Addendum to Submission for the NET Public Inquiry
Corrections to and clarifications of our submission in the light of the NET Rebuttal R61

by Joy & Eric Foxley 31 Greenfield Street, Dunkirk, Nottingham NG7 2JN
Joint owners of this property since 1967

Tuesday, 04 December 2007
Ten documents attached for completeness, some already exist in the NET library

Introduction

Joy Foxley (born 1935, resident in Nottingham since 1950) was a primary school teacher. She taught at Dunkirk Primary School from when she resumed teaching after raising a family (1970) until her resignation in 1985. Since then she has studied Indian dance & storytelling in India and in the UK, and is a freelance Animateur.

Eric Foxley (born 1937, resident in Nottingham since 1956 or 1960) was at the university as an undergraduate (1956-59), postgraduate (1959-62) and staff (1961-2001) until retirement. Whilst Director of the Cripps Computing Centre he provided computing facilities for the whole campus including Civil Engineering, and was involved in the construction of buildings for the Wolfson Institute and the Institute for Hearing Research.

Our family lived in Vienna while Eric was Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies there, and our eldest son and his family live in Frankfurt. We are thus familiar with the concept of a tram, and are supporters of trams in general; we provide live entertainment on the existing Nottingham trams, NET Line One.

Section 1.1 History

Correction. The two route options in the vicinity as shown in Appendix 1 of our submission came from the “NET Phase 2 Consultation” document NET B2/23, not the “Beeston & Chilwell have your say” document (NET B2/6). Apologies. In the PowerPoint presentation WE show for clarification and completeness the maps from NET B2/6 of earlier possible routings for the tram.

The ratio of 6:1 in favour of the route in front of the Arts Centre comes from the document NET B2/27A pages 9 and 62 and represents actual numbers of 18:3. Unlike NET, who comment in NET R61/3.1.3 that this sample is too small to be significant, we are very impressed with these numbers. The fact that there are only 3 owner-occupied houses (see below) on Greenfield Street means that 15 unbiased people supported option 2, and only 3 people thought that our gardens were surplus to requirements.

Where the NET B2/23 document compares the two possible routes round the Arts Centre, it includes a mention of the number of trees to be lost. You can see a number or trees in blank dashed circles on the B2/23 option 1 plan. Unfortunately for us, there is no longer any problem of tree loss with option 1. All significant trees along the route behind the Arts Centre (at least 16) have already been removed by the university, we surmise, in hopeful anticipation of option 1. The area behind the Arts Centre used to be nicely set out and maintained. The flower beds there have now been grubbed up by the university, presumably to make the area behind the Arts Centre no longer attractive or deserving to be kept.

A more detailed assessment of the west side of Greenfield Street shows that there are 3 owner occupied properties, 6 private landlord, and 6 owned by the university.

• Of the 6 university-owned properties, one is occupied by an elderly couple who have rented it for over 30 years. They have maintained their garden to a far higher standard than the other 5 owned by and “cared” for by the university, which receive minimal attention. This couple were never informed, consulted or invited to comment on the current NET proposals. One would have thought this was part of the university’s (of any landlord’s) duty of care to its tenants.
• All the owner occupiers were approached in 2004 by Innes England (Estate Agents) with a letter [our document 2.] starting “I act on behalf of the University of Nottingham. My clients have asked me to write to you to ascertain whether you would be interested in disposing of your property …”. They state that they want a quick decision. They even offer immediate purchase with lease-back to the current owner. In the meantime, the university is reducing its housing stock in the rest of this area. It obviously has no real need of the Greenfield Street properties.

Section 1.2 Highfields Park

The first mention of the possible inclusion of Highfields Park within the university campus is from the original descriptive registration document of Highfields Park submitted with the English Heritage registration letter. It contains the paragraph

“In 1948, as part of planned additions to the university accommodation. Sir Perry Thomas devised a landscape plan for the entire campus including the Park. This was revised by Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe in 1955, but his designs were not implemented.”

The letter from Maurita Farnesy (another Greenfield Street west-side resident) to English Heritage [our document 3] requesting registration of the park was on behalf of DOLRA, the “Dunkirk & Old Lenton Residents Association”. We were concerned at the continuing erosion of the park. The English Heritage confirmation of registration is our document 4. In the light of the fact that NET quote the registration as a reason for coming through our garden, perhaps we should not have fought to have the park registered in the first place. The city and university were not helpful in the registration process.

Apparently the City did not appreciate until recently that Highfields Park was owned by a charitable trust. This was after it had disposed of the Highfields Lido site to the university for its new “Arts Centre” (this contains the Music and Art History departments), and the Centre had been built and opened. A letter from the Charity Commissi0ners to Ms Farnesy in January 1997 [our document 5] includes the sentence:

“Further to my letter of 20 December 1996 I write to explain that we have met with the Nottingham City Council in their capacity as trustee of the above-mentioned Park. The first point that we have to appreciate is that earlier disposals of land were made prior to the Council appreciating that they held the land subject to charitable trusts.”

The reputed cost of the lease to the university (Nottingham Evening Post) was £330,000.

The phrase “further incursion into the park should be avoided” (NET R61/3.1.5) does not fit well with the actual history of the park. The decrease of open space and increase of intrusion from the city and university has continued unabated for many years.

The original option 2, with its proposed tram stop directly in front of the Arts Centre facing Highfields Park, would be wonderful publicity for the tram. People using the theatre, art gallery, music hall and recreation facilities (as well as university students) would find the immediacy of the stop very attractive. A stop hidden away in a less prominent place by University Boulevard would be admitting that the tram really needs hiding away.

Section 1.3 Noise & Vibration and the Self-contained Rehearsal Hall

We attach as our document 7 the planning notification for the building of the rehearsal hall, as received by Ms Farnesy, another resident on Greenfield Street. Although we at number 31 did not receive this notification, we replied stating that the new building must not materially affect any of the NET Phase 2 project planning process. The two route options were, at that stage, still both options in the frame.

Attached as our document 6 are the first two pages of the letter from the Planning Office to the consulting architects, granting planning permission for the Rehearsal Hall subject to conditions. You will see that our concerns were met in sections 2e and 3a.

We believe that the addressees should be approached to determine whether the full attenuation scheme required by the planning permission was implemented, or whether a cheaper alternative building design which did not satisfy the planning conditions was implemented instead. We have so far been unsuccessful in obtaining this information under the FoI act.

We also believe that there are members of the City planning department concerned at the way the issue was handled on their side. The City Planning department should also be approached to see who signed the acceptance of the revised building design. We have requested this information under the FoI act. It has been promised by 21st December.

The building we are talking about is, in any case, a rehearsal hall, not a performance hall. It is occupied for far less time than our house, primarily term-time afternoons. Evening occupation for concerts is: September 2007 - 2 evenings; October 2007 - 6 evenings; November 2007 - 4 evenings.

The decision between routes “option 1” and “option 2” must be kept open and must not be influenced by the presence of the new building.

We repeat that the choice between the routes behind the Arts Centre and in front of it (any route in front of it) appears to us as follows.

• NET says “in front” is cheaper.
• “In front” involves no CPO of domestic homes.
• “In front” does not destroy the attractive area at the south of the Arts Centre, overlooked by their restaurant. This involves a small pond with surrounding planting and artworks.
• “In front” is beneficial in Mr Gilder’s terms - “On-road running is less intrusive than off-road running.” (said at this Inquiry on 13th November)
• “In front” involves no loss of the car parking at the rear of the Arts Centre.
• “In front” is surrounded by occupied buildings on one side only, instead of on two sides.
• “In front” will have noise impact on one building instead of 19.
• “In front” does not run alongside night-time residents.

My earlier “Theatre Royal” comments are still valid, as admitted in NET R61/3.2.1. Other people (including City employees who use the Royal Centre for meetings) comment that “You always have to have the windows closed in the Len Maynard suite”. My comments about noise in the theatre auditorium are accepted as true by NET. NET Line One got it very wrong. If the route behind the Arts Centre goes ahead, we will be useful guinea pigs for the errors of NET Phase II.

Section 2 Long term degradations to our property

This represents a fall-back position which we hope will never be reached. We are unique among objectors in that an alternative routing to avoid our CPO not only exists, but has already been accepted as cheaper than the current proposal and with no serious over-riding disadvantages. On the assumption that CPO is justified only in “overwhelming” and “compelling” cases, we are surely safe. Item 3 of the SoM queries for CPO powers “whether all of the land … is required”; it most certainly is not required in this case.

31 Greenfield Street

• The house was built 1899 / 1901 on an existing orchard. At that time University Boulevard was a footpath. [See 1901 map at our document 9.]
• It is the largest house in the area and one of the oldest.
• It was originally named “Greenfield House”. (BBBS lost the original deeds in a fire.)
• It has a 2-horse stables & coach house at the back, very close to the proposed route, currently used as a bed-sitter upstairs & a craft pottery downstairs.
• It is a stunning and wonderful house. Many of our visitors (artists, musicians, dancers and choreographers) bring others with them just to see the property.
• The land has been cultivated for over 100 years.
• It has been owned by us for over 40 years.
• One of the reasons we bought it is because it had a good-sized garden. The mature beech tree in the garden was planted about two weeks after we arrived. The silver birches and cherry trees in the area all come from our plantings at the same time.
• We bought adjoining land and extended the garden 29 years ago.
• The house (like other Greenfield Street properties) stands on ground higher than the tram route. The land slopes down from the house to the bottom of the garden. In addition the house is built up higher that the road (perhaps for reasons of flooding?). This would make the tram more intrusive.

Section 2.2 Loss of land. Misspelling “story” should be “storey”. Apologies.

Our garden design is not one in which you can just remove 5 metres from one side. We are impressed that NET assures us (NET R61/3.2.3) that it will be “be capable of remodelling” after their intrusion, and they further state that it could then even be made into “an attractive and useable asset” (NET R61/3.2.3). The term “asset” presumably hints that we would soon wish to sell the property.

We are proud of our garden.

The revised PowerPoint slides include a photograph of some of the Anthony Gormley “Field for the British Isles”-type of ceramic people in the garden.

The quote for reinstatement of the garden at our document 10.

For a garden of the quality of ours, the NET proposed offer of “Adjacent tree planting” is totally unrealistic, irrelevant and insulting.

Section 3 Regeneration
We regard the unnecessary destruction of this whole street area as contrary to item 2b of the SoM.

Conclusion

We had originally hoped to spend the rest of our lives here, in the house that we have adapted to our needs over the last forty years. Apart from its convenience and location, it holds the memories of the best part of a lifetime, bringing up a family and working in the area; Joy taught at Dunkirk Primary School, and Eric was on the senior staff of the university. Many ex-Dunkirk School pupils and ex-university students from the UK and all parts of the world still visit us when they are in Nottingham; they are glad to find that we are still here.

We are in favour of trams in principle, but when there is an alternative route for the tram, which

• is cheaper,
• involves no CPO of domestic property,
• has no adjoining night-time residents,
• involves no car park loss,
• has less noise impact both in number of buildings and number of people,
• is surrounded by occupied buildings on one side instead of on both sides,
• runs “on road”, which Mr Gilder said (13th November) was less intrusive than off-road running,
• does not spoil the ambience of the university’s Arts Centre restaurant

-- to route it through our garden is VERY wrong. Unlike many other NET Phase 2 locations, there is a better route in this area, already surveyed in some detail, perfectly satisfactory, which does not inflict the Draconian measure of CPO on real human beings (“domestic property” in NET speak).

“There is a compelling case in support of the tram running between the East Drive and Highfields Park.” [AS]

Joy & Eric Foxley

Errors in NET documentation. NET should go through all their documentation checking for confusion between “Beeston Lane” and “Beeston Road” as well as between “Highfields Park” and “University Park”.

List of attached documents
Joy & Eric Foxley
Some of these are already in the NET library.

1. Report of City Council meeting preferring route “option 1” received 4th May 2007 Perhaps B1/27 App 4 section 7
2. Innes England letter to Greenfield Street property owner occupiers 10th August 2004
3. Request to English Heritage 22nd January 1996
4. Reply from English Heritage February 1996
5. Charity commissioners to Nottingham City Council re illegal purchase of trust land 26th January 1998
6. Conditional planning permission document 11th November 2005
7. Planning notification 29th September 2005
8. NET document discussing route options 1 and 2
9. Map of Dunkirk 1901
10. Quote for re-instatement of garden 18th August 2007

The first mention of the possible inclusion of Highfields Park within the university campus is from the original descriptive registration document of Highfields Park submitted with the English Heritage registration letter. It contains the paragraph

“In 1948, as part of planned additions to the university accommodation. Sir Perry Thomas devised a landscape plan for the entire campus including the Park. This was revised by Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe in 1955, but his designs were not implemented.”

The letter from Maurita Farnesy (another Greenfield Street west-side resident) to English Heritage [our document 3] requesting registration of the park was on behalf of DOLRA, the “Dunkirk & Old Lenton Residents Association”. We were concerned at the continuing erosion of the park. The English Heritage confirmation of registration is our document 4. In the light of the fact that NET quote the registration as a reason for coming through our garden, perhaps we should not have fought to have the park registered in the first place. The city and university were not helpful in the registration process.

Apparently the City did not appreciate until recently that Highfields Park was owned by a charitable trust. This was after it had disposed of the Highfields Lido site to the university for its new “Arts Centre” (this contains the Music and Art History departments), and the Centre had been built and opened. A letter from the Charity Commissi0ners to Ms Farnesy in January 1997 [our document 5] includes the sentence:

“Further to my letter of 20 December 1996 I write to explain that we have met with the Nottingham City Council in their capacity as trustee of the above-mentioned Park. The first point that we have to appreciate is that earlier disposals of land were made prior to the Council appreciating that they held the land subject to charitable trusts.”

The reputed cost of the lease to the university (Nottingham Evening Post) was £330,000.

The phrase “further incursion into the park should be avoided” (NET R61/3.1.5) does not fit well with the actual history of the park. The decrease of open space and increase of intrusion from the city and university has continued unabated for many years.

The original option 2, with its proposed tram stop directly in front of the Arts Centre facing Highfields Park, would be wonderful publicity for the tram. People using the theatre, art gallery, music hall and recreation facilities (as well as university students) would find the immediacy of the stop very attractive. A stop hidden away in a less prominent place by University Boulevard would be admitting that the tram really needs hiding away.

Section 1.3 Noise & Vibration and the Self-contained Rehearsal Hall

We attach as our document 7 the planning notification for the building of the rehearsal hall, as received by Ms Farnesy, another resident on Greenfield Street. Although we at number 31 did not receive this notification, we replied stating that the new building must not materially affect any of the NET Phase 2 project planning process. The two route options were, at that stage, still both options in the frame.

Attached as our document 6 are the first two pages of the letter from the Planning Office to the consulting architects, granting planning permission for the Rehearsal Hall subject to conditions. You will see that our concerns were met in sections 2e and 3a.

We believe that the addressees should be approached to determine whether the full attenuation scheme required by the planning permission was implemented, or whether a cheaper alternative building design which did not satisfy the planning conditions was implemented instead. We have so far been unsuccessful in obtaining this information under the FoI act.

We also believe that there are members of the City planning department concerned at the way the issue was handled on their side. The City Planning department should also be approached to see who signed the acceptance of the revised building design. We have requested this information under the FoI act. It has been promised by 21st December.

The building we are talking about is, in any case, a rehearsal hall, not a performance hall. It is occupied for far less time than our house, primarily term-time afternoons.

The decision between routes “option 1” and “option 2” must be kept open and must not be influenced by the presence of the new building.

We repeat that the choice between the routes behind the Arts Centre and in front of it (any route in front of it) appears to us as follows.

• NET says “in front” is cheaper.
• “In front” involves no CPO of domestic homes.
• “In front” does not destroy the attractive area at the south of the Arts Centre, overlooked by their restaurant. This involves a small pond with surrounding planting and artworks.
• “In front” is beneficial in Mr Gilder’s terms - “On-road running is less intrusive than off-road running.” (said at this Inquiry on 13th November)
• “In front” involves no loss of the car parking at the rear of the Arts Centre.
• “In front” is surrounded by occupied buildings on one side only, instead of on two sides.
• “In front” will have noise impact on one building instead of 19.
• “In front” does not run alongside night-time residents.

My earlier “Theatre Royal” comments are still valid, as admitted in NET R61/3.2.1. Other people (including City employees who use the Royal Centre for meetings) comment that “You always have to have the windows closed in the Len Maynard suite”. My comments about noise in the theatre auditorium are accepted as true by NET. NET Line One got it very wrong. If the route behind the Arts Centre goes ahead, we will be useful guinea pigs for the errors of NET Phase II.

Section 2 Long term degradations to our property

This represents a fall-back position which we hope will never be reached. We are unique among objectors in that an alternative routing to avoid our CPO not only exists, but has already been accepted as cheaper than the current proposal and with no serious over-riding disadvantages. On the assumption that CPO is justified only in “overwhelming” and “compelling” cases, we are surely safe. Item 3 of the SoM queries for CPO powers “whether all of the land … is required”; it most certainly is not required in this case.

31 Greenfield Street
• The house was built 1899 / 1901 on an existing orchard. At that time University Boulevard was a footpath. [See 1901 map at our document 9.]
• It is the largest house in the area and one of the oldest.
• It was originally named “Greenfield House”. (BBBS lost the original deeds in a fire.)
• It has a 2-horse stables & coach house at the back, very close to the proposed route, currently used as a bed-sitter upstairs & a craft pottery downstairs.
• It is a stunning and wonderful house. Many of our visitors (artists, musicians, dancers and choreographers) bring others with them just to see the property.
• The land has been cultivated for over 100 years.
• It has been owned by us for over 40 years.
• One of the reasons we bought it is because it had a good-sized garden. The mature beech tree in the garden was planted about two weeks after we arrived. The silver birches and cherry trees in the area all come from our plantings at the same time.
• We bought adjoining land and extended the garden 29 years ago.
• The house (like other Greenfield Street properties) stands on ground higher than the tram route. The land slopes down from the house to the bottom of the garden. In addition the house is built up higher that the road (perhaps for reasons of flooding?). This would make the tram more intrusive.

Section 2.2 Loss of land. Misspelling “story” should be “storey”. Apologies.

Our garden design is not one in which you can just remove 5 metres from one side. We are impressed that NET assures us (NET R61/3.2.3) that it will be “be capable of remodelling” after their intrusion, and they further state that it could then even be made into “an attractive and useable asset” (NET R61/3.2.3). The term “asset” presumably hints that we would soon wish to sell the property.

The revised PowerPoint slides include a photograph of some of the Anthony Gormley “Field for the British Isles”-type of ceramic people in the garden.

The quote for reinstatement of the garden at our document 10.

For a garden of the quality of ours, the NET proposed offer of “Adjacent tree planting” is totally unrealistic, irrelevant and insulting.

Section 3 Regeneration
We regard the unnecessary destruction of this whole street area as contrary to item 2b of the SoM.

Conclusion

We had originally hoped to spend the rest of our lives here, in the house that we have adapted to our needs over the last forty years. Apart from its convenience and location, it holds the memories of the best part of a lifetime, bringing up a family and working in the area; Joy taught at Dunkirk Primary School, and Eric was on the senior staff of the university. Many ex-Dunkirk School pupils and ex-university students from the UK and all parts of the world still visit us when they are in Nottingham; they are glad to find that we are still here.

We are in favour of trams in principle, but when there is an alternative route for the tram, which

• is cheaper,
• involves no CPO of domestic property,
• has no adjoining night-time residents,
• involves no car park loss,
• has less noise impact both in number of buildings and number of people,
• is surrounded by occupied buildings on one side instead of on both sides,
• runs “on road”, which Mr Gilder said (13th November) was less intrusive than off-road running,
• does not spoil the ambience of the university’s Arts Centre restaurant

-- to route it through our garden is VERY wrong. Unlike many other NET Phase 2 locations, there is a better route in this area, already surveyed in some detail, perfectly satisfactory, which does not inflict the Draconian measure of CPO on real human beings (“domestic property” in NET speak).

“There is a compelling case in support of the tram running between the East Drive and Highfields Park.” [AS]

Joy & Eric Foxley

Errors in NET documentation. NET should go through all their documentation checking for confusion between “Beeston Lane” and “Beeston Road” as well as between “Highfields Park” and “University Park”.

List of attached documents
Joy & Eric Foxley
Some of these are already in the NET library.

1. Report of City Council meeting preferring route “option 1” received 4th May 2007 Perhaps B1/27 App 4 section 7
2. Innes England letter to Greenfield Street property owner occupiers 10th August 2004
3. Request to English Heritage 22nd January 1996
4. Reply from English Heritage February 1996
5. Charity commissioners re purchase of trust land 26th January 1998
6. Conditional planning permission document 11th November 2005
7. Planning notification 29th September 2005
8. NET document discussing route options 1 and 2
9. Map of Dunkirk 1901
10. Quote for re-instatement of garden 18th August 2007