OBJECTION TO THE LOCAL PLAN - FEBRUARY 2018

1. Sutton is a pearl within Central , a real beauty spot. The Pack Horse Bridge and ford are so picturesque. The road through Sutton is suitable only for its inhabitants. Any extra traffic will be to the small village’s detriment. Adding a development in Sutton is not to any ones advantage. Good land will be destroyed as will the village, where there are no amenities. The roads around are not capable of coping with further traffic. Once our heritage is gone it is lost forever. This is unnecessary destruction of countryside. 2. , a small community is to be swamped with developments. Good land once again used when there are plenty of other sites with land less productive. There is no infrastructure. Spreading the load would be a much better solution, rather than killing the village. 3. is another site picked to be destroyed. It has very few amenities and will be choked. 4. thought they had reached their quota of housing. Didn’t we all! 5. Professor Hussain wrote a book about Gibraltar Farm at Tempsford. (Nigel Young, showed his ignorance on this important site, when the Local Plan was put forward at a CBC meeting.) How can a person who is leading this Local Plan have no knowledge of Gibraltar Farm? Does the heritage of our district mean nothing? Surely anyone with half a brain realizes the historical importance of preserving this area. Over development on or near this location is criminal. We read about preserving our heritage in the Local Plan but it is just words 6. and surround does not have the infrastructure to cope with the influx of any more developments. Does anyone think of how much development has been going on in the last few years? Biggleswade, Sandy, , Sutton and Dunton are becoming one big conurbation. Villages are becoming towns! Are the railways, NHS, highways agencies etc. prepared to put in the extra money needed to upgrade all these services? Can it be guaranteed? We are told this plan will be infrastructure led, how can that be, when planners and councils cannot control outside agencies to do their bidding? 7. The Drop In session (in Biggleswade) about the Local Plan was a farce. Not one map gave a true picture of the developments. Some had houses which had been in situ for years not shown, on others developments already started were missing, even finished houses were noticeable by their absence, where one development was close to another both were not shown together. There was no true map of how the area would look with ALL the developments shown, with existing or partly built homes shown as well. How could the public get a true picture of what is proposed? Extra housing was hidden away in the appendices. Jo Public found it very hard to understand the 300 pages of Local Plan and the Drop In session was no help. I feel the public are being misled. I was told there would be railway parking and a park and ride bus to the station. Is that truly guaranteed or more pie in the sky?

8. Bedfordshire is known for its market gardening . (Brussels have always been grown in this area.) We need to grow more of our own food in this country, not less. Why destroy so much productive ground? Top grade soil is being built on, in this proposal, it does not make sense. Much, much smaller sites around the county, would have less impact on loss to farming and with the lack of infrastructure. Some farmers do not want to sell their land, will be taken away from them, so they lose their livelihoods and the jobs they create? 9. In we need affordable housing , social housing , and homes for first time buyers , small houses and flats, bungalows, shared ownership and apartments for the aging population . Building bungalows for the growing aging population would release more family homes, but of course bungalows take land and are not as lucrative 5 and 6 bedroomed houses! Social housing should be for locals first, not residents of Marsh Farm as happened in Biggleswade. Adults from the area who have jobs should be housed first. The majority of the developing houses are available only for those with money. Developers are still building houses that cost half a million pounds. Developers and land owners are pushing up house prices, their greed is not fulfilling the national crisis. Be the first council to stand up to the developers and work for the good of this county and us, for we elected you. 10. Our wildlife is being threatened. Birds and animals are losing their habitat. On some of these developments endangered species live. How this issue will be respectfully treated by the developers is not mentioned in the plan. Water voles, badgers, toads and so many more animals need homes too. Do not close your eyes to these issues. Research has not been carried out properly, the safety of our wildlife has not been taken into account but dismissed. Developers are given carte blanche to do whatever they want and killed off badgers in part of Biggleswade, don’t let it happen again. There must be a way to impose sanctions. 11. Doctors are cutting corners to cope with the extra residents at the moment. 180 new patients signed on in just one day at one of the practices in Biggleswade, there are over 12,000 patients in that practice already. Before, figures averaging around ten to eleven thousand patients was the norm. It takes up to 6 weeks to get a blood test at the surgery. They have been rethinking reviews of medication on repeat prescription. Nationally we are short of doctors with few joining the profession. How can we hope the increased population can be catered for? Much is made of the new NHS hub, where Biggleswade hospital for the elderly was, but there is no guarantee this will go ahead. None of the ideas for this site over the past years has come to fruition. Getting prescriptions made up can only be executed in Biggleswade town centre if you have a spare hour. Queues at Boots and Lloyds chemist are an everyday occurrence. Before seeing which of the chemists has the shorter queue one faces an almost impossible task of finding a parking space. There are no NHS dentist spaces in Biggleswade, residents are travelling to Shefford, Sandy, and and beyond. No room for more patients, means we need to have transport, more traffic on the roads. The Local Plan is infrastructure led – how is this problem going to be addressed? 12. Banks are closing in Biggleswade. There are no banks in Sandy. Not everyone uses online technology. How do you envisage this problem is going to be solved? 13. Roads become gridlocked very easily in Biggleswade. The traffic lights at the top of Rose Lane have a short green period at weekends. This causes queues down Potton Road. A small road built in the Victorian era has been made one way, now 33.000 vehicles race down Sun Street each week. Juggernauts are using small town roads and bridges ignoring any weight restriction. We are told there is no funding to cover signage! Your assurances the Eastern Relief Road would be used for these vehicles has not been realised. Listen to local residents before you make more mistakes. There are no plans to upgrade the A1, it can take over an hour to get to Stevenage, (via this route) at certain times of the day, and it is only 15 miles away. The A1 can take no more traffic and the town’s roads are in the same position. 14. Bus services are being cut, no busses run on a Sunday. Not everyone has a car. Have you spoken to the bus companies? How is this problem going to be addressed? 15. Schools are not expanding at the same rate as the developments. The newest school at Kings Reach has been there a couple of years, it has already had two extra extensions built and it needs another. Existing schools are building on play areas. Where else can our schools extend now? Are schools included in the housing estate or is more good land going to be lost. Extra resources for extra pupils, more money once again. 16. The station, in Biggleswade, has limited parking, and no land around to provide for one. Commuters are unable to get a seat at rush hour on the trains, when you are lucky enough to get on the train. At rush hour it can cost up to £40.00 each way from Biggleswade to London! There are no plans to make the station available to the disabled. The Local Plan is infrastructure led – how is this massive problem going to be addressed? 17. Business Parks are going to be developed, and we hear about all the extra employment places. None of the business parks around this part county are filled completely. Do we have an assurance from businesses these new buildings will be filled? I assume the figures given for new employment are when these business parks are full. Is this a true number of jobs being made available, before or after the people who work on the land have been dismissed? 18. Too much Green Belt is being used when there are other alternatives. Save our green belt and countryside at all costs. Spread the housing, do not put it all in just a few towns or villages. 19. The local Police Station in Biggleswade closed 2 or 3 years ago. We see the occasional police car drive around the town. If residents have a problem they ring Kempston, a good few miles away. If something is lost or found it is advertised on social media, because the police are no longer within our reach. A vigilante group was set up in Shefford not long ago, because of the lack of police presence. This could happen here or elsewhere in the county if the problem is not addressed. The police have their hands tied due to lack of resources and funds, so we are told. Do you have an answer for this?

20. Are the emergency response teams geared up for an influx of people? Ambulances take over 40 minutes to arrive at the scene. Who will pay for the new ambulances, drivers and paramedics? More fire engines, resources and firemen will be needed. Where are the answers? Emergency vehicles cannot get to all parts of Kings Reach, learn by your mistakes, do not let it happen again. 21. There are two hospitals in Bedfordshire, Luton & and Bedford. Bedford Hospital has out sourced some of its units to Milton Keynes. There are rumours of it closing altogether. Getting to Luton & Dunstable is a long, tiring and almost impossible trip for anyone without transport, from this part of the county. Can it cope with thousands of extra patients? Do we want to have to go that far for medical assistance? Are there any plans to recruit more doctors and nurses? Is this another issue not thought through? The NHS hub is not guaranteed or even agreed. Ill people need hospitals and not a very long journey to get there. 22. More people with more leisure time need more leisure facilities. Going back to Biggleswade, existing facilities will not be enough. We were promised an all-weather pitch (by developers) around Kings Reach. That did not materialize. Where is the money for more football pitches, who will run clubs for teenagers and where will they find premises? Another swimming pool will be needed, extra gyms, I could go on. More research and guaranteed outcomes need to be shared with existing residents to allay their fears. 23. More people will visit Biggleswade for its pubs, restaurants, bars and night life . This brings us back to parking and more cars on the roads, our continuing problems. We were promised a family pub restaurant, off Potton Road, by developers. Another broken promise, and now it will be needed even more. 24. Sewerage and water is yet another issue. Will sewerage plants be able to cope with the enormous amount of extra waste? After covering vast areas of land, where will the run off go? Will it reach the water table, and provide water for us? Can the aquafers give all the water which will be needed? Can Anglia Water cope with all that is needed? With all the ongoing building, Biggleswade town centre has died. We have lost our culture and heritage and way as a small market town. We have nothing to offer new residents, no shops, or cinema, no parking, banks are closing, bus routes are being cut, an out of date and crowded train service, no decent NHS service, slow emergency responses. No guarantee of nearby hospital help, long queues on all roads and no police presence. This is happening where too much development and no increase in infrastructure is provided. When the refuse collection become less frequent it will be like living in a third world country. Nigel Young said, think of the Local Plan ‘as red blobs on a map’ Throw this rushed Local Plan away. Start again, listening to residents. Smaller settlements, sort out the infrastructure, research each site properly using up to date data and statistics, build evenly all over the county, no one place should bear the brunt of such devastation. Think of the new and old residents and their needs. Have a say in what developers plan to build, and make them stick to it. Work for the people not yourselves.