Cider with Rosie land threatened by developers
Another story of rural planning anxt with a literary twist. It tells us the bucolic Slad Valley in Gloucestershire was made famous by Laurie Lee’s 1959 autobiographical novel Cider with Rosie, and the author spent his final years campaigning to protect the area’s beautiful landscape from developers. However, the Slad Valley is under threat of a development of more than 100 houses in a fight that has been taken to the High Court. In 1995, Lee led a campaign to prevent housing development in the valley, which surrounds the Cotswold Area of Natural Beauty. Now his widow, Kathy, and daughter Jessy are continuing his efforts after Gladman Developments plan to build 112 homes in the fields. Gladman’s initial plans for Slad Valley were rejected in July by a planning inspector because “of the damage to the quality of the landscape would not comply with the provisions of the national planning policy framework”. However, because Stroud council has failed to identify a five-year supply of sites for housing, another government initiative which is part of the planning policy, Gladman argues that its plans should be approved by law, unless the adverse impacts on the landscape “significantly and demonstrably” outweigh the benefits of more housing. The Campain to Protect Rural England has said that if the development is approved, “it would make it much more difficult in future to refuse a planning application on grounds of harm to landscape” elsewhere in the country, potentially putting beauty spots nationwide at threat from similar development plans