Villagers blast plans for 115 new homes arguing development will be unsafe
A new development of over 100 homes would make a village more unsafe for children living nearby, objectors have said. People in Yaxley have voiced their concerns about plans to build 115 homes in the village arguing the developers have not given enough thought to safety.
Abbey Properties Cambridgeshire Limited has put forward proposals to build the new homes on land currently used for stables off London Road. In an outline application submitted to Huntingdonshire District Council it sets out the overall proposals for the number of homes and the details of a new access road for the development. As an outline application more detailed plans would need to be submitted and approved before work could take place.
At a meeting of Yaxley Parish Council’s planning committee this week (May 7) representatives of the developer told members of the public that they recognised there were concerns about the proposed access road for the development. They said: “That is why we have put so much effort into the documents with regards to access and a very detailed transport assessment provides detailed breakdowns of peak flows and overall movements.”
Read more: Cambridgeshire woman who caused cyclist to fall into car's path has conviction overturned
Read more: Cambridgeshire café to close after 'running out of cash' as town reacts to 'sad news'
The representatives explained that they believed there would be around 98 cars coming and going from the development in the morning peak hours and around 85 cars coming and going in the evening peak hours. The developer representatives said they planned to widen the existing access road, but members of the public said they did not think what had been proposed was enough to make it safe.
People who already live along London Road explained the problems they already faced trying to pull out onto the 40mph road due to how busy it was. One woman said: “I am really concerned about the A15 going forward and the amount of traffic at peak times. As you know it gets quite busy when the schools in Hampton are out, so how can they say 115 houses - and that is not just 115 cars that can be two, three cars per family - how is that going to work, how is the A15 going to cope going forward?”
One mum told the meeting that she lived in Tudor Place, which is directly next to the proposed development and new access road. She said she already had concerns about letting her children walk to school or ride their bikes due to how busy London Road was. She said: “By adding another 115 houses behind my house it is going to increase that dramatically unsafe place.”
Others at the meeting raised concerns about the village losing more green space, while also highlighting the encroachment of development from Peterborough being faced through the new Great Haddon homes. One man said: “This development cannot just be considered in narrow parameters in isolation, this development will have to be considered in context of everything else that is going on; all our green space being taken away, the Haddon development, more people moving in and more and more traffic. That road is becoming a nightmare and we have got to look at the impact of this, not just in terms of those 115 houses, but the impact in context of everything else going on.”
Another man added that he believed the proposals represented “the worst things going on in development in the last 20 years” and said it was “very upsetting” to see what had been proposed by the developer. The parish councillors at the meeting also shared their concerns about the impact of the new development. Councillor Paul Russell said he did not believe the new access road would be safe.
He also told the meeting that when the application for the nursery in London Road was approved a condition was added to limit the number of children attending at any one time to 20. He said this condition was added partly due to concerns about the number of parents pulling on and off the road to drop off and collect their children.
Cllr Russell also said he believed the width of the proposed access road was not wide enough and could potentially cause problems. He said the swept curve showed that a large vehicle turning into the proposed development would need to go onto the opposite carriageway to do so.
He claimed that if there were any cars queuing to exit the estate the driver of the large vehicle would end up being stuck in the road and would cause an obstruction. The parish council unanimously backed a proposal to recommend that the application should be refused. The final decision on whether the development can go ahead will be made by the district council as the planning authority.
For more planning notices in your area visit publicnoticeportal.uk .