ChardstockParish Neighbourhood Plan 2013–2031Introduction to Chardstock and associated planning issues

Published by Chardstock Parish Council, c/o Chardstock Stores and Post Office, 8 Westcombes, Chardstock, Axminster EX13 7LF

© Chardstock Parish Council 2016

Contents1 Chardstock – map and statistical data 1

2 General description 1

3 Housing stock and needs 2

4 The local economy 3

5 Services and facilities 4

6 Chardstock and sustainability 5

8 The natural environment 7

9 Summary 7

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1 Chardstock – map and statistical data

Name of Parish: Chardstock OS Grid Reference: ST 30945 04481 (The George Inn)Approximate Size: c. 1560 hectares (3850 acres)Local Planning Authority (LPA): East Devon District Council (EDDC)East Devon District Council Ward: YartyPopulation: 828 1

Number of Households: 3882

Main Settlement: Chardstock Village (total = 200 dwellings) Hamlets: 1) Brockfield, 2) Birchill, 3) Burridge, 4) Cotley Wash (Bewley Down), 5) Fordwater, 6) Holy City, 7) Hook, 8) Kitbridge, 9) Sycamore, 10) Tytherleigh (Total = 188 dwellings)

85 per cent of the parish is in the Blackdown Hills AONB. Chardstock Village has a Conservation Area. Much land in the parish comprises statutory or non-statutory sites of biodiversity interest.3

Chardstock has a Parish Council with up to six politically non-aligned members. The Council published a Parish Plan in 2011, which was endorsed by the Local Planning Authority.

1 2011 Census.2 Parish of Chardstock Housing Needs Report (Devon Communities Together/Devon Rural Housing Partnership), October

2015, §4.3.3 C. Martin Drake, Parish Biodiversity Audit for Chardstock, 2014.

2 General descriptionThe rural parish of Chardstock lies between Chard in Somerset and Axminster in Devon, with a population of fewer than 1,000. It is designated as unsustainable in planning terms and unsuitable for further growth in East Devon District Council’s adopted Local Plan 2013–2031.The village itself is 1 mile from the A358 on the south-eastern corner of the parish at Tytherleigh.

The parish is rich in historical association, having been settled since the Stone Age. It is mainly in the valley of the River Kit, a tributary of the River Axe. Chardstock village has half of the total number of houses in the parish. The remaining population lives in ten widely dispersed hamlets, mainly to the north-west and the south-east.

Most of the parish is in the Blackdown Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), and the local landscape is one of small, often historical settlements set in archetypal East Devon countryside. Chardstock village has a fine Conservation Area with largely unspoilt medieval and Victorian buildings and well-preserved, historical street settings.

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Cotley Wash Hamlet

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There are other important buildings and groups of buildings elsewhere in the village and in the hamlets. The parish has 52 listed buildings (15 per cent of the total of dwellings). Alongside these heritage assets are examples of many other styles of house design.Historically, the community was largely agricultural, and farming remains important to the local economy. But today there is also a broader range of economic activity, usually small, often home-based, enterprises. There is little employment other than self-employment.

The parish has few services and facilities and what it has are mostly in the village. There is no generally available public transport, so residents must rely on private cars for their daily lives and to access such outside services as a shopping centre, a doctor’s surgery or a hospital. The Local Planning Authority (East Devon District Council) has designated Chardstock as unsustainable in its Local Plan, which will be current from 2013 until 2031. This limits further development.

Housing has developed sporadically, with major changes in the 1950s (29 houses built between 1948 and 1955), the 1990s (58 houses and bungalows built between 1991 and 1999) and in 2013 – 14, when a further 21 houses were approved, most of which have now been built.

Chardstock is demonstrably viable as a community, with a heterogeneous populace drawn from all walks of life.

Around 38 per cent of the population has lived in the parish for less than ten years,4 but new and older residents alike quickly integrate.

The parish offers a high quality of life, mainly because of its manageable size and a long tradition of community involvement. When it is practical, local voluntary organisations provide some limited services not available elsewhere.5

Overall, Chardstock is a flourishing and viable small community.

3 Housing stock and needs3.1 There are currently 388 houses in the parish.6

3.2 Historically an agricultural settlement, Chardstock underwent significant change after the Second World War with the building of council houses in the village. From the early 1960s to the 1980s, and largely as a consequence of increasing social mobility, a fair amount of new housing was constructed, much of it in the form of bungalows scattered around the village and surrounding hamlets. In the 1990s, the large mixed development at Henley Close and Woodcock Way (“the Redrow estate”) on the eastern side of the village increased the size of the village community by 60 per cent.

3.3 Although Chardstock’s allocation for new house building in the original draft of the EDDC Local Plan was for ten houses (just under 5 per cent), since 2013, 21 planning applications have been approved for house construction in the village and, at the time of writing, 13 of these have been built. All the new-builds approved in the last three years are either adjacent to, or in, the Conservation Area – this in a settlement later judged by the Government Planning Inspector to be unsustainable.

3.4 The price of the 23 properties sold in Chardstock during the last three years (2013–2016) has ranged from £125,000 to £600,000 and averaged £365,312.7 Property values in Chardstock are above the national average (which is £288,000).8

3.5 There are 62 properties (14 per cent of all dwellings)9 in Chardstock in the lower two council tax bandings. This reflects the number of smaller, more affordable houses in the parish.

3.6 In September 2015, the parish and district councils together commissioned an external housing consultancy, Devon Communities Together, to undertake an independent survey of housing needs in Chardstock parish.

4 Chardstock Parish Neighbourhood Plan: A Summary of the Main Output from the Issues Questionnaire, October 2014,

p. 2.5 Chardstock Parish Plan, February 2011, section 5.6 Parish of Chardstock Housing Needs Report, §4.3.7 Online house prices, zoopla.co.uk.8 The Guardian, 16 February 2016.9 Parish of Chardstock Housing Needs Report, §4.3.

Burridge Hamlet

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3.7 The resulting Housing Needs Report10 showed conclusively that there is no current housing shortage in the parish.

3.8 Since construction on land of the extent available in Chardstock can rarely exceed ten houses, the provisions in the NPPF and the Local Plan for requiring a proportion or “affordables” in larger developments are rarely, if ever, triggered.

3.9 Developers are reluctant to build houses at the lower end of the price range, simply because they reduce the overall profitability of development. They are willing to build “affordables” only if they also get approval for a substantial number of higher-value dwellings to offset the theoretical loss.

3.10 The Housing Needs Report, however, revealed no urgent need to build any new houses, although there is some evidence that a small supply of affordable/smaller houses (probably no more than two) would be advantageous at some point in the future: “The survey identified a need, in the near future, for two units of affordable housing. Due to this low level of need, the Parish Council will need to decide how to take this further and whether this need should be addressed at all.”11

10 Ibid., §4.4.11 Ibid., §8.

3.11 But there is clear evidence that Chardstock parish has no shortage of the larger and more expensive houses (3+ bedrooms), with a high proportion of such dwellings usually available.12

3.12 There is a real danger that, by approving much larger developments in order to build a handful of affordable houses, the parish would seriously compromise its ability (and specifically that of the village) to sustain all the consequences for infrastructure.

3.13 Since the known future need is for only two small houses, it may be prudent to defer construction until such time as they can be built at a lower environmental cost, if at all.

4 The local economy 4.1 The parish still has many active farms, although dairy farming is in decline. Shrinkage

in the industry and the mechanisation of farming practice means that far fewer people are employed in farming than was once the case.

4.2 A pub, a shop and Post Office, a manufacturer of window-blinds and a joinery business can all be found in Chardstock village. Tytherleigh (on the A358) has a restaurant, an antique shop, a bathroom supplier and a breeder of alpacas.

4.3 The parish is home to a number of small businesses, many centred upon “homeworkers”, who use their domestic premises as a base from which to operate.13

Many such businesses are technology driven and will flourish fully only when the communications infrastructure has been modernised to be competitive with that of larger

settlements elsewhere. However, where these enterprises are small and locally suitable, they already help to bolster the local economy and do not significantly increase the burden placed on the local environment and infrastructure.

4.4 Several households offer bed and breakfast facilities or self-catering accommodation during the tourist season.

12 Chardstock Historical Record Group, Chardstock Housing Survey and Analysis.13 Chardstock Parish Plan, section 6. The expression “homeworker” refers to people who either run a small enterprise from

home or are employed, directly or as subcontractors, and work mainly from home. Some of the latter may also have a base in an organisation elsewhere. In both cases a part of a domestic residence or its outbuildings are in regular use for work.

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There are around 15 second homes in the parish and a small number of houses used as holiday-rental businesses.

4.5 Many residents of working age have to commute by private car to urban centres (e.g., Chard, Axminster, Honiton, Yeovil and Exeter) to find employment.

4.6 The parish has a relatively high proportion of retired residents (30.7%).14 The comparatively high cost of local housing, including that which has been built recently, means that often only those with properties to sell of equally high value can afford to live here. This is a self-perpetuating cycle. However, retired people often bring pensions and other wealth created elsewhere with them into the local economy and buy goods and services locally, thus stimulating demand and supporting local businesses. The building services, landscape and garden-maintenance sectors in particular benefit in this way.

5 Services and facilities The services and facilities available to people living in Chardstock parish are also discussed at some length in the Sustainability Report.15

5.1 Services

Like most rural communities, Chardstock receives little beyond the statutory minima in terms of public services, and those it does receive are being gradually eroded. The key factors are as follows.

5.1.1 Roads are mostly unlit, single-track, winding lanes, many with high banks and hedges and, with one or two exceptions, usually consisting of a few inches of rubble with a thin layer of tarmac.16 Maintenance requirements are relatively high. Local authority cuts mean that, from the 2016/17 financial year, Devon County Council (DCC) will no longer clear the road from the A358 into the village after snow.

5.1.2 Chardstock village has a small range of services and facilities of its own but no general public transport by which to access a wider range. There are no services in any of the hamlets other than Tytherleigh.

5.1.3 The parish is mainly in the valley of the River Kit. It has several localised drainage and flooding problems. Sites particularly prone to road flooding are detailed in the Sustainability Report. EDDC is to withdraw support for the lengthsman, whose tasks included clearing roadside land drains and gullies and trimming verges on blind corners, from the 2016/17 financial year.

14 Rural Community Profile for the Parish of Chardstock (ACRE – Action with Communities in Rural England), October 2013, p. 6.

15 Sustainability Report: Chardstock Village and Associated Hamlets, 2016.16 Ibid., §3.2 and appendices 1–2.

5.1.4 The hamlets and the majority of the village have neither mains drainage nor mains gas.17

5.1.5 All residents now have access to mains water, electricity and telephone services. Some boreholes are still in use in outlying areas.

5.1.6 Superfast broadband is available in the village, but those in outlying areas suffer from very low speeds. Mobile phone reception is usually 2G, very patchy, and therefore unreliable.

5.2 Facilities

Local facilities are mostly sited at the south-eastern end of the village.

Community Hall The hall was built in 1974 and later extended. It is used for local events and meetings, as well as for private functions. Users come both from within and from outside the parish. The hall is successful but in need of extensive updating and refurbishment.

Primary school St Andrew’s Primary School stands at the edge of the village on a site with scope for expansion. It opened in 2009, when the Victorian school in the village was closed. The school is part of the Acorn Multi-Academy Trust, currently made up of five primary schools, and, like many modern schools, it serves a wider catchment area than Chardstock. It can accommodate up to 120 pupils, and the number enrolled is close to capacity. Because the school is successful, it has recently increased its number of staff and may, at some future point, need to expand.

Anglican church Chardstock has a historically important Anglican church in the least spoilt part of the Conservation Area. It forms an attractive and unique grouping with the late fifteenth-century George Inn and surrounding houses – the group of Victorian terraced houses known as Five Bells, the Old School and the cluster of buildings that were associated with the Victorian vicarage. Opposite is the old glebe land. St Andrew’s Church is fronted by a Victorian stone wall which is in need of repair. As elsewhere, the church now attracts less regular support than in previous years. However, it remains a valued centre for religious, ceremonial and

pastoral care, and the building and churchyard embody much of the history of the parish. Upkeep of the fabric is the responsibility of the parochial church council, actively supported by a local group of volunteers and fundraisers, who have already funded the refurbishment of the church clock. Major repairs to the roof were completed in August 2016.

17 Chardstock Parish Plan, §3.3.3.

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Recreational facilities There is a modern, well-equipped children’s play area adjacent to the Community Hall run by a voluntary local trust. Facilities for cricket and bowls lie just outside the village and may be accessed on foot or by a short drive.

All are well used and easily reached by residents of the village and parts of Tytherleigh. But they are some miles from most of the other hamlets, none of which has any services of its own. Residents of the hamlets make up about the half the total population of the parish and can only reach the village by walking or by private transport.

6 Chardstock and sustainability6.1 In December 2014, East Devon District Council published a Small Towns and Villages

Development Suitability Assessment (STVDSA), which assessed 42 smaller rural communities against a set of 12 balanced criteria in order to reach a consistent judgement about the sustainability of each settlement. It showed that Chardstock meets only five of the 12 criteria used to establish whether a settlement can be regarded as sustainable. Chardstock is therefore defined as not sustainable and should not have a Built Up Area Boundary.

This assessment formed part of the evidence submitted for the Local Plan inspection in 2015. After amendment, the Inspector found the New East Devon Local Plan to be sound. The amended edition of the Local Plan was formally adopted by the District Council on 28th January 2016.

6.2 In May 2015, the Chardstock Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group produced a more detailed Sustainability Report for Chardstock parish, which confirmed the findings of the STVDSA. It too reported that Chardstock lacks the basic services and facilities needed for it to be regarded as a sustainable settlement and highlighted a number of other issues arising from inadequate and outdated infrastructure which militate against the parish being suitable for further development. That report has been updated for purposes of Chardstock’s Neighbourhood Plan.

6.3 The issues raised in these two documents include the following.

6.3.1 Transport (see also section 5.1 above)

The parish does not have access to generally available public transport.18 Residents are dependent upon private cars for access to the general range of services and facilities.

18 EDDC, Small Towns and Villages Development Suitability Assessment, 2014; Chardstock Parish Plan, §3.3.3.

6.3.2 Roads (see also section 5.1 above)

Other than the busy A358, which runs through Tytherleigh, and the roads in the Redrow estate in the village, roads in the parish are mainly narrow winding lanes with high hedgerows. Most are not constructed to meet the volume and type of traffic currently using them and require relatively high levels of maintenance. At peak periods, in particular at the beginning and the end of the school day, the single-track lane that is the main access to the A358 becomes seriously congested.19

6.3.3 Services and facilities (see also sections 5.1 and 5.2 above)

There is a small selection of commercial and community services and facilities in the village20 and in Tytherleigh. None of the other hamlets has any local services at all.

6.3.4 Utilities and drainage

About 45 per cent of the houses in the village (less than 25 per cent of those in the parish) have access to mains foul-water drainage. The mains drainage system in Chardstock serves the houses at Westcombes, the Redrow estate, Sopers Field, Chardstone Grove and part of the section from the George Inn down to Hoopers Farm. The remaining houses in the village and hamlets have only private drainage arrangements.21

Mains gas is also available to only about 45 per cent of the houses in the village (less than 25 per cent of the parish).

All the houses in the parish have access to mains water (although some in outlying areas still choose to use private boreholes and hydraulic rams) and everyone has access to mains electricity and telephone services.

6.3.5 Flooding

Its position in the Kit Valley puts parts of Chardstock parish at risk of regular localised flooding. The Sustainability Report contains details and evidence relating to the worst affected areas.22

19 Sustainability Report: Chardstock Village and Associated Hamlets, §3.2.20 Chardstock Parish Plan, §§3.1.8, 3.3.4.21 Chardstock Historical Record Group, Chardstock Housing Survey and Analysis.22SustainabilityReport:ChardstockVillageandAssociatedHamlets,§3.5andfig.4.

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6.3.6 Telephone and broadband (see also section 5.1 above)

All areas of the parish have access to telephone land-line services. The network consists almost entirely of above-ground, twisted-copper-pair lines, and is therefore at risk in high winds. Most of the parish is on the South Chard 2 sub-exchange at Tatworth (a few miles from Chardstock).23

While the village now has access to superfast broadband, the speed of the line drops the further a property lies from the digital cabinet opposite The George. Those who are more than 2.2 km from the cabinet will continue to endure speeds as low as 0.5 to 2 mbps.

7 The built environment7.1 Architecturally, the built environment of the parish is of mixed heritage.

7.2 Between the designation of the Conservation Area in 197424 and the loosening of planning regulation in 2012, greater attention was paid to not damaging the overall sense of place that is important to communities like Chardstock and which is easily destroyed by adopting an approach to approving development that is too laissez-faire. With a 95.3 per cent approval rating, the results of Chardstock’s Neighbourhood Plan Issues Questionnaire of 201425 clearly show that conserving and valuing this among our heritage assets is a very high priority indeed.

7.3 There are 52 listed buildings in the parish,26 of which three (St Andrew’s Church, the George Inn and Lower Ridge Farmhouse) are Grade II*. A large number of similar buildings have not been listed but are nonetheless architecturally important. Many of these date from the Georgian and Victorian eras.

23 Ibid., §§3.4.1, 3.4.2.24 John Fisher, Chardstock, East Devon District Council, 1999, §2.4.25 Chardstock Parish Neighbourhood Plan: A Summary of the Main Output from the Issues Questionnaire, p. 5.26 www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/england/devon/chardstock; 23 of these are in the village, 29 elsewhere in the parish.

7.4 The parish is rich in surviving Georgian and Victorian farm and other buildings,27 which are almost always constructed from local flint. Some have been altered or extended over the years, but there are still a considerable number which retain most or all of their original outward appearance.

These buildings, particularly where they have survived in groups, contribute much to a local identity which is important to parishioners.28

7.5 In 2012, the Blackdown Hills AONB Partnership published a Design Guide for Houses, which offers good advice for the conservation and modification of traditional buildings in the AONB. The Chardstock Parish Neighbourhood Plan takes the principles expressed in that guide as a template for approving eligible development where historic buildings are directly or indirectly implicated.

7.6 There are also to be found examples of more modern design and building techniques, from the 1950s to the present day, including bungalows, social housing, the estate houses of the Redrow era, and the most recent buildings at Sopers Field and Chardstone Grove. The front part of the Old School has recently been sensitively refurbished to provide three apartments, and further work is to take place at the rear.

27 Chardstock Historical Records Group.28 Chardstock Parish Neighbourhood Plan: A Summary of the Main Output from the Issues Questionnaire, p. 5.

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8 The natural environment

8.1 Apart from the village itself, Chardstock parish comprises open farm and uncultivated land interspersed with isolated farm and other buildings and hamlets consisting of only a handful of houses.

8.2 Some of the open land to the south-east between the village and Tytherleigh, which straddles the A358, and on down to the border with Hawkchurch lies just outside the AONB. The Issues Questionnaire results show, unequivocally, that parish residents believe that this land, and any historic buildings on it, should be treated with similar respect to that shown to the AONB in matters of development management.29

8.3 A local professional ecologist has conducted a thorough audit of Chardstock’s natural environment and ecology, which was published in 2014 as the Parish Biodiversity Audit for Chardstock. Summarising, the audit’s main conclusion was: “Chardstock parish is special in an East Devon context for a number of reasons. While it has no outstanding sites, and is barely touched by the River Axe SSSI and SAC, it has ten County Wildlife Sites covering a range of habitats, outstandingly clean water in the network of streams and seepages, relatively a large amount of wet alder and willow carr woodland, varied underlying geology giving rise to vegetation and insects assemblages that reflect the range from base-rich to acidic conditions, a dense network of hedgerows and relatively benign farming practices dominated by beef and dairy farms.”30

29 Ibid., p. 19.30 C. Martin Drake, Parish Biodiversity Audit for Chardstock, p. 2.

8.4 The Issues Questionnaire results show that the great majority of parishioners (97.3 per cent) recognise and value this natural heritage31 and wish to see the maintenance and protection of our landscape and ecology afforded a high priority. This is true both of the AONB and of the land immediately adjacent to it.

8.5 Animal species that have been reported in the parish within the last ten years include dormouse, otter, badger, fox, hare, deer, barn owl and bats. The River Kit, reflecting the purity of its waters, is home to brown trout, bullhead, lamprey, eels and Atlantic salmon.

9 SummaryChardstock is a historically and environmentally important parish. Its inability to absorb further development is a consequence of these factors and the resultant need to conserve heritage assets for posterity.

The community is viable and vibrant, and its best interests will be served by encouraging appropriate local businesses, which contribute to its economy without putting further pressure on its infrastructure, services and facilities.

31 Chardstock Parish Neighbourhood Plan: A Summary of the Main Output from the Issues Questionnaire, pp. 19–20.