UPSVLP 2563
Croft is a small community of nearly 900 homes with limited facilities. It has a scanty and declining bus service. The site is 5km from Birchwood Station (Padgate is a similar distance, but has a poor service) so even rail travel would generate traffic. Local roads are busy and almost all trips from to OS1 are car based.
You feel this allocation of a minimum of 75 homes in a village with only nearly 900 homes is unsound because the site makes a major contribution to Green Belt purposes. The proposed allocation would neither increase housing choice nor support the vitality and viability of local services.
The access from a B road onto the site by Abbey Close and Deacons Close a small estate is totally not acceptable.
The village has a flood problems on a regular basis and this will only make it worse.
This is promoted by a volume builder. This speculative development would attract additional car commuters that would add little to the village and would not increase housing choice or support the vitality and viability of local services. The developer has previously said the development ?could be extended further east to accommodate a significantly larger site than proposed, approximately 400-500 dwellings? This shows that this development would lead to further encroachment into the countryside, against Green Belt aims.
The site is about 8ha, which at the 30 dpd minimum housing density proposed would yield 240 houses rather than the 200 suggested in OS3. If the site is released from Green Belt, then the area should be reduced to under 7 ha to reflect the requirement for30 dpd. Denser development would mean less land released and would be better for the need for provision of homes for the younger and older people.
Culcheth has poor public transport links. Two daytime buses per hour and a limited and declining evening and weekend service means the area is not a sustainable one to expand. Culcheth is not near a rail station and using Birchwood inevitably means additional car journeys.
If this goes ahead it will mean that there will be Ribbon Development ie: houses all the way from Shaw St Playing field and Holcroft Lane along Warrington Road, which will mean losing the Green Belt around this part of the village.