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April 2011
Fenwick residents cry foul over Mansell homes scheme

Fenwick residents cry foul over Mansell homes scheme

April 18 2011

A campaign has been launched against one of Britain’s largest construction companies, Mansell, by residents of the small Ayrshire village of Fenwick.

The David and Goliath battle has been sparked by the developer’s plans to erect 65 new homes on greenfield land within the village (despite the local plan setting a limit of 50), a move which has spurred villagers to form not just one but two protest groups, ‘Future Fenwick’ and ‘Stop Mansell’, the latter of which has adopted the provocative slogan “don’t foul Fenwick”.

Peeved locals are concerned that the estate will detract from the conservation status of the village and open the door to further sprawl in the area.

Additional concerns have been raised over plans to construct a £250k “road to nowhere” by the developer which protestors believe is merely a “Trojan Horse which will open the way for future development to the North of the Village.”

Adding insult to injury the Future Fenwick group are being denied any discourse with their elected leaders owing to a bureaucratic tangle as a group spokesperson explained: “The land relating to this project is currently owned by the council, which if they grant planning permission, could be sold for around £2.5m. Because of the perceived conflict of interest the whole council will be voting on the matter. Procedures dictate that they cannot discuss the planning application with their community in advance as a result of this.

“Meanwhile, our local MSP (Willie Coffey) is also a councillor, who cannot discuss the application either. This effectively means the villagers of Fenwick have no elected representative to represent their views on this matter. They feel disenfranchised.”

The spokesperson concluded: “While we do not necessarily agree with StopMansell it underlines the anger the issues surrounding this development have caused. Through the planning process East Ayrshire must demonstrate that they are not a council which does things to the community, but are a council that does things for the community.

“It would appear that rather than draw inspiration from the historic village of Fenwick, Mansell have taken their ideas from the marsh-land they propose to develop to come up with a bog-standard scheme.”

Future Fenwick haven't been impressed by Mansell's plans

The battlefield in question

5 Comments

#1 Posted by Ricky on 20 Apr 2011 at 10:03 AM

Perhaps some responsible reporting might have indicated that the land has been allocated for housing for well over a decade. The debate over whether greenfield land should be developed is during the preparation of a local development plan. Why didn't the 'peeved locals' get involved at that stage? It should be noted that the 'road to nowhere' is exactly that. No further land has been allocated, and probably won't be, so the road has been proposed to serve only the development, but to a standard requried by the Council.

#2 Posted by Futurefenwick on 20 Apr 2011 at 21:13 PM

FutureFenwick is not opposed to development per se. But we believe in development should follow East Ayrshire's own planning guidelines and should be in keeping with this rural conversation village. The scheme as proposed by Mansell would be more appropriate in an urban setting. The proposed new road specifically does not serve this scheme. It serves a local cemetery and is over the top for the volume of traffic likely to need this access. The only logical explanation for building such a substantial road is for further development to the North of the village in the future. If more people insisted on proper planning and design standards it would a substantial difference to Scotland as a whole.

#3 Posted by Laigh Fenwick on 25 Apr 2011 at 09:28 AM

Ricky is right, some responsible reporting is required. His comments are an example of the sort of thinking that got us into this situation in the first place; a worshiper of process and unlikely to understand proper community engagement, which translates, "as thats what you're get and tough if you don't like it". Fenwick village is highly popular and therefore has a steady turnover of residents. Some of them weren't even here when the Local Development Plan was agreed. However, we are stuck with a legal process but that does not prevent Mansell from and East Ayrshire Council from working with the Fenwick Community to come up with something more appropriate and ultimately more appealing to evn more new residents.