Object

Village Housing Options and Settlement Boundaries

Representation ID: 60718

Received: 11/01/2014

Respondent: Diane Bird

Representation Summary:

Opposed because
1) the additional traffic would have no alternative but to use the Birmingham road which is congested in rush hour. It is the ONLY road out of the estate.
2) We have inadequate facilitites on Hatton Park. It shouldn't be expanded without turning it into a village with a post office, doctor, shops, primary school.
3) There aren't enough school places locally and even if Hampton Magna school were to expand we would be splitting the children on the estate between different schools reducing the cohesion and sense of community
4) Flooding when it rains heavily would be compounded by further building

Full text:

I am opposed to further development at Hatton Park. The ONLY exits from the estate are onto the Birmingham Road, there is no alternative route out of the estate to avoid congestion. The Birmingham road is already congested during morning rush hour, and becomes gridlock during severe weather events, or in the event of accidents on the M40. It also has a tendency to some flooding during heavy rainfall.

If there was building on the field adjacent to Hatton Park this may add to the flooding problem.

If there is further development at Hampton Magna this too will add traffic to the Birmingham Road so it would surely be a mistake to expand both Hampton Magna and Hatton Park.

Hatton Park already has negligible facilities for a settlement of its size, it is a housing estate not a village. It seems entirely inappropriate to expand it further without adding village facilities such as a primary school, doctors, post office, pub. The nearest primary school (Ferncumbe) is a bus ride away and is full. Hampton Magna is also full although I have heard there is scope for it to be expanded. However the fact that the secondary school children on the estate have to be split between several different schools already damages community cohesion without also forcing our primary school children to be further split among different schools. Are we going to see a house price differential from one side of the estate to the other dependent on which school catchment area it is in?
There are some wildlife considerations, we have a lot of bats in the area, and I also see muntjac deer crossing the field.