Radwell, a village 2 miles north of Baldock. Baldock is where residents of Radwell and other nearby villages go shopping and catch public transport services (train or bus). Site BA1 will make this much more difficult than it is now because the plan is inadequate.

Department of Transport statistics say car ownership 2014/15 in "Rural Town and Fringe" is 1.39. This suggests that with 2800 new homes in the proposed North Baldock development it will become home to c. 3900 cars and vans.

Travel to places of work:

2011 Census: "Method of travel to work England and Wales, 2011. Employed usual residents aged 16 to 74, plus passengers, is 62.6%" This equates to approximately an extra 2200 car movements from BA1 morning and evening.

So how is this traffic expected to get in and out of BA1? The plan envisages a single 'distributor road' with two exits, one to North Road, and the other over a new bridge over the railway to the A505 junction.

Going into Baldock: Whether you leave BA1 by either exit this traffic must cross the lights at the The A507/B656 Junction.

"The junction is operating close to the degree of overload where queuing could be an issue. With no land available to modify the existing arrangement to increase the capacity, it would indicate that any notable future developments would require new or amended junctions/ roads elsewhere in the local network to accommodate the additional traffic generated by them." [Feasibility report (Nov 2014)]

The "junction is currently running close to capacity and will be unable to accommodate additional development flows with its current configuration. ... Additional mitigation measures would therefore be required at this location which have not been identified or costed for." (comment letter from Paul Donovan HCC Spatial Planning and the Economy Environment Department 3 Feb 15)

Our empirical experience of taking children to the Station every morning and evening backs this up; North Rd can often be stationary back to Norton Mill Lane from where it takes more than 15 Min to get to the traffic lights. Indeed it is nearly as congested as when this was the Great North Road before the A1(M) was built in 1966, when traffic would occasionally back up as far as Radwell Lane.

Going into Letchworth or A1(M) south via Letchworth Gate:

"Key current congestion issues in the town include the area around Letchworth Gate and the A505 / A6141 junction" (comment letter from Paul Donovan HCC Spatial Planning and the Economy Environment Department 3 Feb 15)

NHDC's own information indicates the only reasonably uncongested routes out of BA1 are likely to be the A505 to Royston or North Road to J10 of the A1(M).

Travel to shopping:

The plan envisages "A new local centre along with additional neighbourhood-level provision providing around 500m2 (net) class A1 convenience retail provision and 1,400m2 (net) of other A-class floorspace" [Policy SP14 b] but this total provision for a proposed population of c.6500 people is barely 1/3 of the size of just one existing shop in Baldock. Tesco has a Net Sales floor space of 6,340 m2 [NHDC Appendix A Study Area and Existing Retail Facilities] and is already operating somewhere near its capacity at peak times.

All the nearby shops are either in the town centre, or Tesco, or are in Letchworth (Sainsburys, Lidl Etc) and to get to them all you must go through the junctions highlighted as either 'congested' or 'close to capacity' already.

It is certain that BA1 will cause such gridlock at the A507/B656 junction as to make access to Baldock from the surrounding villages to the North difficult or at times impossible. NHDC / HCC evidence states there is very little scope to improve it thus suggesting NHDC prefers BA1 residents to work and shop in Royston or Biggleswade. This is not a 'sustainable' solution.