Testun llawn:
Privately Owned:
St James Gardens is privately owned and is managed by a management company (First Port) on their behalf – Vale Council absolved their responsibilities for the common areas – roads, pavements, street lighting, green spaces and playgrounds. Nothing in St James Gardens has been adopted by Vale Council.
All residents pay collectively for the upkeep of all of the above (in additional to full council tax) and become a member of the management company on purchase of their property.
Vale Council have no right to permit access to this development for construction traffic to build new houses, OR to permit use of these roads for continued through traffic to any new houses.
Overdevelopment
St James Gardens - 124 homes built nearly 10 years ago, including 44 affordable homes, taking homes total to 325 (previously 201 homes in Wick).
17 new affordable homes built last year - outside the settlement area and in green open countryside (total homes in Wick now 342), with 61 affordable homes in total.
If 50 new additional homes built, Wick will have doubled in size over this short time to 392 homes.
Candidate site 404 in RLDP this site was already deemed “not suitable for further consideration, not suitable for small scale affordable housing led development or not suitable for a market let scheme” by Vale Council.
Alternative not considered
Site 355 of a similar size to site 404, was not considered suitable despite it being accessible from a main adopted road and virtually opposite the site for the new affordable housing mentioned above. It cannot be argued that putting it in green open countryside is not permitted, as this has already happened on the 17 home site mentioned above. If the site is too large, just restrict the permission to the required size (as was done when St James Gardens built originally).
The reason the Vale Council have given for removing the site on St Brides Road was “Heol Fain better reflects the existing pattern of development” – this is totally subjective and in fact takes no account that this site can be accessed easily by an adopted highway (which Heol Fain cannot).
Local Lettings Policy (LLP)
Vale Council website states “Properties with an LLP are allocated in a DIFFERENT way to properties available for bids through the Homes4U scheme. Applicants in the first instance are prioritised in line with the specific LLP. Applicants with the strongest connections to the community are given the highest priority. Applicants within the highest priority band are then prioritised in line with the Homes4U Policy.
In the unlikely event that there are insufficient applicants who fall within Priority 1, 2 or 3, then lettings sales can be extended to Homes4U for applicants who live or work anywhere in the Vale area.
However, St James Gardens Properties and those in the new development Clos y Stabl, have virtually all been advertised on Homes4U for bidding, proving there is no “local need” for properties for local people, otherwise why are they being advertised openly?
Examples:
Advert for 2 properties St James Gardens: 2 bed house and 1 bed flat appeared 29/1/26
Advert for 15 properties Clos y Stabl: 3 x 1 bed bungalows, 2 x 1 bed ground floor flats, 4 x 2 bed houses and 6 x 3 bed houses appeared 27/11/25
Advert for 1 property St James Gardens: 2 bed house appeared 12/06/25
Advert for 1 property St James Gardens: 3 bed house appeared 20/02/25
19 properties advertised for bidding on Homes4U does not show a need for local affordable housing in this rural location, which has virtually no local amenities and extremely poor public transport links. We understand the local school, which has been recently enlarged to cope with current demand, have not been consulted directly on this issue either.
The RDLP states HG4 – Rural Affordable Housing Led Sites - The following sites are allocated as affordable housing led sites where there will be a requirement for the provision of a minimum 50% affordable housing to meet the affordable housing needs of the local community.
It also says: In all cases, affordable housing units on rural affordable housing-led sites will be subject to a local lettings policy to ensure that they are available to residents with a local connection at both initial and subsequent occupations. THE DEMAND HAS CLEARLY ALREADY BEEN MET in Wick as all available for rent are being advertised openly on Homes4U.
Vale Council documents continue to state there needs to be “local need” as all the above properties have been advertised for open bids on Homes4U, the LLP clearly hasn’t been used and so the current affordable housing provision is already more than needed for this local community.
