Ecotricity Update : The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
The Good News (from our perspective) is that the proposal for the Forest Green Rovers Stadium proposed by Ecotricity was rejected. We believe that this proposal is generally unpopular in Eastington, but if you are a supporter of this we would be interested to know. It was rejected for a range of reasons including it not being in the local plan, lack of Community benefit to Eastington and lack of commitment to the specific design, which is one of the reasons that the Stroud District Council Planners proposed approval in the first place.
The Bad News (from our perspective) is that the proposal has been resubmitted and the resubmission accepted. At the time of writing this was not on the Stroud District Website but should be by now and it will be interesting to see what changes have been made (**see below ). For us there has to be some local benefit, a strong commitment to the design and a solution to the noise impact on William Morris House which is not just “Close the windows.”
The Ugly is some of the disinformation that has been distributed since the vote, including that John and Stephen voted against it, which we did not – because we are not on the Development and Control Committee. Also it was reported that there had been some difficulty in listing reasons for objecting, this is not true, the reasons were listed from the beginning by Eastington Parish Council, and re-enforced by both of us at the DCC meeting.
What was very heartening was the number of people who attended the meeting in person to object to this proposal and that they behaved impeccably.
A battle has been won but the war is yet to be won.
If you have views related to this or we can help you in any way please contact
Stephen Davies on 07802 595 307 cllr.stephen.davies@stroud .gov.uk or
John Jones on 07808 922918 cllr.john.jones@stroud.gov.uk.
Update on the update:
The ‘new’ Application for the Ecotricity Stadium has now been made available on the SDC website – ref no S.19/1418/OUT. It is standing by all its previous statements on environmental impact etc and offers no new information nor hope for William Morris College.
It does try to address two of the objections by promising to ‘commit’ to the actual proposed stadium design and travel arrangements and by providing some possible community benefit potential in the shape of one all weather pitch that other clubs could use – maybe. That’s it.
It is the editor’s opinion that it is a waste of tax payers money and every one’s time to consider this as a new application in the face of such small changes compared to the scale of the development and scope of the reasons for refusal – but that is Planning for you!
Please see PAGE 19 for more information, and what you need to do now if you have a view on this matter …….
– Ed