This afternoon’s planning committee has the ability to ruin the rural approach to Stansted from the north. It is being urged to give planning permission for 160 homes at Walpole Farm west of the B1383 (old A11). It would breach the northern development limit for ever. I shall be urging the committee to refuse the application. Here is the text of what I will say: “Madam chairman, committee members

“The officer recommendation for approval of this application is ill-conceived and based on a misinterpretation of the NPPF. I urge you to overrule it.

“Just two months ago you rightly refused planning permission at nearby Bentfield Green. The grounds for refusal included policies on countryside and landscape.

“Walpole Farm development would have landscape implications that are more severe. Most other factors are the same as at Bentfield Green, so the same conclusion – refusal – should be reached.

“The views of your Landscape Officer are dismissed in the report as almost inconsequential. Your experienced Landscape Officer knows the area and the importance that this council places on the rural landscape.

“He says the development would:

• Have a detrimental impact on the fabric of the open countryside
• Significantly erode the character of the rural approach into Stansted
• Not enhance – an understatement, I think – the protected Pennington Lane
• Undermine the edge of the village, even with extra trees.

“Now, according to your planning officer’s interpretation of the National Planning Policy Framework, we are supposed to see all these damaging effects through rose-tinted spectacles and imagine that they are positive enhancements.

“In George Orwell’s book “1984” Newspeak was the fictional language designed to limit free thought and self-expression. Words with negative meanings were removed. “Bad” became “ungood”. In “1984” to speak rubbish may be ungood, but to speak rubbish for the good of The Party may be good.

“But we now have NPPF-speak. We are asked to believe that what was bad and against our well-developed policies to protect our countryside and landscape will now seem good…. if we think positively!!!

“Thankfully we can still exercise free thought and know what is ungood when we see it.

“This application is ungood because it will damage an important landscape and a protected lane, Pennington Lane.

“In Pennington Lane flowers grow, families walk and can view the landscape across the proposed development site to the old A11 and beyond to Ugley.

“The official Essex assessment of Pennington Lane as a protected lane describes its aesthetic value as having “Open farmland views”.

“We are told in the report to have no concerns. Building houses along its eastern side will not constitute urbanisation. I suppose George Orwell would call it “unruralisation”?

“We are told that the houses won’t be seen from Pennington Lane because they will be hidden behind denser hedges. So, an NPPF-speak protected Pennington Lane will be hemmed in, with no views to the east. The lane will be protected from views of the rolling landscape that are its aesthetic value!!

“Must we accept an “unview”? I think not!

“Pennington Lane would be used by residents to walk to nearby Bentfield Primary School. If so, shouldn’t they have a pavement? One that covers over the protected verge to ensure safe access to school? Then “protected” would become “unprotected”.

“The shortest route to the railway station and two schools would be via High Lane, which has no pavement where it meets Cambridge Road. If you were minded to approve this application – which I hope you are not – please ensure this safety issue is addressed through a Grampian Condition or other mechanism.

“The site is sustainable only insofar as it is on the edge of an established community and close to many local services. That does not make the site acceptable for development. If it did, every site on the edge of our three towns and many villages would be up for automatic development without question. Nowhere would be exempt.

“We will need more homes in Stansted. I will welcome approval next week of homes at Elms Farm. There are other more suitable sites around Stansted than Walpole Farm.

“There has always been an assumption in favour of sustainable development; but we have extant policies that did and should still guide this committee on what is good and what is ungood.

“This site is ungood. Please refuse it. In Newspeak, make it “unapproved”!”