saving-the-bedmond-lane-wildlife-meadow

I've also written to Andy Neidhardt to object to the planning application:

Dear Andy,

Re Planning application 5/2014/1394

The open greenery between Mayne Avenue and Bedmond Lane in St Albans is an asset for all who live near, drive past and use it. I’m so very pleased that the owners, Banner Homes, have allowed common access to it for all these years.

But now I learn that the owners seek to build a fence around it - an ugly addition to our environment.  It’s my belief that they seek to fence it off, not because they’ve suddenly acquired a love of horses and need to put them out to pasture, but because they wish to block it from being added to the District Community Asset Register. I understand their motivation. It’s their land and presumably they bought it with the intention of trying to get planning permission in the future; being on the asset register could scupper that.

However, I ask that the council rejects the planning application to turn the land from ‘agricultural’ to ‘the keeping of horses’ in order to maintain the local aesthetics. I reiterate that a fence would be an ugly addition to our environment.

On a final note, I would love the Verulam Residents Association – of which I am a member - to find a way to buy the land (through grants etc). Whilst there will be those who scoff at the idea, the land doesn’t have planning permission and there’s no guarantee that it ever will. This means it’s not necessarily worth hundreds of thousands of pounds or millions.

Yours sincerely,

Jessica Chivers