Object
Draft Local Plan - Supplementary Consultation
Representation ID: 8331
Received: 15/03/2019
Respondent: John Robbins
Objection to Site 26:
- Traffic already too high in the local area
- Additional 300-400 houses will cause major disruption on Bills Lane and Haslucks Green Road, and additional pollution.
- Flooding a massive risk that is not clearly understood or explained in this proposal, E.g. floods of April 2018, blocked roads and damaged property. Development will increase surface water flooding with additional hardstanding.
- Disproportionate that 38% of new housing in Borough in Shirley South
- Development far from HS2 and will create more congestion trying to access it
- Inadequate public transport towards North of Borough
I object to this latest proposal as it is no better than the original proposal of Allocation 13.
The original plan was for 600 houses and the area touched on to Dickens Heath Road/Tanworth Lane at one end and Bills Lane/Haslucks Green Road - an assumption would have been that approximately 50% of traffic would exit/enter one end, and 50% would exit/enter at the other putting more traffic onto already congested roads - this latest Allocation 26 proposal will now only affect Bills Lane/Haslucks Green Road end with 300 houses - therefore the traffic impact will be no better for Bills Lane and Haslucks green road which is already overloaded with traffic coming from Dickens Heath. This point is touched on in the plan in the word "shifting" and acknowledging that Dickens Heath Road is already congested - 'Shifting the focus of vehicular traffic movements away from the congested Dickens Heath Road to Bills Lane/Haslucks Green Road.'
I do not see this current proposal as sustainable due to the high volume of houses in one focused area.
Despite changes to the initial plan I gather that Shirley South is still to receive 38% of proposed new housing in the Solihull borough, which remains disproportionate and unacceptable given the size of the borough.
The effect on the local area by way of flooding and environmental issues is in no way fully understood and not addressed in the proposal from what I can understand. This area suffered massive flooding in April of 2018. If housing is built on the natural land and flood plains the results could be much worse than previously.
I will also refer to a point I made in my initial objection of the 38% of housing in Shirley is that new housing allocation should be developed to compliment current and new infrastructure. In the case of HS2 which is referred to in the current plans, this will be running to the North of the borough and not stopping anywhere near to these proposed Shirley developments - therefore more congestion would be caused by people driving to the proposed HS2 station as there is inadequate public transport to that area of the borough.