union pub in Loudwater into 16 bedsits. Comments on the application by members of the public have been withheld because, unlike other councils, Buckinghamshire Council refuses to publish views by individuals.
Field heroes – Neighbours living next to a field of parched grass which caught fire in Elizabeth Close, Henley fought to stop the blaze reaching their homes with wet towels, buckets of water, garden hosepipes and rakes before the fire brigade arrived to finish the job.
New loos – The public toilets in the centre of Beaconsfield are to be transformed from the present Ladies/Gents/Disabled loos into four self contained toilets, one of which will be designed as a dementia friendly unit containing brighter, contrasting colours.
Local deprivation – A Government-backed survey has found that the Castlefield/Oakridge area of High Wycombe is the most deprived ward in Buckinghamshire and among the top 10 per cent of deprived areas in the country. Some residents there are experiencing “significant hardship,” it says.
City charge – A decision is due this month on whether to introduce a £5 congestion charge for all vehicles entering Oxford city centre.
Hero rescuers – Six Year 9 schoolboys from Claires Court School, Maidenhead have been praised for saving the life of a capsized canoeist on the Thames whose foot was stuck in his boat. The boys, on a Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme project, created a makeshift strap to keep the man’s head above water and helped secure him to a jetty until professional help arrived.
Spectacular find – This beautiful Anglo-Saxon comb, carved and decorated from a single bone, was the star find at this summer’s archeological dig at Cookham Abbey by the River Thames. It was discovered on the penultimate day of a four week dig by Reading University students overseen by professional archeologists and has initially been dated from between the seventh and ninth century. The monastery was a significant centre in this area and possibly Britain’s first known hospice. Digs are taking place every August as part of a five year project. You can find out more on https://www.cookhamabbey.org.uk
By the way…
- In her role as Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Wycombe MP Emma Reynolds is responsible for ensuring that the billions of pounds traded in the City and in our banking system is regulated and run properly. So is it financially admirable, or simply tight-fisted, to see she keeps a keen eye on the pennies as well? In her Parliamentary business expenses – paid for by the taxpayer – she claims £1.70 for buying the local newspaper. Taking the paper’s title, the Bucks Free Press, a little too literally perhaps.
- Climate change? When I was a lad it was a family tradition to go blackberry picking on the last day of the summer school holidays (admittedly, up north!) This year people were out blackberrying on local roadsides and woodland on the first day of the school holidays. A tasty year for them though.
- Most fair minded people (but not all) don’t mind political leaders accepting freebies so long as everything is declared and above board. It’s a perk of a stressful job and a chance to meet some useful contacts. But when Buckinghamshire Council leader Steve Broadbent told the BBC-paid-for Local Democracy Reporting Service he accepted tickets with a face value of over £1,000 each to the British Grand Prix and the Boodles tennis tournament at Stoke Park so he could have “crucial conversations” and “high-level discussions”, it stretched credibility. “Crucial conversations” on a jolly Steve? Pull the other one.
- While filming an episode of TV’s Marlow Murder Club by the pond on Tylers Green Common this summer the producers erected a big sign warning people not to be alarmed because all the police on view were actors in uniform. Shame. We yokels thought they’d turned out en masse to solve the pond’s dead fish mystery.
GOMM VALLEY SPECIAL REPORT
Taylor Wimpey waves a magic wand – and all its traffic problems disappear (it hopes)!
WHEN THE Government-appointed planning inspector Matthew Woodward rejected Taylor Wimpey’s plans to build 544 houses, a primary school, employment buildings and a community centre in the Gomm Valley a year ago it cheered hundreds of local protesters and utterly shocked the housing developer.
But after its defeat there was no way Taylor Wimpey was going to walk away from the project.
Mr Woodward said that by and large he had no problem with the idea of building in what is the Wycombe area’s only remaining undeveloped dry valley. He only had minor quibbles about issues involving the environment and design.
What really concerned him was the impact the additional traffic would have on the A40 London Road which the valley abuts.
“The cumulative impact on the (road) network would be severe, resulting in unacceptable highway safety impacts,” Mr Woodward said in his report.
But Mr Woodward offered a way out for the developers. He said the type of modelling used to predict future traffic flows didn’t, in his opinion, tell the full story.
If Taylor Wimpey had used a more detailed form of traffic modelling, looking at the whole area instead of just the A40 junctions, they would probably get different conclusions.
Taylor Wimpey took the hint. Within days the company put its hand in its pocket and commissioned the type of traffic modelling exercise Mr Woodward had suggested. And, hey presto, the traffic congestion suggested in the first traffic model had suddenly vanished in the second one.
They also set about making some tweaks to the overall scheme, without reducing the number of homes.
Here’s the detail:
Traffic congestion
- The new traffic modelling scheme didn’t look at the projected impact on individual junctions on the A40 but at the journey time as a whole for vehicles travelling the High Wycombe to Loudwater length of the road.
- It concluded that the current traffic light system on the A40 could cope with any increased traffic flow. Now it’s claimed the new development would result in only a 21 second additional delay in the morning peak and a 25 second delay in the evening peak and reduce traffic speed by 1mph.
- The council’s own highway engineers, whose views will be crucial, say that although they endorse the traffic modelling scheme used, they have yet to decide whether they agree with its conclusions.
Other traffic changes
- The revised planning application still provides footpaths and cycle tracks, some wider than originally envisaged, but also increases the number of bus stops on the estate. Each house will be less than 400 metres from a bus stop – all designed to discourage people from car use.
- Some of the roads proposed have been redesigned “to encourage slower speeds” while the road gradients on the steep sided site have been reconfigured so none exceed one in ten. There will be continuing concern in Penn and Tylers Green that the access to the development at the top end of Cock Lane will encourage more through traffic in the village.
- The access to the part of the development from the bottom end of Hammersley Lane will mean significant changes to the junction with Robinson Road virtually opposite with new provision for cycle and pedestrian access and traffic islands in Hammersley Lane.
Other tweaks
- In an attempt to reduce the visual impact of the houses in the valley, those built on the slopes by Pimms Grove will be built on “steps” rather than on the slope.
- A green corridor will still run from Tylers Green down the eastern side of the valley but it will look more like parkland than open countryside. The ancient woodland (Gomm’s Wood nature reserve and the adjoining Site of Special Scientific Interest) will be retained. Surrounding it there are plans for an orchard, a “community growing area” and grassland with wild flowers.
- A 200 metre gap between buildings and the Tylers Green border in Cock Lane is proposed which Taylor Wimpey maintains will ensure Tylers Green’s separate identify from the High Wycombe urban sprawl. There’ll be pedestrian and cycle access between the Ashwells estate in Tylers Green and the new Gomm Valley development.
Public opinion sidelined
- The company says there is no need for a fresh public consultation on the plan because it is basically the same as the original one. However, Buckinghamshire Council says comments made by the public and other bodies to the original application will not be carried over when this new application is considered. Therefore new comments will need to be submitted by 17 September.
- There have been hundreds of individual objections to housing development in the Gomm Valley over the years in addition to protests from environmental and residents groups. This time individual comments from members of the public will not be published because, unlike other councils, Buckinghamshire Council refuses to publish such comments on its website. Instead a planning official will publish a summary of public comments for the information of deciding councillors.
You can view the details on https://pa-csb.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/online-applications/simpleSearchResults.do?action=firstPage
The application comprises a full planning application for 83 homes on the southern part of the site next to Hammersley Lane and an outline application for the rest of the proposed development.
You can contact this blog on peter@pennandtylersgreen.com It will be updated as necessary in September, but the next full update will be on 1 October.