Kendal Civic Society

South Lakeland Local Development Framework

Allocation of Land: Some considerable time was spent over the maps of Kendal and in discussing the continuous problem of finding land suitable for residential or employment use which does not destroy a view, upset a neighbourhood or swallow up a Green Gap or other desirable green space. Kendal has been set a target of building 170 houses a year between 2012 and 2025, for locals’ sole residence. The Civic Society made th following response:

Core Strategy Preferred Options

The following is the considered response of Kendal Civic Society. Our remit, as an organisation, covers Kendal alone but our comments will apply
to the whole of the South Lakes area. We have studied the Preferred Options at length but find it impossible to respond in the detail which appears to be required. Therefore, what follows is an overall and comprehensive view of the plans drawn up for this area to 2025.

Applying the ‘Test of Soundness’ to the report, it would appear to pass this somewhat narrow and rigid test, but the result is not for the good of
South Lakeland people.

Historically, Kendal has grown gradually over the centuries, with houses built according to need and to meet the increasing aspirations of the
residents. From Fellside in the 16th century, through the grand Georgian town houses and Victorian streets and terraces, to the council estates of the 20th century and the 1960s re-housing schemes, housing and industry have developed naturally as it was needed. Consequently, Kendal became a busy, prosperous and living place with a character and charm all its own.

The growth and development now planned is unnatural because it is imposed from above, not to meet a local need but to achieve the unrealistic targets of a central Government which neither knows nor appears to care for the people of the places they are changing forever. Change is inevitable and often desirable, but change on the scale planned here is causing untold resentment anger and real anguish to the local people. Housing is to be legislated for on an unprecedented scale. Much-loved green spaces in the town and surrounding villages are planned to disappear under concrete. This housing is not for local people. There are hundreds of houses for sale, but they are beyond the reach of all but the wealthy. ‘Affordable houses’ are not affordable on the average salaries of South Lakeland people. They will obviously be bought by yet more retired people from out of the area. Is this what the Council wishes to see? And where are the schools, doctors and dentists, utilities, roads and traffic management and new employment to cater for this surge in growth?

What is needed is social housing for rent or for sale at a reasonable rate – well designed homes for families, not high-rise blocks of unwanted and unsaleable flats which too often have blighted the town with their bland repetitive ordinariness. These homes for families could be provided in small numbers on small sites, not on the lovely green spaces which give Kendal so much of its charm, and which the report repeatedly – and confusingly – states must be preserved: e.g. 2.16, 2.36 PO7, 3.148 etc.

Plans to allocate green fields along the Burton Road for industry and housing are totally unacceptable. This project was thrown out conclusively at the Public Enquiry in 2004. The entrance to Kendal down Burton Road with its glorious view over green fields to the Lakeland fells backing the small grey town, is irreplaceable. This is not the place for development. Neither is the entrance on the A6 before Lumley Road, nor the Carus Green area, nor Fletcher Park and the Old Playing Field at the front of Castle Hill where an application for its registration as Town Green has been submitted to Cumbria County Council. Visitors and tourists come to Kendal for its history, small shops, Abbot Hall and the Brewery, the Castle and riverside, hospitality and the surrounding magnificent countryside. They do not wish to see an ugly sprawling town which could be in any county in the country.

We have some sympathy with SLDC in that it is being driven by a target obsessed Government to produce these impenetrable (to the normal human mind) documents based on totally unrealistic aims and assumptions. Ahead of us all lies an uncertain future, possibly with a deepening recession, a worsening economic climate, a change of Government, and a complete change of policy. The result for Kendal and South Lakeland residents of all this research is a growing sense of uncertainty, powerlessness and resentment against those who are elected to represent our best interests. Kendal needs to grow, but it must be done slowly and naturally. The Preferred Options do not achieve this, and we reject them.

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