‘Looking to the future ..’

Temple Guiting Parish Council has developed a document which provides useful background information for making decisions regarding planning, and for setting the precept and the budget.  Called ‘Looking to the future’, the most recent version is available here.

Planning in general

Temple Guiting Parish Council cannot grant or refuse planning permission but it can offer its opinion, usually in the form of a comment posted online to the planning applications registers provided by Cotswold District Council and Gloucestershire County Council (County-wide applications and strategic documents including quarrying  and transport).  All comments are visible to the public (under the ‘Documents’ tab) and are considered by the planning authority, which makes planning decisions and defines planning policy.

The Temple Guiting Parish Council Planning Committee is comprised of all members of the Parish Council, and Planning Committee meetings report into the next Parish Council meeting aftert the Planning Committee meets. Planning Committee meetings are called when a quorum (three) Parish Councillors believes that there is a need for a Planning Meeting.  This is most likely to be due to the deadline for comments to be submitted to CDC or GCC falling before the next Parish Council Meeting.

Agendas and minutes of Planning Committee meetings are available either on the agenda and minutes pages or are included in the next full Council meeting.

Planning and local quarrying

With seven quarries in or close to the Parish, Temple Guiting residents are acutely aware of the extent of local quarrying activity. To address local concerns, Temple Guiting Parish Council has written an outline for a different approach to quarrying in the Cotswold AONB called ‘A fresh approach to quarrying‘.  The document was discussed with Gloucestershire County Council Minerals Planning Officers, the AONB (Cotswold Conservation Board) and CPRE (Campaign for the Protection of Rural England).  Cotswold Conservation Board then arranged a Quarry Stakeholder Meeting which took place on 29th January 2020. Attendees included representatives from seven parish councils, quarry owners and operators quarry advisers, Gloucestershire County Council Minerals Planning, Planning Development and Highways, GCC Cllr Nigel Moor and John Mills from Cotswold Conservation Board.  The report of the meeting is available here.

The Council prepares comprehensive responses to quarry planning applications, seeing them both in isolation and as part of the cumulative impact of quarrying across this and other local parishes.   TGPC created a Quarry Stakeholder Working Party to focus on quarrying at the end of 2019. Following the Stakeholder Meeting the Working Party produced a Position Statement to steer the group going forward. The Working Party consists of Cllr Gower (Chairman), Cllr Ewart-Perks and Cllr Mather as well as Ali Clifton-Barnard.

A key part of the issue of quarrying in the Cotswolds is the resulting HGV traffic.  Temple Guiting Parish Council responded to  Gloucestershire County Council’s Local Transport Plan raising the issues which result from quarry traffic.  The council’s response is available here.  The Quarry Working Party’s responses to the GCC Minerals Local Plan 2018 – 23 is available here.  Further comments on the amended Minerals Plan can be found here.

To read the council’s responses to recent individual quarry planning applications please visit the Gloucestershire County Council planning portal.   Responses and reports from  the Cotswold Conservation Board, Council for the Protection of Rural England, Cotswold District Council and others are also available on that site.