The site of the old Church School currently has outline planning permission for housing and a shop. Ownership has recently changed and the new owner has offered to work with the Parish Council to develop a scheme better suited to cater for the needs of the community.
The Parish Council owns the adjacent land and merging the two sites could give a one-off opportunity to implement Parish Plans 1 and 2’s Action Plan for more Social Housing for older people and a replacement Medical Centre. The satellite picture above shows the developer’s land outlined in red and the adjoining Parish Council land outlined in orange (which is currently used for grazing horses).
We held a public exhibition on 11th July 2019 to start of a consultation process. It was attended by well over 50 people. Solely to assist discussion and debate we provided some display boards to show some options to show how various forms of development could be undertaken.
These options were purely indicative and we sought the views of the public on:
- should the Parish Council explore using its adjoining land as part of the development;
- what you would like to see as part of the development;
- anything to which you would object.
Any new Medical Centre is subject to the agreement of the new owners of the GP Surgery, and them gaining the large amount of funding required.
We launched an on-line survey in order that you could make your views known to us. This was concluded on 12 August.
Please note that the Parish Council does not make decisions on planning applications, but it is able to comment as a statutory consultee and is able and prepared to work with the adjacent land owner and the Medical Practice to see if a development which represents the community’s view can be achieved. We therefore wanted to understand the views of the community to help us consider how we can move forward.
Thank you to everyone who came along to the consultation event 11 July or responded to the online consultation. Our potential development partner displayed 4 potential layouts for the land opposite the Village Hall and adjoining land owned by the Parish Council. Only a third of responses were in favour of Houses or Bungalows for sale; 78% were in favour of a new Doctors’ surgery on the site; 40% supported and 18% opposed Housing for 55 plus for rent; 64% of respondents supported inclusion of Coxhoe Parish Council Land in the development. 58% of respondents were under 55.
Site investigations are currently taking place and the Parish Council are trying to secure additional funding to enable the GP’s practice to move and are talking to Registered Social Landlords about their interest in taking on properties to let on the site.
We’ll keep you informed of progress.
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