Summary of the meeting between Odiham Parish Council and Obsidian Strategic, 21 November 2023

Summary of the meeting between Odiham Parish Council and Obsidian Strategic, 21 November 2023

Five questions were offered to the Council by VOW ahead of the meeting:

in order of priority, Q1 being the most important:

1.    When do you intend to submit your planning application and will it be outline or full, including provision of your Traffic Impact Assessment to the HDC planning portal?

2.    Have you costed and what are those figures for the highway works to the North Warnborough roundabout including drainage works and do you foresee works to J5 of the M3 and has this been costed?

3.    In terms of jobs what statistics (and their source) have you used for employment & unemployment levels in the area?

4.    What are your proposals for employees ( majority blue collar workers ) to travel to the development not only by car but more importantly by public transport?

5.    Will there be a compensation scheme if the proposed development causes flooding to other properties?

Most were chosen, in one form or another.  We are content that our most important question was posed and was answered.  Our summary report on the meeting follows:

It was a full council meeting. Some 30 people attended.

OPC Chair confirmed that Obsidian had requested the meeting and OPC had agreed, so long as it was an open, public meeting.  The questions submitted to OPC by concerned citizens had been reviewed by OPC and those selected were provided to Obsidian before the meeting.

Vine Church acoustics were very poor.

The Obsidian team consisted of Ben Johnson, Obsidian’s new planning director and his assistant Stephanie Walker (both of whom had been with the company for only 5 weeks).  Also present was John Birch (from Glanville) and Francis Gaskin – Gaskin was part of the team that presented the last Zoom call.

Ben Johnson stated that they would be happy to come back in January or February to answer any further questions.

The team presented the same information relating to the differences between the 2022 submission and the current one.  None of that differed in any way from what we have already seen (although it was represented in a slightly different format).

Major issues such as traffic modelling (being undertaken with the aid of HCC’s model), the scale of works on Junction 5, Lord Derby roundabout, the Greywell Junction and the Odiham roundabout, flood risk, and an Economic Assessment will be part of the Outline App.  There is no cost information yet.

There is to be an Outline App in February.  Following HDC’s validation there will be a public consultation.  Cllr Verdon made it clear that this will be a critical moment.  If the Outline App is approved any further discussion will be considered as a reserved matter and no further objections will be entertained.  There is as yet no timescale for a Full App.

Obsidian still has no tenant.

The Obsidian response to the question requesting details of the new jobs generated by the development was that since they had no confirmed tenants signed up, they could not provide a breakdown.

There was no compensation mechanism for houses that were flooded because of the development.

The slides used by Obsidian will be made available in due course by OPC.