10/17/2019 Mail - Woodgate, Jenny - Outlook
Land South of Winchester Road Four Marks Development Site - OBJECTION
Mon 07/10/2019 13:06 To: EHDC - Local Plan
Four Marks & Medstead have already over-delivered so much new housing. There is no justification for large-scale development in the area during the Local Plan period to 2036. The land opposite Gravel Lane and land between Barn Lane and A31 have previously been given the status of ‘Undevelopable' in Land Availability Assessment and much of the site is outside the Local Plans Settlement Policy Boundary. A House of Commons Report noted that Four Marks felt like “a village under siege” (operation of the National Planning Policy Framework 09 Dec 2014 p8). This comment would need to be extended to include Medstead, Soldridge and Ropley. This is creating ribbon development merging distinct villages into one homogenous mass. If implemented, it would locate a large number of people at some distance from local amenities e.g. schools and shops. Car use would therefore be promoted. It is a “bolt-on” enough to overload a village and dimishes the undeveloped “local gap” which exists between Medstead and South-Medstead-Four-Marks the preservation of which is a priority addressed in Policy 2 of M+FM neighbourhood plan.
The soft rural introduction to Four Marks from the West gives villagers a much valued sense of place. This is also true of the adjoining small rural hamlet, Soldridge (~100 houses and ~300 residents). The proposed sites for Travellers, 600+ houses and employment use are all steeply sloping. They would be visible both from the A31 and /or form the heritage railway line and from areas within the SDNP. The sloping site would give rise to considerable light pollution. The considerable gradient from the West of Four Marks, from the Grosvenor Road junction on the A31, up to the shops (Tesco) is over 80 metres (Google Earth Data so figures may vary). This is likely to increase car traffic. The Grosvenor Road/A31 junction is frequently flooded with rainwater. An Arle Augmentation Production Site is located at this junction. Development would greatly increase the flood risk, any contaminated run-off would pose a direct pollution threat to the environmentally sensitive Arle and Itchen rivers and would endanger protected species, for example, the native White-Clawed Crayfish, (Austropotamobius pallipes).
80% of locally generated commuter traffic in Four Marks goes east to Alton/Farnham/Guildford/London, initially on single carriageway A31 or via local villages. Lack of employment in Four Marks would inevitably generate a large amount of such commuter traffic. Traffic through the remote villages of Soldridge, Medstead and Bentworth to A339 will increase on rural roads with blind bends, single track roads and railway bridge.
https://outlook.office365.com/mail/none/id/AAMkADIxNjE3NWJlLTMxYmEtNDEwZC1iOGM4LTYxOTllYjNmN2MzZQBGAAAAAABrEkrzGtHSSpsf… 1/2 10/17/2019 Mail - Woodgate, Jenny - Outlook The A31 is a high-capacity trunk road which is dual-carriageway for much of its length. However, Four Marks is a bottle-neck in the road. At this point, the road is single carriageway, there are many junctions accessing various parts of Four Marks, there are three (soon to be four) traffic-light- controlled pedestrian crossings and there is a rigorously- enforced 30 MPH limit. Even a small obstruction on the A31 e.g. a refuse-collection truck causes a long tail-back. To load yet more car traffic onto the A31 at the Four Marks bottleneck is illogical and highly undesirable. The additional car traffic and, importantly, construction traffic will have to pass through two obstructions to reach the A31. There is a single-lane restriction on Lymington Bottom Road under the railway bridge which is, at present controlled by “give way to on-coming traffic” signs. There is a second restriction at the junction of Lymington Bottom Road with the A31 which can only allow one vehicle at a time to turn right. The installation of a pedestrian crossing which is proposed by EHDC may further restrict the capacity of the junction. As the development time is to be 11 years and is to take place close to existing housing, local disruption should be taken into account is assessing this proposal.
Four Marks already has a village centre - Oak Green and a proposed Hub near to the Rail Station, as suggested in the Neighbourhood Plan, August 2015, p30. The infrastructure in this development would create a tertiary lacklustre “Hub” rather than improving and expanding the existing businesses and facilities. A new pre-school/primary school is being proposed but this is not due to be developed until the end of the development period. What happens in the intervening period? Existing primary schools are already struggling with numbers and staffing and a separate primary school doesn’t support possible economies of scale benefits. There is no secondary school provision and Alton schools are at capacity.
This plan doesn’t appear to have the support and investment to make this project sustainable in the future. Not recommended by EHDC.
Kind regards,
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