Pembrokeshire County Council - Review of Local Development Plan - Episode 2

In Episode 1 I gave a brief outline of how you can look up the details of proposed Candidate Sites for the Local Development Plan Review (LDP2).

We looked at Site 324 on the Barrack Hill in Pembroke Dock. To read this article again see:

Pembrokeshire County Council - Review of Local Development Plan - Episode 1

Since publishing this post, I looked up the owners of this land at the Land Registry. The owners are Pembrokeshire County Council (PCC), who own the freehold title to this former Ordnance Board land. For the sum of £3 you can download the title of the property, along any restrictive covenants. Another £3 gives you a map of the area covered by the title, but unfortunately none is available for this property, it not having been provided when the title was transferred to PCC many moons ago.


In this post We will look at some other properties around The Barrack Hill.


Initially, I will look at Candidate Site 323.

This site, on the western edge of The Barrack Hill, near the car park and bus stop, is near where there was in WW II a barrage balloon site. I remember some of the old mooring blocks and rings being there in the 1960s. (Sorry - a diversion! - Oops!)

The description of the site goes as follows: (Information taken form the Candidate Site Register)

• Name of Site: SGPC Site 3 - Adjacent to carpark and Chapel Road
• Nearest Settlement: Pembroke Dock
• Proposer Name: John Parsons
• Proposer Organisation:  South Pembrokeshire Golf Club
• Current Use: Leisure - Golf Course
• Proposed Use: Housing
• Site Area (Ha): 0.25
• Preferred Strategic Compatibility Category: Green

Up until now, I have not mentioned the red boundary line on the maps of Pembroke Dock. This line demarks the present settlement boundary. Planners like to keep development within the settlement boundary, (as I do!) and I expect that you would be able to find many planning applications that were turned down because they were outside the settlement boundary of a particular....settlement. Search at PCC Planning if motivated enough.

If you are not able to pin down where Candidate Site 323 is, this larger area map might help.

The eagle-eyed reader will have noticed the line of the present public right of way that crosses the proposed site diagonally. This follows one of the original tracks laid out when the barracks were built.

Who owns this site?

This is land that comes under the Land Registry title CYM281495. It is owned by Pembrokeshire County Council.

The difficulty with this is the notion of precedent.  Some of you will have remembered the planning application for a house at the other end of the Barrack Hill. That is:

• Land Register title: CYM676847, land on the north side of 10 Presely View, Pembroke Dock, SA72 6NP (£40,000, title transferred to present owner of 5 May 2016 from Pembrokeshire County Council).

This piece of land, which from recollection took a while to sell, was part of the former Ordnance Land  described for Candidate Site 242 and Candidate Site 344 that I have mentioned above and in my last post.

This sale set a precedent, a very useful thing in planning matters, that it is reasonable to sell off plots of land that lie outside the settlement boundary of Pembroke Dock (the red line) and are on what was The Barrack Hill.

This is worth bearing in mind when thinking about the motives that may lie behind lands sales and subsequent planning applications. One needs to think long term - what are the consequences of an application being granted?

Another precedent that was set by the above grant of planning consent is that the site was within (and still is within) the Pembroke Dock Conservation Area (PDCA). In fact, the whole of the original Barrack Hill Area is within the PDCA, but outside the settlement boundary. See my effort at mapping below:

The pink area with the green border is the Conservation Area and the red border marks the settlement boundary. The Barrack Hill is within the Conservation Area and outside the settlement boundary.

I must point out here that I have no particular issue with anyone who gets permission to build on The Barrack Hill as long as the correct procedures are followed and the intention is made plain from the outset.  I would, of course, hope that the planning authority would  refuse such an application because of the special nature of the place and its justifiable location within the Conservation Area. It is important that everyone takes notice of the way in which their surroundings can change. If you disagree with a plan, then object as early as you can.

I have made no strong comment so far about any of the proposals so far discussed. Opinions will follow later I would imagine....

Again, please feel free to comment if you wish. I will moderate the comments, but will publish all, but will redact swear words or insulting material. Be polite - it is the best way to be - politely assertive.

To be continued......

Pembrokeshire County Council - Review of Local Development Plan - Episode 1

This series (?!) of  posts will focus on the Local Development Plan Review (LDP2) for Pembrokeshire County Council.

Throughout the post(s) I will be using information from a variety of sources, but mostly from Pembrokeshire County Council's own website. I believe that my use of this is allowable under the terms of their copyright. If this is not correct, then I would be grateful if someone from the council would get in touch.

I will add in a few photographs that will add interest to what might be a lot of text!!

I cannot possibly cope with looking at the entire county so will focus, initially, on my own town of Pembroke Dock.

OK, let's start! If you want to read about the history of  LDP2, then the best place to go is here. This link is the overview page for LDP2. I would suggest that you have a look at this first as it explains the reasoning for the review...…..

There are lots of links from the above page, but perhaps you might leave exploring those until a little later.

PCC has kindly produced many maps to illustrate the suggestions for LDP2. The map for Pembroke Dock is here. This link will allow you to download maps of the Pembroke Dock area. These maps show the locations of Candidate Sites that have been suggested by a variety of contributors.  These are numbered. The numbering refers to a table of the sites (Sites Table is here). The candidate sites are grouped by Parish/Town Council.

More on Candidate Sites a bit later!

What I suggest you do now is download the maps and the table from the links above and have a quick read! At the start of the Table booklet (110 pages!) there is an explanation of the colours and content of the tables that follow. There is also mention of the "Preferred Strategy" that tries to explain the criteria for the coloured categorisation of sites in the table. Despite being a council tax payer who has a passionate interest in Pembrokeshire, I missed the initial "informal" consultations for LDP2. 

One important rule in these matters is ALWAYS take an active interest in local plans. Also, remember that "informal" means that discussions have taken place that might possibly be binding, but no minutes etc have been taken. It never means "nothing has been decided".


To start with we will look at the Barrack Hill in Pembroke Dock. The Barrack Hill was named after the Defensible Barracks that were built on this dominating high point overlooking the old Royal Dockyard, Pembroke.


This was open land with very few trees or bushes whilst the dockyard was in operation. There could be no hiding places for attacking troops to sneak up on the Barracks - indeed, when the Barracks were built, many of the houses in Cross Park were cleared to provide an open field of fire from the fort.

Anyway, I am digressing wildly... on to business!

If you look at the maps for Pembroke Dock from the PCC web pages mentioned above, pages 6 and 7 cover the area of the Barrack Hill and the former Oil Tanks Depot above Llanreath. Page 7 shows a greyed out area on the lower northern slopes of "The Hill", allocated the number 324.




The description of this site can be found on page 71(of 110) of the Candidate Site Register. See the cutting below.

So let's see what they say about Site 324.

Working from left to right, we see that this is "SPGC site 5 - Between the 10th fairway of the golf" - this entry leaves us hanging. Hopefully it will be finshed off at some point, but the map shows us where it is. Next, the nearest settlement is given as "Pembroke Dock/Doc Penfro". Fair enough.

Then we are given the name of the person who has proposed this site (Site 324) - "John Parsons" - I know not who this is.

No agent or agent organisation is mentioned, but the Current Use is "Leisure - Golf Course and scrubland".

The proposed use is proposed as "Holiday Accommodation" - (Tents? Caravans? Houses? - who knows), has an area of 1.48 acres and is coloured Grey - the colour of fog, I suppose. If you refer back to the top of the Candidate Site Register there is a key to the colours used in the table. In their words...

and

So that is your starter. Please feel free to comment if you wish. I will moderate the comments, but will publish all, but will redact swear words or insulting material. Be polite - it is the best way to be - politely assertive.

In the next instalment, I will look at some of the other Candidate Sites and mention other sources that can be used to find out a little more about the LDP2.