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I wrote to you on the 10th April in respect of the above and asked for an acknowledgement of the letter which I have not received.
In case the letter has been mislaid within your offices as, I suspect many may given the volume which I assume you would receive I copy the letter below for your information.
To facilitate your own endeavours I have tried to follow your own list of points which seem to me to automatically exclude this site.
Incidentally are you aware the your Traveller Friends have set up camp in the Parkway Station Car-park in Budbrooke? Are you taking action before they turn the place into a rubbish tip and health hazard. If I did what they do you would prosecute me without a second thought so why are they receiving specially privileged treatment?
I am appalled that the Council should even be considering allowing development in these two places.
Firstly the area is in green belt where already the Hatton Park Development has put a severe strain upon local resources. The primary schools at Budbrooke and Ferncombe are full. The Budbrooke School is in Special Measures and thus really does not need an additional burden put upon it.
There is a traffic Jam in the mornings often from the Hatton Arms to the A46 roundabout without adding more traffic to the problem. The road is otherwise a fast and dangerous road which needs no more traffic but will grow anyway without additional housing.
At present a lot of the traffic between the Birmingham Road and Hampton on the Hill/ Henley Road uses Ugly Bridge Road/ Woodway Lane and Church Lane as a shortcut Including heavy goods lorries which exceed the weight limit on Ugly Bridge and are destroying the Road surface in Ugly Bridge Road and Church Lane. This can only get worse with an increase in traffic on the Birmingham Road driving people to find short cuts. Given the size of some of these vehicles it can't be long before there is either a serious accident or the bridge collapses under their weight. Presumably this would cost the ratepayers a fortune in damages to the water board. This is a narrow road and unsuited to further traffic, particularly heavy lorries. The other week a huge articulated lorry was stuck trying to get round the bends by Ugly Bridge - far too heavy for the bridge weight limit but he had to go on because he couldn't turn to go back.
The Roads department has appreciated that there is a problem and have put up additional weight limit signs. Unfortunately they have put them close to the railway bridge in Old Budbrooke Road, rather than the Canal Bridge onUgly Bridge Road, where they now serve as another monument to Council waste.
You are then talking of a Traveller site at Oaklands Farm by the Shell Station. This would involve a number of vehicles pulling on and off onto an already busy road right next to a Road Junction and the entrance to the Shell Station. As a matter of common sense this would seem entirely inappropriate and the thought of children popping out of the existing entrance unannounced into a busy junction where people are trying to negotiate heavy and fast traffic really doesn't bear thinking about.
It would also put an unsightly encampment in full view of one of the major routes into Warwick as well as next to the major tourist attraction of the Hatton Locks. There may be worse places to sight a Gypsy encampment but it is difficult to perceive them.
There are usually children running around these encampments and here they would be at risk from drowning in the canal, being hit by cars in the daytime and probably also by high speed bikers in the evening.
The site is in fairly plain view of the canal path and it would be difficult to screen it without cutting the size of the site drastically thus making it not worthwhile.
As we have had the doubtful pleasure of a Traveller caravan just opposite Ugly Bridge Road for a few days, recently, it is clear from the rubbish left behind, that an encampment would be dirty, unsightly and probably unhealthy. (Whilst waiting in Ugly Bridge Road to turn onto the Birmingham Road on the Saturday morning, a child wandered out of the caravan there, pulled down her trousers and urinated in the middle of the pathway in front of the caravan. Not surely recommended from a Health and Safety point of view and presumably a dereliction of duty by the parents in permitting it.)
Frankly I do not see why WDC should have the expense of making available sites to Travellers who neither subscribe to rates and probably pay no taxes either. Perhaps, before entering a site they should be asked to provide a copy of their last tax assessment and photo ID to prove their identity failing which their assets could be impounded until they provided such proof. I understand that something similar is done in Ireland.
I would suggest that the area around the Birmingham Road is already congested enough and does not require the addition of further vehicles to an already busy road which would undoubtedly result in further fatalities. Adding a Traveller encampment would make a bad situation worse as their children and animals could potentially stray onto the road and cause accidents.
Add to this the disruption that these developments would have on the local area and they become even less desirable. It is also possible that some of the housing development may be established on the site of the Plague Pits where the victims of the Black Death and subsequent plagues were buried. These are purported to be on the Hatton Park side of the Birmingham Road up towards the old Hospital site.
The congestion on the Birmingham Road has been getting steadily worse and the road into Warwick from the A46 island is usually solid both ways at rush hours making it difficult for ratepayers and other workers to get to and from their workplaces.
I understand that Government has issued a supplemental statement indicating that " the single issue of unmet demand, whether for travellers' sites or conventional housing, is unlikely to outweigh harm to the Green Belt and other harm to constitute the very special circumstances to justify inappropriate development."
One other consideration should be taken into account and that is the dispersal of flood water in the area. It appears to me that the water table locally has already risen over the past ten years and the addition of a further sizeable development will undoubtedly add to the problem of loose surface water and lack of ability of the land to absorb the run off from the roads etc. It would also presumably put a great strain on the existing floodwater drainage system which must already be under stress due to the fact that the Hatton Park Estate must drain into a level drainage system with little fall.
Budbrooke/Hatton is a rural community without the resources to cope with a huge influx of people and traffic without the expenditure of very considerable sums on infrastructure and even then is, in my view, totally unsuitable for either of the proposed developments.
Your planning document sets out criteria for assessing Gypsy sites:-
"Proposals to develop land for use as Gypsy and Traveller Sites will be assessed against the following Criteria:
* Impact on the green belt - Whilst not necessarily obvious the impact would be huge - putting an eyesore next to Greenbelt Land
* Impact on Landscape character - The impact on the character of the area would be disproportionate to the benefits provided. The site, as it now is, is relatively unnoticeable. Putting 5 caravans and attendant vehicles on the site would make it extremely noticeable and unsightly. Judging by the appearance of the Kite's Nest site in Beausale it would blight the area completely.
* Impact on heritage assets and the settings of heritage assets - Being placed immediately next to the Grand Union Canal and highly visible the value of the heritage asset would be greatly diminished. One surmises that people would be less likely to use this heritage asset due to the proximity of the traveller encampment.
* Impact on designated areas of nature conservation Flooding issues - The site is low lying and if further housing were to be built opposite the surface water is likely to raise the water table further which could result in flooding to this site. One assumes that there would anyway be a runoff problem from the site itself because it is low lying with little natural drainage.
* Ability of infrastructure requirements to be adequately met - The drainage problem is discussed in your own review - hard standing for caravans and vehicles would just make the situation worse.
* Impact on ecology - Based on the observation of the temporary, unauthorised, traveller site in the entrance opposite it would seem likely that rubbish would be scattered hither and thither and probably in the canal as well so the ecological effect would be extremely negative.
* Impact of land contamination, noise and other disturbance - The Shell Station next to the site is a 24 hour site with lights on 24/7 and traffic over the same period so the site, from the travellers' position would not be appropriate particularly if small children were resident.
* Agricultural land quality - Not applicable
* Impact on visual amenity including the visibility and character of the site and surrounding area - One can only imagine that it would be dreadful. It would be difficult to screen the site from the canal and even the road could not easily be screened due to the positioning of the site access. Cars approaching and leaving Warwick on this heavily used road would be met with a most unattractive sight.
* The potential for the site to be adequately screened - See above - screening is required on four sides and it would be difficult to screen it from the canal, Ugly Bridge and the Birmingham Road itself.
* Access to the road network - Very dangerous with three major accesses within a few yards on possibly the busiest trunk road into Warwick an absolute recipe for disaster.
* Distance to GP surgeries, schools, dentists, hospitals, shops and community facilities - Local schools are full, the rest of the facilities are a way away other than the Shell Garage
* Proximity to other residential properties - Many houses are alongside the Birmingham Road and would find this suggested development extremely disturbing and even more so if the projected building site at Hatton Park is approved although one wonders what developer would chance his arm to build next to a Gypsy Site of such prominence?
* Potential for the proposal to utilise previously developed land - This is not really developed land in the true sense of the words
* Safe access to and from the site for vehicles and pedestrians - This must be one of the major stumbling blocks - it is placed at a dangerous junction on a fast road next to a garage - a recipe for disaster.
* Site topography - Low lying, overshadowed by the canal, overlooked by the Ugly Bridge and Ugly Bridge Road. A good place for a pond!
* Suitable size - No comment
* Availability of the site (including impact on the existing uses on the site)- Presumably by compulsory purchase?
* Deliverability of the site and associated infrastructure requirements - It is believed that there are too many cogent reasons against this site for it to be practically deliverable without leaving the Council open to legal action for damages in the future.
In short this seems to be a totally inappropriate site for a Gypsy encampment or, indeed for any other form of development. The traffic problems would also seem to indicate the unsuitableness of further housing next to Hatton Park.