UPSVLP 2224
The guidance I have found states building may happen for the following:
Agricultural buildings
Outdoor sport or recreation facilities
The proportionate extension or alteration of a current structure
The replacement of a current building for the same use
Providing much-needed affordable housing
The proposal would be in line if it provided exclusively much-needed affordable housing. The existing proposal lists 30% of these houses meeting this criteria. This would infer 70% would not ? In this case regardless of the policy you are quoting this goes against the spirit of the legislation and suggest a profit driven third party is effectively getting a license to build 200 homes on Green Belt land. This is unacceptable to the rational mind. If the proposal was for a limited number of much-needed affordable housing with forestation of the rest it might be a bit more acceptable. At present Culcheth has enough ?300k plus houses being built.
1) Traffic on Warrington Road- Having lived on Warrington Road for many years I can state that it is already congested to the point of gridlock regularly. I can tell you that on many occasions it has regularly taken me 20 plus minutes to get from the village to my house which is a 1km journey. I then cannot turn into my drive as it is on the opposite side of the road. This route passes the proposed site and I would probably give up my car if this goes ahead. Any temporary Roadworks, Motorway issues, peak time or school traffic brings it to a stop. Adding 200 homes to this already bad situation will bring this to a head. No doubt to address this the council will consider widening the road which will cost as many houses to fix as you are planning to build.
2) Culcheth Village Services- The village at present offers one very busy medical centre and limited free parking. 200 plus homes will create a need for even more development, funding of healthcare, education etc. Even at 3 people per home this will be nearly 1000 extra people requiring investment in infrastructure and already stretched funding which I doubt will be available. Please reconsider this ill thought through plan and build houses nearer to Warrington which can be supported more easily without creating a new set of problems for outlying areas.
3) HS2 ? Culcheth already faces a major challenge from the HS2 plan. Taylor Industrial Estate will not be providing any more jobs or even its existing jobs with a railway running through the middle of it? Have you considered what the impact of this will be on traffic on Warrington Road or this proposed development? The current plan will effectively cut through Croft and across Warrington Road. There is no clarity at present as to what impact this will have on travel to Birchwood or Winwick from Culcheth or Croft. This is bad enough and is causing a lot of stress locally.
4) Loss of Green Belt and Environment? People chose to live in villages because the environment is generally better for health etc. Turning villages into towns is not the answer to the problem in my view. This cannot be sustainable going forward. The proposed area is farmland and has the potential to provide food to the local community, to be forested for carbon offset, green power etc. Given that Climate Change is the number one global challenge the loss of any green area must be challenged. Brown field sites or redevelopment of existing sites should be the priority. Please look at this instead of target driven, ill thought through proposals like this one.
10.7 Culcheth