UPSVLP 1373
The un-economic costs, impracticality and environmental damage of building roads, bridges and civil engineering works to access north Warrington from south Warrington makes both the Updated PSVLP 2021 and LTP4 wholly impractical and hence unjustified.
Future development in Warrington , particularly south Warrington should be limited by the capacity of the existing road network and the required environmental standards in air quality and urban design.
Houses should be designed to be: adaptable for all stages of life; minimum space standards should be applied. Blocks of apartments should: provide a mixture of dwelling types; designed to accommodate a range of family sizes; studio/one-bedroom apartments should be discouraged.
The Western Link Road will attract and generate huge amounts of traffic to/from south Warrington, particularly through Stockton Heath. The impacts of this potential congestion, increased volume of traffic does not appear to have been modelled on the existing road network.
Due to a lack of political and professional expertise within the Council the policy is not deliverable.
The policy is nominally sound. The policy expresses the intention to abide by its statutory duties and powers to preserve and enhance the heritage assets but the present administration structure, in-house professional expertise and political commitment are inadequate.
To achieve the required modal shift the Council must enforce more stringent conditions and controls on developers to build at higher densities to achieve convenient access to public transport.
The relationship between housing location, built form, density and social mix has not been properly addressed. The LTP4 expresses many aspirations about the shift from private car to active travel/public transport modes but the Updated PSVLP (2021) does not detail how this will be achieved, particularly in respect of south Warrington.
The proposed employment area in south Warrington is typical distribution hangers along the M6/M56 motorways with low levels of employment but which generate significant HGV and vehicle movements. The motorways are already operating at maximum capacity and are subject to very heavy congestion. In addition, they will impact on the quality of the environment, causing a loss of valuable countryside, arable farming and wild-life habitat.
There is no assessment of the potential physical impact of the LTP4 (2019) on the existing inflexible road network and the quality of the built environment. Both the Updated PSVLP (2021) and LTP4 (2019) contain no evidence of or any reference to any predictive traffic modelling for Warrington or the sub-region. Vehicle movements between north and south Warrington are severely restricted by the Bridgewater Cabal (and it's 4 listed single lane bridges); the Manchester Ship Canal; the River Mersey; the Liverpool to Manchester railway line and the West Coast mainline. The degree of infrastructure/engineering works required to provide access across these features would render the transportation plan grossly invasive, un-sound, un-deliverable and un-economic.