Budleigh Salterton - in East Devon is the entry to both the Triassic and Jurassic coasts
The Pepplebeds are a landmark feature of the World Heritage site
Commentary on Budleigh Salterton Town Design Statement
Preamble: because the Design Statement is so often misquoted or not quoted at all, but simply offered as a reason for refusing a planning application, the following points are relevant.
1. it is understood that this document was approved by the LPA only as Interim Supplementary Planning Guidance in October 2004 and its current status is unknown as indeed is the numeric degree of exposure to public consultation.
2. Any scheme should represent a well-designed and well-articulated dwelling of contemporary architecture that makes a significant reference to the key issues of the Budleigh Salterton Conservation Area.' The Design Statement is divided into several sections of which most are descriptive of the town as it stands and, to this extent are largely usefully informative. The section that offers design advice is often wrongly quoted as if it purports to be prescriptive about design features, such as flat roofs or gables. It is emphaised that it is simply advice or guidance offered to professional designers that they are free to use or ignore as they see fit because it is the overall design that is important and not small sections extracted to use in a negative sense.
3. The benefit of SPG should be acknowledged but as the statement makes very clear this is not to be used as a means of preventing reasonable and sustainable development. How Pugin would laugh if he could hear the ill-informed view that all gables must be connected exclusively to the main roof at below ridge level! There are many examples where this does not happen in Budleigh Salterton and yet the appearance is harmonious. There are also some gables to be seen that are not well designed. Equally nonsensical in the design sense is to assume that no flat roofs are acceptable; yet this is an oft repeated quotation from the Design Statement!
4. there are many factors that will influence the acceptability of development and these include the status of designated Conservation Areas and the AONB. However, these notations in themselves are not an embargo to development. Where the proposals actually maintain or even better still, enhance local amenity there is in fact a presumption in favour of development especially on sites located within the Built-up Area Boundary.
5. What needs to be taken into account in the general built-up area are the maintenance of important vistas, the predominant roofscape, the terracing of property due to the overall topography of the town, together with ensuring that the most important groups of trees are properly managed where they provide visual interest.
6. Mature trees, possibly the result of thoughtful historic planting, need proper management and will require to be replaced if the landscape features are to be maintained. In the absence of management plans, Tree Preservation Orders and Conservation Area status are not sufficient in themselves to ensure continuity of such important features in the townscape. Trees management plans are to be encouraged rather than opposed.
7. Within the built-up area it is more rarely the case that the landscape is vulnerable through excessive opportunistic speculation. Care is required but there is no presumption that development of any kind is to be refused.
8. Though reference is made to various vantage points and the impact that mature trees contribute to the townscape it goes on to discuss thoughtful planting, pruning and preservation by generations of residents over the years. Virtually all the descriptive material confirms the maturity factor. This is why it is important to encourage replanting proposals and management schemes when they are offered in planning applications in order to secure their future in the short, medium and long-term scenarios.
9. When such schemes are put forward they should be received in a positive manner by the politicians and not used to withhold planning permission based upon a spurious allegation that trees will be removed . The latter ignores the fact that Conservation Area Consent and permission under the TPO would be required by the vary same politicians to authorise removal.
10.Reference is made to the publication: ‘Trees and Development' which appears to be draft SPG and ANNEX ONE and ANNEX TWO referred to in BSDS should be respected. However, there are other factors to be considered.
11. Iin the context of the BUILT ENVIRONMENT and Chapter 5.1 ELEMENTS OF THE TOWNSCAPE EDDC's intention is that ‘future generations will see the first half of the 21 st century as a period when imaginative and well-designed new buildings were added to and enhanced the character of our town.'
12. Turning now to ANNEX TWO – RECOMMENDATIONS, there is an acknowledged need ‘…to encourage residents to replace trees and tree screens and seek to create new landscape plantings.' This is the most poignant and realistic statement in the whole document and gives credence to the serious shortcomings of TPOs and conservation area designation in the context of guaranteeing the future of landscape and treescape.
13. Chapter 5 THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT discusses a number of elements of the townscape and includes the terraced topography of the town and the trees. The text mourns that the belt has been diluted by the felling of trees on the site at Elvestone, and notes that any further felling should be strongly resisted, and this principle is supported. Such a conclusion should not necessarily be extended to trees in other parts of the town nor is it necessarily the best or only way to ensure survival of the tree belts.
14.There are no inhibitions or need in the design Statement to copy previous residential styles. Pastiche is not a generally accepted guide to good design. This is a point that was made by EDDC before the Design Statement was accepted as SPG.
15. It is noted in the BSDS, that the main development of the town took place circa 1900 spurred on by the coming of the railway and essentially is low rise (mainly two storey but three in the High street) and low density with much evidence in the use of slate for roofs and painted elevations. There is nothing in the text that does not allow a departure from historic solutions.
16. Chapter 6 CONCLUSION – LOOKING FORWARD records that the people of Budleigh Salterton by their responses to the BSDS indicated a desire that the ‘Art of the Environment' should be put into practice in any future development of the town.