Town Matters Round-Up; future housing and green spaces

THE recent Town Matters meeting was chaired by Cllr Peter Macfadyen, who welcomed everybody, including residents from Innox Hill area to the Town Hall.

In response to the question, ‘What does Frome Town Council do?’, the town council asked the Open Story Tellers to produce an easy-read booklet to explain this in an accessible and sensory way, to make it easy for everyone to understand.

Cllr Peter Macfadyen commented, “This booklet is so valuable, clearly it’s accessible to people young and old, with varying levels of reading ability, but it really answers questions that anyone might have. Everyone will find it useful.”

Cllr Pippa Goldfinger presented the next item, the Local Plan Part II.  She referred to the complexity of the subject and joked, “I wish the Open Story Tellers had done a guide to this, it would have made it a lot easier to understand!” The plan, created by Mendip District Council, covers allocating employment land, housing, designation of local green spaces, self and custom builds, and sport and recreation.  Frome Town Council is a statutory consultee, and as such, councillors can make a recommendation in response, but they do not decide. That is down to Mendip.

As part of the plan, several areas were listed as possible sites for housing, including Saxonvale and land at Innox Hill.  Councillors agreed that a proper parking review of the town centre should be conducted before development decisions were made for Saxonvale, and that the retail opportunities should be held in higher regard, considering it’s the only opportunity to extend the town centre.

The residents from the Innox Hill area questioned why the site even appeared on the plan, as it had previously been deemed unsuitable by Mendip District Council.

One resident said, “The town council planning group have done a fantastic job and listened to us. This town is known for being sustainable. The site is unsuitable, it is sloping and prone to flooding. I would urge Frome Town Council to be as clear as you can in your response to Mendip District Council.”

Mendip District councillor Des Harris echoed this and added, “I’m convinced of the unsuitability of this site.” The recommendation from Frome Town Council was strengthened to reflect the level of concern.

The town council would also like to see more recognition of smaller businesses in the employment section of the plan.

Cllr Pippa Goldfinger said that Frome Town Council was pleased to see 23 green spaces in Frome proposed for designation as Local Green Spaces, however, there are several more open spaces in the town that needed to be similarly protected. These included St John’s Churchyard and Egford Lane Playing Field. Councillors are concerned that Local Plan Part II is being consulted on without a play and sporting provision strategy being in place.

Town councillors also found the plan to lack detail. There were calls to make it more strategic and proactive and to consider future needs for employments, retail and open space. The councillors voted in agreement that their recommendations and their response to Mendip District Council will reflect this common opinion.

The meeting ended with some updates on community projects in Frome. Malcom Westgate from Harry’s Hydro spoke about its success to date, and how valuable the grant was from Frome Town Council to enable Critchill School pupils to use the pool. It was agreed that the town council and Malcom would explore jointly how to promote the pool’s use during school holidays.