Various iterations of this same planning application have been causing concern for Bosmere Medical Centre staff and their nineteen thousand registered patients since October 2019, long before the Covid pandemic.
The original planning application was submitted in partnership with Chancerygate, whose commercial incentive was the development of industrial / warehouse units sited to the west of the Bosmere Medical Centre. In the face of significant public opposition, the planning application was resubmitted in July 2023 by Portsmouth Water, apparently dropping the industrial units and focussing instead solely on the development of the new Portsmouth Water HQ office building.
The two generations of the plan can be seen in the following slideshow:
Documents recently added to the planning application make it quite clear, however, that these industrial units have not been dropped, but have simply been set aside temporarily in the hope that the new simplified Portsmouth Water headquarters application would create less public outcry and gain approval without further delay. With the application approved, a separate planning application would then be raised for the industrial units on the working assumption that the precedent set for Solent Road access by the first application would make the second application a ‘done deal’.
The strategic aim of Portsmouth Water and Chancerygate, now facilitated by a new planning agent, SLR Consulting*, is made clear in documents recently published for the current planning application.
The HCS position remains unchanged. If Portsmouth Water must develop its new Headquarters offices on that site, then it should use one of the other available options for site access, preserving the existing dedicated use of the Solent Road access for the largest NHS Primary Care GP Practice in the borough and a critical community asset in St. Faith’s ward.
According to the planning statement re-submitted last July on behalf of Portsmouth Water by Chris Lyons, formerly of Tetra-Tec but now working for SLR, “The removal of the four industrial/warehouse units… alongside their associated parking and landscaping bund means the planning application should be much more straightforward.”
Yes, it certainly would – but only for Portsmouth Water and Chancerygate. To the rest of Havant’s council tax payers, thousands of whom are Portsmouth Water customers as well as patients of the Bosmere Medical Centre, it makes absolutely no difference.
Much has changed since this planning application originally broke cover in 2019. Portsmouth Water has now allowed Southern Water to contaminate its flagship Havant Thicket Reservoir project with the more questionable aims of its Water Recycling Plant project, causing public trust to evaporate. To its local Havant town customers, Portsmouth Water’s reputation has been further tarnished by the rather underhand strategy which underpins the commercial exploitation of its once-extensive local landholdings.
In the eyes of the public, the previous Havant Borough Council Planning Services administration appeared to let Portsmouth Water ‘get away with it’, putting their ‘planning blinkers’ on and seemingly turning a blind eye to the company’s wider game-plan.
The newly published documents
Documents recently added to the project file promise a reassuring future with green space where the industrial units once stood, highlighted by bat boxes and swallow boxes in the trees, swift bricks on the end wall of the office and ‘careful consideration of lighting’. Details, you might be forgiven for thinking, designed to win over a gullible Planning Committee.
Hold on, just one moment… Among the documents recently added to the planning application are others which serve only to support the future application for the Industrial / Commercial buildings. These documents show detail of the proposed ‘widened access onto Solent Road’ which can surely not be justified for the sole declared use of the site for Portsmouth Water’s new headquarters offices?
If Portsmouth Water’s case is that they need the wider road to support construction of the offices, then the Planning Services Case Officer can remind them that redevelopment of the East Street sites behind Streets has been carried out with construction access from the Pallant, with relatively minor inconvenience to the passing public.
The next images show detail from these two newly published drawings which clearly shows the Portsmouth Water / Chancerygate intention of enabling access to the maximum legal length articulated vehicle allowed on UK roads. This is hardly appropriate traffic for a simple office block development.
Take a closer look at this detail from the new documents.
The inclusion of the entrance road changes designed specifically for large HGV vehicles is clearly simply a pre-requisite to the next anticipated planning application for the industrial sheds and should, we argue, therefore be removed from this current planning application and instead, be submitted with the forthcoming planning application for the industrial units which would be dependent on the changes.
What can you do?
If this planning application continues to concern you, make your voice heard once again. You may already have commented on this planning application during the past five years but it’s still alive and kicking. Sufficient time has passed since previous comments were made, so you might wish to comment again, stressing that the changes made by Portsmouth Water since the planning application was first raised have done nothing to remove the significant threat to public safety, not to mention town centre traffic flow.
If you agree with us that the changes to the road layout must be removed from the planning application before it proceeds any further, then make your voice heard and raise a comment on the application. An ‘extension of time agreement’ was published on the planning website on 5 February 2024, agreeing to a cut-off date of 7 March.
Please try and add your comments before then.
If you would like to raise a comment, either supporting or objecting to Portsmouth Water’s revised planning application, please click this link.
(If you need guidance on how to fill in that form, check here.)
* Why should mention of SLR Consulting raise eyebrows?
It was Vectos, an SLR Company, whose incomplete, inaccurate and quite deliberately obfuscated ‘business process’ and ‘transport’ documentation for their client Amazon was given an inexplicably light-touch by the previous Havant Borough Council Planning Services team during its passage through the planning process, passing completely unchallenged by the Planning Committee of the day.
Public trust, in Portsmouth Water, SLR Consulting and HBC Planning Services, is low and we look to the new HBC administration to ensure that the hard lessons from the Amazon planning experience are captured, learned and implemented through tighter validation and analysis, with open and transparent public engagement.
Portsmouth Water may be viewed as an ‘important local employer’, but that status should not condone the kind of light-touch, fast-tracked scrutiny and approval afforded to Amazon.
#rethinkhavant
Havant Civic Society 