Testun llawn:
The only people who will benefit from this option are the landowners; to date their two submissions are the only ones to support the scheme, 100% of the remainder object; those who profit from this will receive none of the inconvenience they create!
The criteria the Council is using to prioritise a village for development (Settlement Hierarchy Report dated June 2013), only considers the services currently provided in that village, including:
A shop/ general store selling food and day‐to‐day household goods;
A primary / junior school;
A post office;
A community building, e.g. public house, church, social club or village hall,
An hourly daytime bus/train service to a major town.
These are all essential services, which can all be developed comparatively easily. However what it fails to consider is the given infrastructure that underpins the whole community, including the roads, the sewers and the electricity supply.
Hampton Magna was conceived in the 1960s and building continued until the 1970s, and in every respect has not changed at all. In fact it looks exactly the same as when we moved here in 1985.
Roads and traffic:
Hampton Magna is accessed by Old Budbrooke Road, a country lane that increasingly is being used as a shortcut for drivers wanting to avoid the Longbridge roundabout; this creates additional congestion at the railway bridge and at its junction with the A4177. In recent years the volume of traffic has also increased (which is the whole idea) with the development of Warwick Parkway Railway Station. They have built car parks, overflow car parks, and a multi-storey car park, and as the train service improves so the number of passengers and their cars increase. More recently cars are being parked in increasing numbers in Hampton Magna itself.
The roads within Hampton Magna are narrow estate roads, which have become increasingly congested over the years as car ownership as increased. In 1968 a single car family was the norm but in 2013 three cars in a family is commonplace.
The school is now taking pupils from the new developments in Chase Meadow and Hatton Park, and the vast majority of those children come to school by car. For an hour in the morning and the evening passing through a wide area around the school is virtually impossible as the roads become gridlocked.
Parking on pavements is now the norm, which creates hazards and dangers for parents with young children, unaccompanied children and older people alike.
An additional 150 homes in Hampton Magna could bring an additional 300 to 450 cars to the area, add to that the huge increase in delivery vans as internet shopping as exploded, the village will collapse!
Sewage system:
As we know building in Hampton Magna was completed in the 1970s. At that time Severn Trent were asked to adopt the Sewer system, and they said, "no thank you", because the system did not comply with the national standards. Today the situation is the same. I clearly remember about 10 years ago paying out £750 towards the cost of a repair, 200 yards from my house
Connecting an additional 150 homes will overwhelm the substandard sewage system creating all sorts of problems and additional expense for the residents of Hampton Magna.
Electricity:
Again our supply has remained the same since it was installed 40/50 years ago and disruption to the supply is not uncommon, again the demands placed on the system by an additional 150 homes will create an increase in disruptions and failures.
Hampton Magna is fortunate that it has a good standard of service provision; school, GP, bus service and post office. Which appears to be the basis for Hampton Magna being a Primary Service village.
The School:
The school has not changed since my children attended it in the 1980s. We know that it is now taking pupils form further a field including the new developments at Chase meadow and Hatton Park. We know that the school has increased its standard numbers and that it is already over subscribed. Many of the families who move into the 150 proposed new homes in Hampton Magna will have young families; children who require and have aright to a good education. Today the School is full!
If rural villages are to have additional developments as described, then I believe that those developments should be made in those areas where the infrastructure can best support that development. Hampton Magna is not one of them, the roads and the sewers are as they are and cannot be changed. However there are villages that have the infrastructure capacity where additional services could be provided; this was corroborated by Mr David Barber, Development Quality Manager of Warwick District Council. Who when speaking at an open meeting at Aylesford School on Monday 15 July said that that villages would benefit from increased populations as it would bring additional services to them. After the meeting I asked Mr Barber to clarify this point, and he informed me that some of the villages being considered welcomed the development opportunity. Hampton Magna is not one of them!
The council has the flexibility to amend these proposals and I would ask that further development of Hampton Magna be withdrawn as an option.