Silverstone Shooting Range - anymore news?

[Thorney]

Cool, more the merrier.

Now at appeal, will know more in September.

[UKYankee]

Found the petition to show interest in this range at R&K Stockcraft last weekend and signed up!

Is there an online petition that I can sign. Only live about 15 miles from Silverstone so would definatley be interested, as would a number of other shooters in the Banbury area that I know.

[Fedaykin]

The minutes of the council planning meeting here, no real surprises really. They don't want scary noises and seem to have confused the sound of a few rifles with that of the Somme.

http://www.syreshamvillage.com/index.ph ... Itemid=132

Also a link to a news article:

http://www.buckinghamtoday.co.uk/news/m ... -1-5995687

Basically a bunch of Nimbies...

[Fedaykin]

Lots of interesting stuff on the planning register:

http://snc.planning-register.co.uk/plan ... ecno=70722

Funny really back in the day I used to shoot .22lr with zero ear protection, now suppressed examples are too noisy.

[Fedaykin]

Actually here is a copy of the letter John Thorne put together in reply to the locals (the vocal minority no doubt) about the application. It is a fine example of the problems faced with local planning applications and vocal Nimbies, each point is literally from the Nimby play-book of complaints from it will hurt some local critters or wildlife to it will affect the house values (a real old complaint/trick) and finally "we just don't like and that should be good enough for a rejection".

Have a look and weep for the nation:

Staplegate Farm
Crowfield
Northants
NN13 5TW
January 26th
2014
South Northants Council
Planning Dept
Springfields
Towcester
NN12 6AE
Dear Clare,
Ref. Planning application, Staplegate Farm, Crowfield
We have now been able to have some meetings with the local residents regarding their concerns on
the application which I will detail below.
1. Ecology and wildlife
Some concerns have been raised that the range will interfere or interrupt with local wildlife.

I will refer to the Ecology report submitted by Belos Ltd which enters into some detail that
there will be zero affect on local wildlife including birds or local ground dwelling animals. Not
only did the site as it exists now represent a ‘poor’ ecological environment but the effect of
the extensive landscaping and planting would be for a more enriched ecological
environment to be created.

2. Safety
There were some concerns over storage of firearms and ammunition on site.

As part of the application the South Northants Police have been consulted extensively and
will be ensuring that all firearms storage and handling will comply with the relevant
statutory laws. These include the provision of CCTV and alarm (already established on the
site) but also a steel cage door protecting access to specialist gun safe storage.

3. Drop in house value
Two complaints were registered by local residents in that they felt the creation of a shooting
range would ‘de-value their property’ and would be as bad as ‘putting a nuclear power
station next door’. We disagree with these statements, firstly as we have detailed the site is
already ‘blighted’ by a very busy road which effectively surrounds one complainants
property and it is this that would affect any property value greater than any range in
existence. Secondly with the amendments we have proposed in our application in that there
would be no greater noise emitted than the current background noise we fail to see how the
range (which would not be visible from either complainants property) would have any effect
on the value. The local area is effectively surrounded by commercial chicken farms, we would suggest that the existence of these would also have a greater effect than a range that
can be neither seen nor heard.

4. Anti guns
There was one complaint that they were ‘anti’ guns on principle.

Whilst we appreciate that view and understand that for some guns simply represent
weapons with which to injure others the fact is that target shooting is a massive sport in the
UK with thousands of participants including a successful Olympic team. One of our aims
from the operation of the site is the further education for the public on the use of firearms
to promote this sport.

5. Noise
By far the greatest concern was the level of noise generated by the site.

I will refer to the detailed noise survey taken by Clover Accoustics. From their actual noise
measurements it is clear that the site and the surrounding area is far from ‘quiet’. The main
road, the B4525 is a very busy trunk road linking Banbury to the A43 and has significant
commercial vehicle traffic as demonstrated by spikes in the noise levels measured during the
day where the sound frequently reached a peak measurement of 59db. An average
measurement of 55db was measured, not representative of a rural location. The presence of
the road and the persistent noise generated would negate the veracity of the view that the
area was ‘peaceful and tranquil’, it is not.

However, we have no intention of creating ill will in the local community so will amend the
application to ensure that the use of the facility will not create a noise level any higher than
the background noise as measured, ie 55db.

Once the bunds are completed we will undertake to measure a variety of firearms for their
noise level and ensure that only those firearms that comply with the 55db limit will be used.
We will also agree to continue to monitor the site for compliance on an on going basis. We
are happy to make this amendment as we are confident that both the sound attenuation
methods will function as we expect but also we are confident that physical measures such as
the fitment of silencers to the guns used will further enable a ‘quiet’ range to operate. This
will have no effect on the commercial aims for the operation.

Some of the residents made the comment that they felt that they were ‘ambushed’ by the timing of
the application and the impending Parish Council meeting due on Wednesday 29th
January for which
we do humbly apologise. We were unaware that the application would immediately move to a
voting stage at the parish council and we were anticipating the time to arrange a series of meetings
with local residents to discuss the plans and make amendments as necessary – as we now have
done, however we do apologise if the impression was made that we were ‘ambushing ‘anyone.
At the same time some residents have felt that even though their own concerns have now been
addressed by these amendments they feel that the process has now been ‘taken over’ and some members of the community are seeking to speak on behalf of the village as a whole in an attempt to
give the impression that the whole village of Crowfield is against the application – this is not the
case. We have now spoken to nearly every resident in the village and whilst there are some who are
still resistant to any application (regardless the measures we can put in place to alleviate their
concerns on noise) others are comfortable if we impose the changes as detailed in this letter and in
our amended application.

We remain committed to ensuring that the operation of the range is in keeping with the local
community and are confident that its operation will not create any issues of noise now or in the
future.
Yours sincerely



John Thorne

[Gaz]

Sounds like plain old NIMBYism killed it off, as you say. Would an education campaign (trip to nearest rifle range/shotgun area, leaflets, etc) for clueless locals have helped, maybe?

[Fedaykin]

Nope, I seriously doubt it would make any difference. I have sat in on an odd few Parish council and planning meetings, once the huffy vocal nimbies kick off there is no redirecting them to reason. I remember in one case of a new housing development on an old rather nasty industrial estate we had one local say the apartments (multi-storey one and two bedroom as required to accommodate local young professionals) got on the way of the view from his house (actually not a good reason for rejection as you have no right to a view). I went to stand in front of his house and found that he was lying due to the minor issue of a large hill being in the way of said development meaning unless he had x-ray eyes that could enable him to look through several hundred thousand tons of chalk and soil it wasn't actually an issue for him

Actually I wouldn't be surprised if such a thing was offered anyhow.

If the application had been for an underground tunnel range no doubt they would make exactly the same complaints with special concern for the Wombles!

[Thorney]

Nimbys? Oh it gets worse than that.

Since the application we've had:

Fire brigade called out at 11pm at night after complaints that we had a bonfire burning 'out of control', I struggled not to laugh when I walked over to the fire, which was about 9" high and 3 feet across and asked what the crew chief thought and he said "I think this has been a monumental waste of everyones time". What was even more funny was that the complaint was someone saying they saw the fire (out of control remember) from their car on the road, impressive seeing as that meant they looked through a 8m high hedge and a 6ft fence.

But it goes on, we got a visit from the local council health and safety officer after they had complaints that our corporate entertainment operation 4x4xgun.com which is run from the same site (with not a single complaint in 3 years of running) was 'unsafe and dangerous', I showed them round, showed them a copy of our insurance cover, our risk assessment policy and notes and they left happy that what we did was perfectly safe (subject to police view, more of that in a minute).

Then we had the Environment Agency with a complaint that we were burning 'toxic waste', same affect, I showed them round and they agreed that all of our licences are valid and in place and we'd done nothing wrong.

Finally we had the police, a concerned dog walker in the woods next door saw me shooting and called the police (999 no less) that what I was doing was dangerous, they roll up (in uniform, marked car) and ask my wife about it (I was out at a shooting comp funnily enough) and seeing as our land has been signed off for shooting and clay shoots and is all official they confirmed that but they had to turn up as a complaint had been made. When my wife asked if I need to call my FAC to discuss they said 'dont bother, we see what this is about, no point wasting his time'.

So thats 4 govt agencies, with employees paid for by our taxes being used as a weapon against someone trying to do nothing more than create employment and a business to create a safe environment for the conduct of a perfectly legal past time.

Add to all this is the fact that we didnt get turned down on noise, the council actually agreed that our application would have no affect on local amenity, no affect on local residents or users of the woods next door, we only got knocked back as the earth bunds used wouldnt look very pretty - thats it, hence we have appealed. However the process is nothing short of shocking, we did a test where several councillors visited the site and I test fired several rounds both supressed and unsupressed, not only could they not hear a thing but they eventually asked that I leave my mobile phone on speaker when I fired again so they could be sure I wasnt conning them! However the best bit, was after all this, the same councillors, who said they couldnt hear a thing, stand up in the planning meeting and say 'I'm worried about the affect of noise'. You couldnt make it up.

[Gaz]

I take it the local paper isn't interested/only wants to report the council version of events? It may well be worth cultivating your local reporter - the harassment via cop stuff is out of order and might sow divisions in the opposition.

[The Cupcake Kid]

What needs to be understood is that in this country (and most other '"democracies", come to that) a very small minority of people can decide what a majority can and can't do.

John is in a much better position than most to realise this, having been involved in Motorsport for a while. There are UK Motorsport venues being threatened with closure on a regular basis, usually because of a very small number of 'locals' complaining about the noise and the authorities taking too much notice of them.

As he's found, it doesn't really matter whether you're making any noise or not. It's the perception and bloody-mindedness which wins through (and often some influence on those making the decisions). I know of one circuit where local residents rang up the council to complain about the noise of cars driving around it. Except, on that particular day the planned event had been cancelled and there were no cars out on circuit!

Top marks for trying, but I do think this was destined to be an uphill struggle from the start. You could always excavate the whole site and build an underground range complex...