Rally Round the Tally – part 2 !

rally_tally_2_smallAbout 50 people attended the Extraordinary General Meeting of Littlehempston Parish Council on Wednesday 17th October to let the Parish Council know what they thought about the planning applications to turn the Tally Ho! into a private residence. A show of hands revealed that nobody at the meeting was in favour of the planning applications being granted.  Rosemary Rowe, our South Hams District Councillor, was also there and she stressed that letters of objection needed to include sound planning reasons, related to the Council’s planning policies, if South Hams were going to refuse these applications.  You can read the draft minutes of the meeting here.

The formal Parish Council meeting was followed by a less formal session where local residents Bee Criddle, Neil Kelly and Mike Thomas handed out advice on the most effective ways to object to the applications.  You can read that advice here.

The following day Lindy Collard-Baker and Mike Thomas both went to Follaton House to make enquiries at the planning department – Lindy wanted to discuss the timing of the Parish Council’s response and Mike wanted to ask a question about the application for change of use of the Tally Ho’s barn.  Lindy and Mike ended up having a two hour meeting with Richard Gage – the planning officer that’s dealing with these applications !

Mr Gage started by explaining that, based on the information supplied by Phillip Saint with his planning applications, the conditions set out in South Hams’ planning policies that are imposed on applications had been met.  Specifically, accounts had been submitted which proved the Tally Ho! wasn’t a viable business, and it had been advertised at a realistic price and no buyer found.  So Mr Gage’s main concern was to preserve the historic building as effectively as possible and he felt that these applications worked well in that respect as they involved very little modification of the structure.

Lindy and Mike were able to tell Richard Gage that many people had expressed the view at the previous evening’s meeting that the Tally Ho! was not inherently non-viable – it had just not been run very effectively in recent years.  They also reported that offers had been made to buy the pub, but they hadn’t been accepted by Phillip Saint, and that villagers felt the pub had not been well advertised or offered at a realistic price.

Mr Gage stressed that if such arguments were to be effective, they must be set out clearly in letters to SHDC, with as much solid objective evidence as possible, and related to SHDC’s planning policies and the application’s supporting statement.  The meeting finished with Richard Gage stressing how pleased he was that the community were interested in, and getting involved with, these applications.  He made it clear that he really welcomed community involvement.

We’ve added a Tally Ho ! item to this website’s main menu (on your left) which currently links to detailed advice on how to find these applications and the associated documents, and how best to respond to them.  We’ve updated that advice after the meeting with Richard Gage to make it simpler to follow.

Quite a few people at Wednesday evening’s meeting left their names and e-mail addresses so that they could be kept up to date by e-mail, so we’ve set up a new mailing list specifically for the Rally Round the Tally campaign.  If you’d like to be added to the mailing list you can subscribe here.