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The
Lymington Society
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LOCAL DISTINCTIVENESS
Until recently, planners had no guidance as to the nature of an area, unless it had status as a Conservation Area, or an Area of Special Character. The Lymington Society has tried several times to have parts of Lymington and Pennington designated as Areas of Special Character, but the process is complex, and we never seemed to hit the right part of the process cycle. It was always too early or too late.
Now, though, there is a new initiative to describe the Local Distinctiveness of an area, and the planners will have this definition before them when they rule on planning applications, with the objective of ensuring that new development is in keeping.
Society committe members Clive Sutton and Jonathan Hutchinson have written their own descriptions of the local distinctiveness of the parts of Lymington that they know well. Here are the latest drafts:
Clive Sutton's view of Lymington North of the High Street
Jonathan Hutchinson's view of Lymington South of the High Street
These have been combined, along with input from Sue McKeag of the Six Acres community and Chris Howe and Julia Tremain from Pennington, to produce the full draft below
In the summer of 2010 the first pre-consultation draft of the Local Distinctiveness Supplementary Planning Document was sent to the Lymington Society committee for comment. We were pleased to see that much of our input has been adopted into the document, and are responding with our comments.
In particular we are exploring the extent to which the document is to be used as a descriptive snapshot of the area as it is, and how much it should actually contain guidance and recommendations for planning.