Letter of opposition to proposed development of Barratts Farm in Balsall Common and construction of by-pass.
I would like to start this letter with highlighting that there is enough brown field sites to fulfil the housing requirements needed by the council. There is no valid reason to take greenbelt land in order to build these houses and the 'bypass' will simply serve to provide an access road for the houses and nothing else.
Without clear access from the South neither Hallmeadow road or Station Road could cope with the increased traffic this development will bring.
Whilst traffic levels are higher during peak commuter periods it has already been accepted that the village does not require a 'bypass' in order to sustain the levels of traffic, there is currently not enough demand for this. The real reason for the proposed bypass is simply to fulfil future road links for HS2 expansion. In the current proposal this 'bypass' is not a 'bypass' it is an access road for the 900 houses which will only add further pressure to the commuter traffic within the village.
There is already a clear lack of car parking spaces in and around the village. Hallmeadow Road is consistently used for general parking for Berkswell Station and the medical centre. The only other two car parking sites in the village have now been turned into Shops or houses (the spaces directly behind the shops leading to the Co-op supermarket and behind the new shops of Tesco and Costa). Parking for any of the shops, library and Jubilee centre are extremely hard to come by. In this area there is an average of 1.6 cars per household with 2.5% of households having 4 or more cars/vans. It is fair to assume that there will be upwards of an additional 1500 cars in the village and the pressure these additional 1500 cars would bring would be immense.
It is already difficult to obtain a doctors appointment at the clinic directly opposite us. Despite raising no objections to the build of the clinic, as it was a much needed requirement for the village, and although I don't have official figures, the feeling locally is that it is already at capacity in terms of providing an acceptable level of service. With an average of 2.4 people per household locally another 1900 patients will do nothing to ease this problem.
Building more houses in this location will create more unsustainable car traffic by encouraging more car commuters to live in Balsall Common. It is accepted that Balsall Common is an area where there is little in the way of job creation and many residents have to commute by car to work around the West Midlands. Only 6% of residents of this area travel to work using public transport (information from solihull.gov.uk). This is contrary to planning policy. Routes to exit the village to the east is very restricted under the low bridge at Station Road and the narrow bridge on Lavender Hall Lane with no room for expansion on these. To the west Balsall Street East is not a major thoroughfare and does not have the capacity to cope with a large increase in traffic, so virtually all traffic will be travelling north on the A452. Brownfield sites to the north of the village would be far more suited to cope with this without adding strain to the village centre.
Within the plans for using this land you are earmarking reclassified greenbelt land which simply does not make sense, and its legality can be brought into question.
The NPPF identifies the 5 key Purposes of Green Belts as the following:
1. to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas;
2. to prevent neighbouring towns from merging into one another;
3. to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment;
4. to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns; and,
5. to assist in urban regeneration, by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land.
It is our understanding that there are adequate brown field sites which could be used without using greenbelt land in order to fulfil the housing requirements.
With the above 5 points in mind it is clear that the availability of these brownfield sites would bring into question the adherence to the NPPF guidelines. The development would bring outlying areas of Solihull even closer to the outlying areas of Coventry.
The development of these houses in the site we are objecting to will do nothing to benefit the village, only to ruin the community feel of this village and put further strain on capacity. With 73% of people travelling to work by car in this area that means in the region of 1100 cars will be commuting to work each day.
The bypass is not a 'bypass' it is an access road to serve the 900 proposed houses. This would not help in easing pressure on the village it would put much more strain on the village and Station Road due to the sheer amount of extra traffic therefore irrelevant where it is placed. The 'bypass' needs to be moved fully away from our boundary perimeter, at least 50 metres from our boundary border.