Object

Gypsy and Traveller Site Options

Representation ID: 54642

Received: 02/08/2013

Respondent: Jennifer and Gary Ingram

Representation Summary:

The site is wholly unsuitable as it is visually prominent and will devalue house prices and put people off buying houses in the area.

More importantly, there are real dangers as the access points are already extremely congested in rush hour and fast speeds make the site access inappropriate for large vehicles, cars and caravans. It is already a dangerous hot spot and adding families and children to the area who might visit the garage for groceries or cross the road to get to the recreational walkway directly opposite will make things worse. Someone will be seriously injured or killed. Council employees should witness on site the speed and volume of traffic when trying to cross the road. It is worse than the Kites Lane site in terms of the dangers and is a poorly thought through option.

These views are not meant to be discriminatory but just honest and valid.

Full text:

I have had some feedback with regards to the meeting last night and I cannot oppose strongly enough with regards to the proposal to develop a traveller site on the land currently owned by Mr Butler next to the Shell garage on the Birmingham Rd hatton. It is in my view wholly unsuitable. First to consider it atheistically and alos in view of the desirability of the area where people have invested years their hard earned money into property and when driving past the whole estate. Seeing it so visibly in the public domain the traveller site whether right or wrong in terms of your values, does put some people off purchasing houses in the area and is known to appear on land searches and devalue property as demand reduces.

But more importantly it is so dangerous. Both access points to that land are extremely congested in rush hour and despite some attempts to traffic calm, vehicles do travel at very fast speeds along that stretch of road. Large vehicles , cars and caravans are extremely inappropriate on that position in addition to the existing side road and Garage that already causes problems without the traveller site in existence. I would urge the council to look very carefully at that area in rush hour traffic to see the reality of that already dangerous hot spot, where incidentally I have already seen 3 vehicle accidents.

It is an extremely busy road to cross if there are a lot of families and the children in particular would to want visit the shell garage for groceries, or more likely cross the highly dangerous road to play in the recreational walkway directly opposite that leads to the parkland at the top of the walkway. It is a matter of time before someone especially young people are seriously injured or killed. Please request that your council employees come and stand on that part of the road at any time and see how fast the cars travel down and the volume of traffic when trying to cross that road, which would be an inevitability take place for all the permanent traveller residents with so much on offer on the door step ( the walkway, garage, canal, village shop, several parklands)

I think kites lane is bad enough but this site is even worse again in view of the real dangers around that maybe you could only appreciate if you lived in the community. I walk my dogs routinely down the walk way so looking at the position it does seem with respect very poorly thought through that the council are actually considering it as professionals when assessing all suitability factors of a permanent site.

I trust you do not see my views as discriminatory but honest and valid and I would appreciate you passing my absolute opposition and that of my family residing on Hatton park estate to the relevant person(s) that is collating the consultation material.