St Osyth Community

For the attention of: The Editor, St. Osyth News

Dear Editor,

With reference to the letter from the Sargeant Family to the Residents of St. Osyth in the previous edition of the magazine, I would ask the same question that many of my fellow residents have asked already;

“Why did the Sargeant Family buy St. Osyth Priory if they cannot afford to look after it?”

It is a simple question and I would suggest it requires a simple answer from the Sargeant Family.

For those that don’t yet fully understand what an “Enabling Grant” actually is, I will explain in basic terms as I understand it. An Enabling Grant is a planning permission granted to someone to allow them to build houses on land that would not normally be allowed to be built upon. One of the reasons an Enabling Grant can be given is for the purpose of raising money to restore an ancient monument.

In principle this may sound like a very applaudable thing to do; I am sure that all of us agree that the long term conservation of The Priory is extremely important. However we must ask the question “at what cost?” When I say “at what cost” I don’t mean the physical cost but the cost to the essence of the village itself.

If the Sargeant Family are correct in their figures and the cost to renovate and maintain The Priory is in excess of £22,000,000, can we begin to consider how many houses will need to be built to raise the money? An Enabling Grant requires that 75% of the profit from a house built must be used for the purpose of the restoration of the building in question. 25% of the profit from the sale of the house can go to the developer, (these are the percentages of profit after the actual cost to build the house in the first place).

If we make some basic assumptions we can conclude that a medium sized £250,000 house could cost around £150,000 to build. As such there would be around £100,000 profit; £75,000 for the restoration and £25,000 for the developer. (I’m sure these figures can be disputed or argued against but for now let’s stick with these figures).

If all the houses were medium sized £250,000 houses we therefore need 293 new houses to be built and sold in St. Osyth. All of these new houses will have, for the sake of argument, a standard sized family, (2 adults & 2.4 kids) plus of course 1 or 2 motor cars.

We have a population of around 3000 people in the village at present, so we would face an increase of over 33% swelling this to around 4300.

In this guestimate of things I have used a house valued at around £250,000; however planning rules would require some affordable houses for the less well off within the mix, so in fact we may actually see more houses than the 293 estimated. Though the cheaper houses will be smaller they will still certainly be required to house the standard 2 adults and 2.4 children. Thusly, we may in fact see an even greater number of new residents to our village. Of course the number of extra motor cars buzzing around the village will also increase.

Earlier this year when excavations began taking place around the Priory, speculation was rife about what the purpose of these excavations was. The view of many was that it was to establishing where these new houses could be built if an Enabling Grant was given. On the basis that the majority of these excavations took place on the land at the rear of the houses in Mill Street and also that some of the residents of Mill Street had been approached to sell their houses to the Sargeant Family, it seems reasonable to assume that this is at least one of the places that the Sargeant Family may try to get permission to build.

Working on the assumption that the Sargeant Family probably don’t want the 500 odd new motor cars buzzing past their living room window in the Priory, I think it is safe to guess that they are planning to access the new houses via Mill Street.

Considering the congestion that we face at the crossroads on a daily basis at certain times, coupled with the enormous volumes of traffic during the summer holidays, I personally am a little bit concerned by this!

Furthermore, of the 2.4 children per house the new development could attract, where will they go to school? This number of children would need a whole new school in fact. Where would this be built? Who would pay for it’s construction? Which Doctors’ surgery will the new residents attend when they are ill? New residents are regularly told the existing surgeries are full. Will a new Doctors’ surgery be built? Where will it be built? Who will pay for it?

Finally it might be worth considering that the Sargeant Family are directors and shareholders of City & Country Group (www.cityandcountry.co.uk) a very large building company.

Now if we were to view this whole thing rather cynically we could look at it like this:

The Sargeant Family get an Enabling Grant giving them permission to build a very large number of houses on Priory Land, and benefit to the tune of 75% of the profit from the sale of the houses. Furthermore, if they were to appoint their own company to build those houses, they would then be better off to the tune of the remaining 25% of the profit. For the time it would take to build all the houses; this would provide guaranteed growth and employment for City & Country Group’s staff and of course it’s owners – The Sargeant Family.

Growth, employment and development are all to be applauded in the right situation but can it be the right thing to DESTROY the village for the benefit of The Priory – not in my view. Moreover DESTROY the village whilst lining the pockets of a property developer who clearly has no interest in the village as a whole, simply the house he has bought which he cannot afford to look after.

So I ask the opening question again; “Why buy the Priory in the first place if you cannot afford to look after it?

Elderly and often wise old folk regularly suggest: “You must cut your cloth accordingly” Another nice little phrase is: “If you can’t pay, don’t play”… We are fighting our way out of a recession borne from excesses, from people (and countries) living beyond their means. The Sargeant Family have clearly bitten off far more than they can chew with St. Osyth Priory. It would have been better sold to a national body which was able to look after it properly and in turn allow full access to the public, to share in it’s beauty and history, or perhaps someone wealthier than the Sargeant Family who could carry out the essential work without blighting our beloved village with numerous new houses.

When the Sargeant Family first moved to St. Osyth, one of the first things they did was to try and get large amounts of land included in the Local Plan to try and build some houses. They have also attempted to take away a right which has existed for centuries over the use of The Bury. I would suggest that they don’t have the interests of this village at heart at all; lining their own pockets at our expense seems a lot more like their intention.

I hope that the residents of the village will rise up in horror at what an Enabling Grant really means for the Priory and the village of St. Osyth and make their objections to this awful project known to all.

I am sure the Sargeant Family will do their very best to make this plan look good for everyone when they carry out their exhibition, but don’t be fooled by what you see and hear, the simple fact is they want to build lots of houses in our village and spoil it.