Testun llawn:
The church at the edge of this site is a listed building which has recently been the subject of extensive renovations following a fire. This church and the surrounding land are what visitors to Radford Semele see as they arrive in the village from any direction. Building on this land would permanently destroy this vista especially if the building was of high density dwellings out of keeping with the surrounding housing stock which includes a converted old water tower and many thatched cottages. In addition, the White Lion Pub is also a listed building which was substantially renovated following a fire. This pub attracts people to the village due to its location which is greatly enhanced by the view across the field to the church and open countryside beyond. Visitors to the White Lion feel that they are visiting an old country pub in a beautiful location. This location would be destroyed by a housing estate which goes against the responsibility of the council to protect the setting of listed buildings.
In the past all development in this area has been sensitive to the local environment and is not clearly visible from the road (eg. the houses at the bottom of Church Lane). Planning applications for development on this field in the past have been rejected because of the requirements for the council to protect a listed building and it's setting. No changes have taken place to justify abandoning the need to conceal development around the setting of a listed building.
The A425 road running through Radford Semele is already an extremely busy and dangerous road. I attach a traffic survey which I carried out on a random day at rush hour to indicate this density of traffic. Furthermore, my survey was of necessity carried out while the High St end of the road is closed to traffic thus necessitating commuters to make alternative arrangements. I would suggest that if this hadn't been the case the volume of traffic recorded would have been significantly increased.
Should a large housing estate be built on this land then the volume of traffic would be significantly increased. Under planning guidelines an extra 100 houses requires an assumption of 200+ additional cars. To my knowledge no study has been undertaken to determine the impact of these extra vehicles exiting onto the Southam Road from the proposed development. The access to the site would need to be either directly onto Southam Road between School Lane and Offchurch Lane or indirectly via Church Lane. Both of these options are completely unacceptable from a safety point of view and would necessitate substantial changes to the current road layout. There is already a pedestrian crossing at this junction for children to access Radford Semele School. This crossing is currently unmanned. The safety of children going to school would be severely compromised by up to 200 more cars attempting to join Southam Road in the morning to go to work. Currently I can wait up to 10 minutes for a gap in the traffic to exit my driveway in the morning and, in the evening, I regularly have to wait many minutes to get into my drive across heavy traffic. Should there be an access road opposite my house this would be even more dangerous for me, other road users and pedestrians. With Offchurch Lane joining Southam Road on a blind bend, cars attempting to turn out of it in the morning have to get up to speed very quickly to avoid accidents on this blind corner. During my 12 years in this house I am aware of the air ambulance attending 2 serious accidents on this corner, if another access road was positioned on this stretch of road this could only lead to more serious accidents.
As Radford Semele School has been significantly expanded and is currently full, any additional children living on the proposed housing estate would need to be transported by car to school outside the village further increasing traffic at peak times. School Lane is regularly a bottleneck in the morning with people leaving the village to go to work at the same time as others arrive to drop off their children. Should this development take place there would need to be significant changes to the road layout at this junction to accommodate the increased traffic.
In recent years there have been several incidents of overflowing sewerage and other drainage problems at the bottom of School Lane and flowing down Church Lane. This could only be further exacerbated by the building of a high density housing estate directly opposite with its own drainage needs.
I believe that there are other potential sites which have been discounted in favour of this site which would be more fit for purpose. Even with the current 50mph limit on approaching the village from Southam the sites to the East of the village (sites 2 and 3) are more appropriate for development and would be even more so with an extension to the 30mph limit in the village. This land is obscured from the Fosse Way by the naturally rolling countryside and is indeed of a far greater size to allow for future development. Residents of houses on site 2 would be able to use public footpaths to access the facilities of the village without the need to cross the busy Southam Road.
The Parish Council of Radford Semele have not been consulted about the designation of the preferred site and have put forward an alternative site which Taylor Wimpey are keen to develop. The Local Planning Process has not been sufficiently followed in this case as the affected parties (the villagers and parish council) were not part of the decision to allocate this site as the preferred site for development.