Is Snettisham ready for more expansion?

A meeting about housing needs in Snettisham was held on Saturday 19th July.

A meeting was held at the church hall Snettisham with approximately seventy people attending. At about 10.30 a presentation was delivered by Wild Ken Hill founder Dominic Buscall, supported by Ben Holden of F.I.R. (Fair Investment & Resilience). 

Both positioned their presentation in a rather unique way; Dominic gave a brief introduction of what he had achieved in the 6/7 years of his management, he advised that the estate had managed to employ three extra workers and that the estate was now becoming organic amongst other developing ideas.

Having attended, over the past years lots of introductory meetings, as to why development should be considered, this was quite revolutionary in its way. We recorded 77minutes of notes.

The main theme was that the village of Snettisham was going to need affordable housing for locals, however no detail of what is affordable to whom, and no conditions of how the proposed rentals or sales would be restricted to locals had been considered. No numbers of homes had been considered with apparently no knowledge of how much space would be needed, or where all the sites might be.

The pro- development lobbyists were critical of the current government’s approach to building homes with their approach of ‘let the builders sort that out’, resulting in too many exclusive 4, 5, and 6 bedroomed homes being built, suitable only to second homeowners and ‘the well off’.

More argument was used stating the obvious that, in this area, there is a shortage of people of childbearing age, schools were closing, and intake rolls diminishing, this is known and understood buy most that share an interest in local politics.

The need to re-locate the local builders’ merchants and for the development of non-seasonal industry was also discussed.

Some members of the audience referred to the Neighbourhood Plan and the Local Development Framework, which is apparently oversubscribed with housing stock by some 250%.

Keeping the villages of Snettisham and Ingoldisthorpe separate seemed to be of great importance to Dominic and Ben, but it wasn’t explained why.

Apparently, sometime in the future, not yet specified, there will be some more development meetings, a house-by-house questionnaire and various meetings for a group, already formed from councillors, the churches and other groups.

No consideration was given to Anglian Water’s new dictat that they could refuse consent due to over loading of the Heacham treatment plant. No consideration to Coastal Flooding, currently under review, traffic controls including parking, business development for local employment, preferably non seasonal and much more.

In conclusion there are many pros and cons to these arguments.

Watch this space.