The Paddock Riseley

For the avoidance of doubt all comments and content on this website attributable to George Davies relate to him as a resident of Riseley not to him as a Riseley Parish Councillor.

Site 512, The Paddock, High Street, Riseley.

Seven retirement bungalows and allotments by local people for local people

Some thoughts on the Neighbourhood PlanRegulation 16 Public Consultation June 2023 

Please visit Neighbourhood Plan Page by clicking here

Some thoughts on the draft Riseley Neighbourhood Plan and on the "Report of the Public Consultation September 21" .

The draft Plan looks backwards more than it looks forwards and we are not sure how much it will really help Riseley to go forward as a thriving community.

Regarding the "Report of the Public Consultation September 21" you will see that despite not being a preferred site and appearing in the section, at the very end of the consultation questionnaire, “Comments on other sites”, Site 512, “The Paddock,” scored the second highest number of positive comments of all the 19 sites, with 21. 

The top scoring site, with 38 positive comments and 29 negative comments, was the Old Maggie B site, which is often described as a brown field site but is only 25% brownfield and is 75% precious school playing field. With at least 34 dwellings proposed, the Old Maggie B site falls at the first hurdle, of having more than 10 dwellings (draft Plan, Page 10, Par 5.2B, Vision and Objectives) which makes Site 512 the top scoring site. 

The draft Riseley Neighbourhood Plan Vision states on page 10:

• "5.2. To aid understanding of what the Vision actually means, it can be broken down into its constituent parts and explained as follows: Controlled small scale development
• Development should be limited to between 5 and 10 dwellings that do not detract from the rural feel of the parish."

“Open Spaces”, like The Paddock, Site 512, should not be under the heading of “Recreation”. Sites designated as open spaces which are privately owned and to which the people of Riseley have no access, make absolutely no contribution to recreation (unlike the Old Maggie B playing field). ‘Nicola Hodgson, from The Open Space Society, said on 1 February 2023, "New and existing open spaces must have permanent public access.  It was evident during lockdown that people really value and need the open spaces on their doorsteps (that they have access to). For the first time ever the open space and the proposed disabled friendly allotments, on The Paddock, would have full public access. We offered to gift this land to Riseley Parish Council but they declined to accept the offer.

The Paddock, Site 512 – Land adjacent to 156 High Street, retirement bungalows and allotments for local people should have been a preferred site for residential development in the Riseley Neighbourhood Plan, 

You can see that the preferred sites, with a star,  did not do well.

Site 512, The Paddock, is a small scale development, by local people, for local people, just seven retirement bungalows, set well back from the High Street together with  allotments and a public space.

Most developers do not build detached bungalows for local people and no other site in Riseley is offering to do so.

These bungalows will free up large family houses in Riseley.

Traditionally this would be considered an infill site, it does not spread the village foot print.

View down Riseley High Street towards Bedford. The Paddock is behind the mature trees on the left of the photo. The trees will remain unaltered. Philips Strickland's house is the orange building on the right.