Pleasant Valley Needs Your Help!

On 10th November 2023, Pembrokeshire County Council granted planning permission 20/0462/PA for a huge expansion of the Heritage Park caravan site on both sides of the north end of Pleasant Valley, Stepaside.

We have initiated a judicial review of the decision, and we are asking you to please donate whatever you can towards our legal fees so that we can overturn the permission for this huge, unsustainable development.

The first stage is to get agreement from the Court to listen to our arguments (the Permission Stage) and our legal fees to get to that stage will be at least £14,000.

If we are successful in persuading the Court to hear our case we will seek to raise further funds for the full hearing.

Our Barrister thinks we have a good chance of success because the Council made several procedural errors which we are asking the Court to look at.

Background

The permission is for bases for an extra 48 caravans, a cafe and cycle hire building, a spa/gym, 4 holiday apartments, an equestrian centre with stables for up to 12 horses, menage and associated office, a new (replacement) main park office, car and cycle parking, residential garages, landscaping, access, retaining walls, foul and surface water drainage, related infrastructure and engineering works. The latter includes reprofiling both sides of the valley to accommodate the caravans, and a one way road system for the spa/gym and the caravans on the northeast side of the valley which would mean that all cars on that side would exit onto Pleasant Valley Road.

Permission was granted, even though it was against the recommendation of the planning officers and despite the objections of the 3 community councils involved, the 2 local county councillors and 245 residents. It also went against the Local Development Plan.

The application was made in 2020 and took 3 years to be brought to the planning committee for a decision. In the intervening time, new residents have moved into the area and have expressed their objections to us. We also know that many of the owners of the existing caravans in the south of the Heritage Park have similar objections.

This has been a stark example of a majority of County Councillors, first on the Planning Committee and then in the Full Council, failing to listen to those who know best - the people who live and work in the area, and their own expert officers.

If you in any way don’t like what this development would do to Pleasant Valley and/or if you are alarmed at what is not the first time Councillors have ignored the very people who put them there, please donate and help us to fight this.

Our Pledge

All money donated will be used solely to pay the barristers arguing our case. In the event that SPVRG has surplus funds at the end of the campaign, the board of directors will donate it to local charities/good causes.

None of us has any financial interest in this development one way or the other. We are doing this simply to protect the environment, and our lovely rural community from being swamped by the expanding Heritage Park. We cannot, in good conscience, stand by and let this happen.

Who Are We?

Stepaside and Pleasant Valley Residents Group was formed by a group of residents in October 2019 to resist the expansion of the Heritage Park caravan park across Pleasant Valley. We have over 300 supporters. SPVRG Ltd is a non-profit company limited by guarantee. It was formed to be the entity that is taking PCC to court so that one person did not have to take on the whole responsibility. The Directors of SPVRG Ltd are Ben Morris, Linda Rodell and Trish Cormack.

Join Our Mailing List

To get updates on how the case is going, click here: SPVRG Mailing List

To email us, click here: info@spvrg.wales