A special report on the latest twist in our enduring housing saga
THE REAL reason land owner Aviva has dramatically ditched the Gomm Valley housing plan in Tylers Green is likely to emerge next week when the Queen opens a new session of Parliament.
Among the 25 new bills the Government will announce is one that will radically change the planning system. Boris Johnson is giving it the highest priority. Its aim is to dramatically streamline and speed up the building of new houses.
The bill – which could become law in the autumn – will tell councils to decide where they want to build houses and identify the countryside they want to preserve. Developers will be given a timeline in which to complete the new homes. If they fail to build the houses on time the contract will go to another developer.
It’s designed to stop house builders and speculators buying up land and sitting on it for years, ready to develop whenever they feel the time is right.
That’s precisely what’s happened in the Gomm Valley, between Cock Lane and Hammersley Lane.
Crunch time
Over 60 years ago the former Equity and Law insurance company, headquartered in nearby Hazlemere, bought the Gomm Valley thinking that one day it would prove to be a valuable piece of real estate. They were right.
When Aviva (formerly Norwich Union) bought out Equity and Law earlier this century they continued with the same “wait and see” policy knowing it was only a matter of time before the council, under increasing pressure to build more houses, would look to develop the Gomm Valley.
Wycombe Council had designated the Gomm Valley as a reserve site for new housing decades ago after a local campaign to give it more protection by registering it as Green Belt failed.
The inevitable happened five or six years ago when Wycombe had to tell the Government where it was going to build its next tranche of new houses. The Gomm Valley (and fields off Ashwells in Tylers Green) were earmarked.
For Aviva it was pay day. They consulted a number of developers and chose a young and little known company called Human Nature to develop a plan.
Planning Middle Earth
It was a bold choice. Human Nature’s directors were former directors of Greenpeace and had impeccable environmental credentials.
Their plans for the Gomm Valley were not just to build any old housing development but one that would be the finest example of a sustainable, environmentally friendly project: a pathfinder in a world concerned with climate change and increasing pollution…a new community with shops, school, craft workshops and outdoor swimming pool: our own Shire filled with our own hobbits.
It suited Aviva. The company makes great play of its environmental responsibilities.
But the Utopia that was to be the Gomm Valley soon met the hard-headed world of accountants, planners and officialdom.
Problems, problems
The Gomm Valley, of course, is a sensitive and important ecological area. It contains a nature reserve, a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and – increasingly so during lockdown – has provided a peaceful haven for hundreds of people out walking.
When a Government planning inspector took a detailed look at the site as part of preparations for Wycombe’s Local Plan, he concluded that ideally there should be 450 dwellings accommodated, and at a pinch 600. Human Nature said that in order to make their scheme viable, they needed to build up to 1,000.
The first outline planning application in February 2019, after two years of work, was never decided upon by the council. The flooding authority, the highway authority and Thames Water were among scores of objectors and the developers were told to go away and see if they could sort out the problems.
Bogged down
Fifteen months passed and in May last year a second amended outline planning application was put forward, accompanied by even more objections as people enduring the first lockdown appreciated the beauty and peace of the valley.
It emerged, however, many of the problems highlighted in the first outline plan had not been resolved.
Thames Water said it did not think the water network could cope with the needs of the development. The flooding authority said it was still concerned about flooding on the steep parts of the site. The highway authority said it still wanted more details of expected traffic flows.
Even the council’s own housing services manager said there wasn’t enough “affordable” housing, contrary to the council’s own policy. Its education department incredulously pointed out that the size of the proposed school did not meet the Department for Education’s minimum standards.
Again the council avoided making a decision. Again they urged the parties to get together and present an outline application they could all support.
A changing scene
The Gomm Valley site roughly splits into two from a planning point of view. There’s a relatively flat, easily developable, southern section running roughly parallel with the A40 London Road.
And then there’s the steep “countryside” bit running between the hills of Cock Lane and Hammersley Lane. It’s that green lung that has always effectively separated Tylers Green from High Wycombe. And it’s that section that provides the flooding, water supply and traffic problems…all expensive to resolve.
Even if a third outline planning application had emerged that resolved the problems there was no guarantee it would have received council approval.
The council’s highway engineers have always said they were uncomfortable with Cock Lane retaining some of its narrow section and would likely have fought for its widening along its entire route. If that had happened, opening up Tylers Green to a flood of traffic trying to avoid central High Wycombe, it would have led to a cacophony of complaint here in the village.
Meanwhile, in the four years since this scheme was conceived the planning environment has changed.
The coronavirus pandemic has almost certainly changed the shape of our town centres for good. Councils are now being urged to build more homes and community facilities where shops used to be (plans are in the pipeline, for instance, to close down the Chilterns Shopping Centre in High Wycombe and convert it all into apartments.)
Very significantly, in Buckinghamshire, the old housing targets the former district councils had to meet have been scrapped.
Patience snapped
So, faced with delay, uncertainty and change, it seems that last week Aviva’s patience, and possibly its budget, ran out.
Although they remain tight-lipped Aviva apparently told Human Nature all bets were off. They were selling the land, seemingly to a mass-house builder who will be big enough and rich enough to comply with the requirements of the Government’s new planning bill.
Human Nature and its few supporters, like the parish council, the Penn and Tylers Green Residents’ Society and even the local Tory MP Steve Baker, are furious. The objectors are delighted.
What next?
What happens next is intriguing.
The spotlight now falls on Buckinghamshire Council, the new unitary local authority that was formed last year replacing the district councils, including Wycombe.
The new council is working on a new local plan and within the next 12 months or so will have to follow the rules of the new planning bill and state which areas of land it wants to build on and which it wants to preserve.
Presumably the Gomm Valley will still be liable for development. But not necessarily all of it.
We are in a new ball game now. The council may be able to release the more developable southern part of the Gomm Valley, running parallel with with A40, for up to 450 homes the Government planning inspector deemed. That would certainly interest a mass house builder.
Presumably the council could declare the steep-sided valley part an area between Cock Lane and Hammersley Lane land it wants to preserve, thus maintaining the green gap between Tylers Green and Wycombe.
We’ll have to wait and see how things pan out. The Gomm Valley saga has a few chapters to run yet.