ABOUT US
What is the Denstone Matters Community Group?
We are a group of local residents from the Parish of Denstone and we seek to promote awareness of topics and causes of local interest to our community and to help fundraise for such causes that the residents of Denstone feel they want to support.
Why are we here?
The reason for us to establish ourselves has been the HUGE amount of interest shown by locals about a Planning Application that has been made to East Staffs Borough Council (ESBC). Despite significant objections from both residents and our Parish Council about significant planning policies that were not adhered to with this application, ESBC have still been minded to approve the site for planning of 5 houses subject to some conditions.
Following a number of information sessions that were held in our village hall and attended by large numbers of people, we have formed this group as a fundraising group to help our village to raise the money to fight this planning application in The High Court.
The History of the Neighbourhood Plan
Back in 2016/17 a significant amount of time, effort and public money was invested by locals and members of ESBC to implement our Neighbourhood Plan.
This was done on the advice of ESBC who stated that unless we, as villagers, developed our own neighbourhood plan about where we were to build new houses, then they, ESBC would decide for us!! This statement certainly grabbed our attention and we went into a very lengthy and painful process to extend our settlement boundary to ensure our Village could support the required growth of houses, as per the government target, of 20 houses by 2031.
As a community we are very keen to support both the growth of our village, and the right type of housing to support a wide demographic. This ranges from encouraging young people and families to come to the village, as well as ensuring there are appropriate homes for the older generation to live alongside.
Once the Neighbourhood Plan became adopted by ESBC in 2017, as a Parish we were assured that this was now a legally binding document and therefore we were in control of where further development would be made.
The Denstone Neighbourhood Plan can be found by clicking here.
Where we are now
The first application that has challenged the policies within the Neighbourhood Plan and is looking to develop a scheme of houses outside of the newly agreed and enhanced settlement boundary is P/2019/01489 – as mentioned, despite numerous objections and statements that showed why this development is not required – ESBC decided they would approve it.
Following legal advice – Denstone Parish Council have been advised they have a very STRONG case in court to get this decision overturned.
As a community we want to support this legal process and therefore this Community Group – DENSTONE MATTERS has been formed.
We are nothing to do with the Parish Council, however, we are fundraising to support the cause that the Parish Council is taking on behalf of the members of the Parish.
We are all volunteers and donate our time Free Of Charge (FOC) to this cause, as we passionately believe in Protecting our Village, but also on the principal that ESBC should not be allowed to run rough shod over the people that they are meant to be there to serve.
ESBC should not be allowed to break the promise that they made back in 2015 that if we had a Neighbourhood plan, that would mean the Parish could decide where development happens.