The Bakery Lane planning appeal

The Plan to demolish the flower shop and part of Fez is back on the agenda, this time it has gone to Appeal and the planning inspectorate deadline for comments is next Thursday, 12th June 2025.

The plan, if allowed, will forever change this character area of Petersfield, as ‘Planning’ continues to allow, and in many ways encourages, the homogenisation of English towns and communities.

Petersfield is often described as one of the best places to live in the South of the country (The Times, Telegraph etc) and much of this appeal is the character of the area. This character allows for large multi-national shops and restaurants, but also for the smaller, individual companies.
The layout of our market town, with its impressive High Street and characterful back streets, has evolved since Norman times, allowing local people to continue to thrive in diverse businesses, alongside the multinationals, together enabling a vibrant and viable daytime and nighttime economy, bucking the trend of many town centres across the country.

If we lose the character, we lose the appeal of the town, we lose the visitors, we lose the inhabitants of the larger shops, and the small companies aren’t operating at a scale to be able to afford the larger premises, and the ‘High Street’ take another step towards oblivion.

This is in-part why we have a Conservation area in Petersfield. To conserve something worth keeping. (Conserve: protect (something, especially something of environmental or cultural importance) from harm or destruction. Oxford English Dictionary.)

Of course the Conservation area status doesn’t mean the area has to be set in stone with zero alteration, but it does ensure any plans submitted within the area are given due consideration with perhaps a little more scrutiny than is afforded elsewhere.

Bakery Lane is within the Petersfield Conservation area. And the Conservation area has a Management Plan. And the Management Plan is in conformity with Historic England guidance as set out in Understanding Place: Conservation Area Designation, Appraisal and Management (March 2011). A huge amount of work went into this Plan, by a diverse collections of residents and officers.

So does none of this work and designation matter?

Petersfield Society considers the current Plan largely disregards the character of the area of Petersfield in which it is situated, and that if it is allowed to go ahead it will be detrimental to adjacent shopkeepers and the town as a whole. Not to mention the two businesses it will immediately put out of business, who’s success can in some part be attributed to the ambience of the area created by the traders as a whole.

We encourage you to look at the Plan, consider the alternatives, and urgently make constructive comments on the Appeal Portal: https://acp.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/ViewCase.aspx?CaseId=3364652

The DEADLINE FOR COMMENT IS NEXT THURSDAY, 12TH JUNE 2025.

Further details can be found by searching on the planning ref number:

South Downs NP Reference: SDNP/24/03947/FUL

Units C and D,39 Chapel Street, Petersfield GU32 3DY

NOTE – The Planning Inspectorate are based in Bristol. There is no opportunity for representation in person. Please make your representation through the Appeals portal at: 

https://acp.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/ViewCase.aspx?CaseId=3364652