Doddinghurst Surgery update

It's been a little while since I managed to find the time for any blogging, so here's a quick update on what's been going on over the past couple of weeks.

The most significant development is that Brentwood Council's planning officers published their report last week and have referred the application to the Planning Committee with a recommendation that it be approved. so the decision will now be taken by the committee at their meeting on Tuesday evening.

There are all kinds of inconsistencies and weaknesses in the officers' report, and letters have been sent to the Planning Committee members pointing this out and setting out all the reasons and all the legal precedents which mean that this development cannot be allowed to go ahead in the Green Belt.

Our campaign has attracted interest from the both the Green Party and the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, both of whom have been to see the proposed site and have now made representations to Brentwood Council objecting to the proposed destruction of the Green Belt and the impact that the development would have on the Grade II listed building next door.

In a letter to the Brentwood Gazette, the GP, Dr Butler, has attempted unsuccessfully to refute the suggestion that he is a commercial enterprise trying to expand his business at the expense of the Green Belt and has again implied that if he doesn't get planning permission he'll shut up shop and leave altogether. As one of my neighbours said in a letter to the Gazette this week, this makes Dr Butler sound "rather like a child throwing his toys out of the pram because he can't get his own way".

I'll post some more in-depth info on the officers' report later on if I get a chance, but first I need to go and work out what I'm going to say in my three minute speech to the Planning Committee on Tuesday evening.

Meanwhile, if you want to help stop the destruction of the Green Belt, it's not too late to add your name to the online petition at www.doddinghurstsurgery.com. If you haven't signed already, please go and do it now!

Brentwood Gazette reports on plans for new GP surgery in Doddinghurst

Following the photoshoot on 28 May, this week's Brentwood Gazette carried a story entitled Furore as Surgery Plans New Facility which focused on how the proposed new surgery would overshadow the Grade-II listed building next door at Deal Tree Farm.

Resident of Deal Tree Farm, Catherine Russo, told the reporter how only a couple of years ago she was refused permission to convert an outbuilding into a stable block as it was felt by planning officials that the converted building would dominate her 15th century farmhouse. Yet now there are those who consider it appropriate to build a huge two storey surgery right next to her house - something which would be far more likely to dominate the farmhouse than the previously proposed stable block conversion.

The printed version of the article included a photo of angry local residents protesting next to the Green Belt field where the local GP hope to build their new surgery.

It also included a sidebar comment from Dr Nigel Butler in which he threatened that he and his fellow doctors would leave Doddinghurst altogether if the Council refused to grant permission for their new surgery in the Green Belt.

Personally, I doubt this would actually happen and, even if it did, the PCT would surely have suitable procedures in place to deal with such an eventuality.

So it will be interesting to see whether those responsible for planning decisions and the safeguarding of the Green Belt in the Borough of Brentwood allow themselves to be held to ransom by this type of potentially empty threat from Dr Butler.

Brentwood Gazette photograph protesters at proposed Doddinghurst surgery site

At least twenty residents from Doddinghurst and Hook End gathered at Deal Tree Corner yesterday when the Brentwood Gazette's photographer came along to take some photos of the field where developers want to build the new Doddinghurst surgery.

Faced with some tricky lighting conditions caused by the position of the afternoon sun, the plucky photographer, Alex, risked life and limb tand stood in the road on the approach to the crossroads in order to take some photos of placard-waving residents angry at the proposed destruction of the local Green Belt.

So having been the front page story in this week's Brentwood Weekly News, it now looks hopeful that the problems the proposed new Doddinghurst surgery would cause will be covered in next week's Brentwood Gazette as well.

Anger at Doc's Green Belt plan

That's the headline on the front page of this week's Brentwood Weekly News that has just come through my letterbox.

The front page of this week's edition is dominated by the story about Dr Nigel Butler's plans to build a two storey surgery on the 1.4 acre piece of Green Belt land at Deal Tree corner in Doddinghurst, despite the serious concerns from local residents about the traffic and parking problems that will be caused by the extra patients the new surgery plans to attract.

The piece goes on to report how the extra services are being provided with a view to making more money for the surgery and highlights the fact that the lack of car parking would lead to cars spilling out onto Blackmore Road which is already a busy and dangerous road.

The article ends with a comment from Doddinghurst councillor, Keith Parker. Only a few days ago he said that only two people were against the proposed new surgery and, when asked, failed to give a commitment that he would seek to have the application referred to the Planning Committee if planning officers approved it.

The good news is that, thanks presumably to pressure from those he was elected to represent, Cllr Parker is now reported in the Weekly News as saying that the application should be discussed by the Planning Committee given that it is "such a big issue for the local community".

You can read the full story here.

What the Green Belt regulations say about the new Doddinghurst surgery

One of my neighbours has just come round with a copy of a document called Planning Policy Guidance 2 (PPG2).

This exciting sounding read details the purpose of the Green Belt and explains how land ends up being designated as Green Belt and what safeguards are in place to stop Green Belt land being built upon.

There are a couple of things in PPG2 which are particularly relevant to our fight to try to stop the Doddinghurst GPs building a new surgery/medical centre in the Green Belt.

Firstly, one of the objectives of the Green Belt is "to retain land in agricultural, forestry and related uses". So in our case, the Green Belt exists to ensure that the field at Deal Tree Corner remains as farmland.

The document goes on to say that the construction of new buildings (such as the proposed Doddinghurst surgery) in the Green Belt is inappropriate unless it is for any of the following:

• essential facilities for outdoor sport (e.g. small changing rooms)
• cemeteries
• limited extension/alteration of existing dwellings
• limited infilling
• limited social housing
• limited infilling/redevelopment of a major existing developed site

Nowhere does the list mention a two-storey GP surgery with associated car park as being an appropriate development for Green Belt land.

That's good to see and hopefully is something that our local councillors will have in mind when the time comes for them to decide on this planning application.

Spreading the word about the Doddinghurst surgery plans

There is now an easier way to tell your friends about this site. Instead of having to remember a long complicated address, you can now just go to:

www.savedoddinghurst.co.uk

and it will bring you straight to this blog.

And if you want to get directly to the online petition, or give other people an easy way to find it, that's now got its own easy to remember web address too:

www.doddinghurstsurgery.com

So now there's no excuse not to tell your friends and colleagues and get them supporting our campaign too!

Woman accused of being selfish for wanting to protect the Green Belt

One of my neighbours has just emailed me to say she has had a phone conversation with a member of the Planning Committee about the planning application for a new GP surgery.

She says that he accused her of "being selfish" by objecting to the proposals.

He also said that the car park will probably be extended in the future. So does that mean that eventually they'll end up tarmacing over all or most of the rest of the field?

And finally he told my neighbour that she should be pleased that the surgery is going to be built and the fact that it will overshadow her house is not a reason to object.

If this is true, then it's quite worrying.