Justification

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Comment

Draft Black Country Plan

Representation ID: 22567

Received: 06/10/2021

Respondent: DNA Investment Holdings Ltd

Agent: Lavata Group Ltd

Representation Summary:

The justification of the policy also appears to be short given the policy itself is so detailed. Paragraph 10.83 states “To ensure that heritage assets make a positive contribution towards the wider economic, social and environmental regeneration of the Black Country, it is important that they are not considered in isolation but are conserved and enhanced within their wider context. A holistic approach to the built and natural environment maximises opportunities to improve the overall image and quality of life in the Black Country by ensuring that historic context informs planning decisions and provides opportunities to link with other environmental infrastructure initiatives.” . We agree that a holistic approach is needed, but it needs to be clearer what this approach includes, as well as actually being explicit in the policy wording itself. This does not mention the need to look at physical site constraints, viability, the public benefits a development could bring or even a reference to developments being of high quality.

Comment

Draft Black Country Plan

Representation ID: 45870

Received: 11/10/2021

Respondent: St Modwen Developments Ltd

Agent: Planning Prospects Ltd

Representation Summary:

High Level Heritage Text for Reg. 18 submission – Uffmoor Vale, Dudley

This note covers archaeology, built heritage and historic landscapes and has been based on a high level assessment of information held by the Dudley Historic Environment Record (HER), on statutory national datasets, historic mapping, Historic Landscape Characterisation studies and a site walkover survey.

While the wider landscape includes designated and non-designated heritage assets from most periods (including listed buildings and archaeological sites), the Site and its immediate surrounds include no statutorily designated heritage assets. Assets, such as the Hunnington medieval moated site to the south of the Site, and listed buildings in central Halesowen to the northeast, hold no intervisibility with the site and no known historical associations. The site is well screened by Uffmoor Wood to the south, the wooded valley along the eastern boundary, and the extensive twentieth-century and later built form to the north of Manor Way.

The topography of the Site, one of small river valleys cutting through an undulating landscape with surrounding higher ground to the north, west and southwest, was eminently suitable for human settlement and exploitation. Interlocking spurs with generally flattened headlands, located along much of the stream valleys cutting through the Site, would be prime locations for human settlement and activity from prehistory onwards. In fact, the two farmsteads close to/surrounded by the Site, Tack Farm and Uffmoor Farm, occupy two such locations.

The Site is locally designated as forming part of an Area of High Historic Landscape Value (AHHLV) for its possible medieval ridge and furrow remains. However, there is little surviving surface evidence of early farming practices within the Site. An area of surviving ridge and furrow lies just outside the Site on its
western edge. Some degraded broad ridge and furrow, aligned east-west, survives in the field to the south of Tack Farm; this is possibly late medieval or early post-medieval in date. Other areas of ridge and furrow are visible on LiDAR data around Tack Farm and Uffmoor Farm, and are recorded in the Dudley HER, although there are few surviving surface indications, given the ongoing modern arable farming regime at the Site. Historic map evidence shows that many of the former historic field boundaries, some of which were of likely medieval date, have been removed, and the historic landscape has also been cut through by the modern Manor Way, with the result that there is little legibility of the former medieval landscape within the large open fields which broadly characterise the Site today.

The Site forms part of the western half of the ‘Hayley Fields and Iley’ Historic Landscape Character Area

(HLCA), associated with the thirteenth-century Grade I listed and Scheduled Monument, St Mary’s Abbey,



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located c.1.5km to the east of the Site. Grade II* Offmoor Grange is noted as belonging to the Abbey of St Mary’s in 1291 and is located c.1km to the east of the Site. Neither asset shares any intervisibility with the Site, although it is likely to have formed part of the outlying glebe farmland. As a result, the eastern half of the HLCA is more closely associated with the Abbey site.

Early historic maps appear to show Uffmoor Wood as an emparked woodland. It is likely that some of the surviving hedgerows have ancient origins and so too the woodland abutting the Site, and may date to the medieval period. As such, any such surviving historic field boundaries would be deemed ‘Important’ under the Hedgerow Regulations.

There are no built heritage assets surviving within the Site. The exception is the part remnant of a possible later nineteenth-century bridge serving a farm track to the southeast of Tack Farm. This has been extensively rebuilt with only the north-eastern parapet surviving. As noted above, the Site is close to Tack Farm and to Uffmoor Farm. Both of these farmsteads include a number of late eighteenth and nineteenth- century ranges of ancillary, brick-built agricultural buildings. The land surrounding both Sites contributes to their setting and legibility as historic farmsteads.

In summary, there are no known archaeology and built heritage constraints to bringing the Site forward as an allocation for residential/mixed development. The Site contains no statutorily designated heritage assets.
The archaeological potential of the Site is such that it can be adequately managed in the planning development control process. While impacts caused by the Site’s development to any affected archaeological and built heritage assets may be suitably mitigated and minimised within planning and through appropriate design and master planning, the Site’s historic landscape (part of a non-statutory AHHLV designation) is more vulnerable to change, even in its currently degraded form. Any scheme for the Site will need to be of a scale and density sensitive to the identified non-statutory designation and have regard to the associated local policy. All surviving historic field boundaries will need to be retained and there
would be a benefit if those removed in the post-medieval period were reinstated.