Local Plan 2011-2031 Proposed Submission Draft

I would like to protest most strongly, on behalf of the members of this Society, about the possibility of massive and disproportionate housing development at Baldock. The following remarks refer to site references BA1, BA2, BA3 and BA4.
1. Historic Environment (HE) & Countryside and Green Belt (CGB):
As a History society the first matter we wish to draw your attention to is the effect any large increase in housing would have on the historic character and culture of Baldock and its setting within the countryside. This historic value of the town has been noted over the years by various authorities and I summarise them below for your information:
* Sir Patrick Abercrombie's Greater London Plan of 1944 considered Baldock to be
compactly developed with little discordant building and with a pleasing
relationship with the countryside, especially towards the north. In other words an
unspoilt, small country town. The report concluded that the town was "not
topographically suited for any appreciable expansion".
* In 1974 the Department of the Environment assessed the Baldock Conservation
Area as being of Outstanding Historic Interest.
* In 1977 NHDC and HCC jointly published the Baldock Town Scheme which
stated that "Baldock is one of five Hertfordshire towns listed by the Council for
British Archaeology as being of National Importance".
* Today the town has over 100 listed buildings in the town centre, equivalent, pro
rata, to an historic centre like Ely. It has one of the finest medieval churches in
Hertfordshire and the relationship of the church with the town clustered around in
its attractive valley setting is an important part of its charm.
Over the years neither BUDC nor NHDC have taken notice of these views or taken much care of the historic townscape and the rural setting which is so vital to it. The town has doubled in population since 1945 but nevertheless has managed to retain some of its rural charm and small-town feel because to the north and north-east there has been little development and because the countryside still reaches into the town from the south-east.
Yet these are precisely the areas that the Council have listed for development.
The Council planners appear to have completely ignored the requirement of the National Planning Policy Framework which requires that councils must "recognise that heritage assets are an irreplaceable resource and conserve them in a manner appropriate to their significance."
Likewise they have ignored the Government's intention that the Green Belt (which, like all the countryside, must surely also be considered a 'heritage asset') should be
preserved. Instead the only discernable planning issue that appears to have been taken into account is availability and political expediency, that is to say, 'let us dump these houses on the smallest town with the smallest vote'. As Sir Oliver Heald, MP, has pointed out, Green Belt land is supposed to be protected wherever possible yet, even though most of the District is not Green Belt, the Council have allocated the bulk of the housing on Green Belt land.
It seems from their Local Plan documents that the Council considers that its
responsibility for the heritage aspect of the towns in its care extends only as far as the boundaries of their conservation areas (this is despite the requirement of the NPPF that there should be 'conservation and enhancement of the natural and historic environment including landscapes' clearly implying that the two are one and the same, and that the setting of one in the other is important.) The Council's Plan is indifferent to this and the likely consequence, as far as Baldock is concerned, can be seen elsewhere all over the country in, what English Heritage calls, 'heritage ghettos': isolated islands of old buildings along a street frontage surrounded by unsympathetic and inappropriate urban development and infilling. Baldock's heritage character is that of a small country town in its country setting and that is the 'heritage asset' that should be preserved and not simply a selection of old buildings.
2. The economic effect on the town (ETC):
To a great extent, the economy of Baldock town centre, such as it is, relies on its
attractive character to draw people into the town. However, if there is to be any
significant return to a prosperous town centre it will need to attract more tourists and visitors from outside the town because the experience of the last 30 years has
demonstrated that population growth does not bring noticeable extra trade to the town centre. The town has only one real asset to attract that further trade and that is its historic character, because it has little else to offer a visitor. Without that asset there is little hope of a recovery. The Plan says that the survival of tourism "depends upon conserving and maintaining the quality of the resources upon which it depends" (ETC5) yet in Baldock the housing proposals threaten to destroy that very quality of attractiveness that is its only relistic hope.
In fact there are signs of prosperity returning to the town centre for the first time in
decades and visitors are being attracted to the town because of its character. The recent improvements to the town centre seem to have played a part in this and, with the new Arts and Heritage Centre project, there are grounds for hope that things may improve further, but it is a tenuous hope and could easily be destroyed by massive, unsympathetic development.
I should also point out that these considerations do not apply, to anything like the same degree, to the other towns in the district which are already of such a size that a few thousand extra houses would make little difference to them. The proposals are more akin to hugely increasing in size an historic village like Ashwell. It will be noted that Council would not countenance such an increase at Ashwell and yet almost precisely the same arguments apply to Baldock as they do to Ashwell.
Natural environment (NE):
Apart from the aesthetic damage to the landscape these proposals will bring and the loss of valuable farmland (which ought to be considered vital for our food security) we are concerned about the potential damage to the River Ivel. It is noticeable that the Ivel, which is an important and rare chalk-stream habitat, as well as an important local amenity, has run dry on several occasions in recent years and there is the possibility of doing irreversible damage to the river, its flora and fauna and environment, if the local water table or the capacity of the sewerage treatment works is overwhelmed by such a large increase of housing. This is not a concern that is really dealt with in the Plan except in vague terms.
There is also the related question as to whether local ground water sources can adequately supply the river and a development of this size with water especially in time of drought.
A great deal of money was spent on carefully landscaping the A505 Bypass to minimise its environmental impact on the lower end of what is surely one of the prettiest valleys in the District with its picturesque views of the town from the hills at its head. This would be so much money - ratepayers' money - wasted if the 'trapped land' is to be developed in BA2, and BA3.
Infrastructure delivery (ID):
Baldock's road network is already under strain despite having two bypasses. For large parts of the day there is congestion in the historic town centre which cannot be relieved because it is caused largely by local traffic. The Council acknowledges that this already causes significant pollution in the Whitehorse Street and Hitchin Street areas which nearly exceeds national guidelines and yet despite claiming that your policy 'addresses the protection of the health of the residents' it will, in fact, make it worse.. A massive increase in housing would exacerbate these problems and, because so much of the traffic is local with local destinations, they are unlikely to be solved by the proposed relief road to the eastern A505 junction in area BA1. If the present town is still congested after the construction of two bypasses then a town 40% larger is not going to be relieved by a third bypass heading in the wrong direction. Wrong, that is, because most of the traffic through the town centre seems to be going to or from Letchworth with school runs also causing extra difficulties at certain times of the day. No one would use this proposed relief road to go to Letchworth, or the supermarkets, or the schools, because of the length of the
diversion and the likelihood of traffic jams on Letchworth Gate.
Area BA1 is a particular cause of concern here because its sheer scale is likely to cause severe congestion at the Whitehorse Street/Clothall Road/Station Road/Royston Road junction which will also have to cope with added traffic from BA2, BA3 and BA4.
Pedestrian access to the town from BA1 would also be severely limited by the
dangerously narrow pavements under the railway bridge and it is hard to imagine that parents would be happy for younger children to use it. This would add to the likelihood of BA1 being cut off from the town and increasing congestion on the school run.
The proposals for BA2, BA3 and BA4, as well as increasing traffic volume at the
abovesaid junction would mostly add to the existing problems in South Road, a
residential road that is already being used as a 'rat run' and is too narrow to deal with greater volumes of traffic The Preferred Options Plan appears not to have investigated the feasibility of the third bypass/relief road for BA1, either as a realistic means of relieving the congestion in the town centre or for its economic viability. In effect the railway holds a ransom strip and may use it to extract a sizeable sum. There is also the cost of building a bridge over the railway. Who would pay these costs? Is it the developer or the Council? If the latter why
should we be throwing ratepayers money at, what the NHDC's own planning portfolio
holder considers, a 'flawed plan'?
The proposed increase is proportionately so large and so rapid that it is going to put
severe strain on schools, medical services, surgeries, water supply and the railway system none of which are likely to be adequately catered for and some of which are beyond the control of the Council but nevertheless need to be considered. It will therefore cause significant problems and severely impact on the quality of life of the residents of this town and neighbouring villages.
As Baldock's treated sewerage flows into the Ivel it is vital that the treatment system is able to cope with a 75% increase in volume and be in place before a problem occurs. Has the cost of this been assessed and, again, who is to pay for the consequent costs?
NHDC's Vision and Objectives for Baldock:
It would seem that there is no discernable vision or viable plan for the future of Baldock beyond dumping the bulk of the District's housing problem here. There is no indication that there will ever be an ultimate capping of population/housing or any alternative to further urban sprawl, just a rush to solve an immediate problem.
There seems to have been no attempt to find alternative sites for housing in order to
spread the distribution more fairly. In particular there is no indication that Herts County Council has been approached about any of its other considerable landholdings within the District. There is a sizeable holding north of Ickleford, for example, on a very unremarkable, flat piece of countryside (unlike the attractive countryside around Baldock); it is convenient to Arlesey Station on the mainline which would be far better able to cope with increased traffic than the Cambridge branch line and it is on the main Hitchin to Bedford road with consequent employment opportunities in those towns, yet it has not been considered.
Baldock, on the other hand, has few employment opportunities, except those offered on the Letchworth Industrial Area, and this fact will be another cause of increased traffic through the town.
The consequence of dumping far more houses than the town needs, or that local
employers require, is that Baldock will become largely a dormitory town with a
consequent detrimental effect on its sense of community and its economy.
All three of our MPs consider the plan flawed, inadequate and unfair; even the NHDC
Planning Portfolio holder apparently agrees. If so, how can it be acceptable to proceed with a flawed plan?
Most people would surely agree that to meet the District's quota each town and village should accommodate its own housing needs and those of the employers and industries within those communities. It is against all natural justice and fairness that the quota should be allocated largely to one town simply because the land has been made available and because it is the smallest town with the least votes and power to oppose it.
This Local Plan threatens to destroy the identity of the last remaining small rural market town in your District and the equally precious sense of community that makes it such a pleasant place to live.

I would like to protest most strongly, on behalf of the members of this Society, about the possibility of massive and disproportionate housing development at Baldock. The following remarks refer to site references BA1, BA2, BA3 and BA4.
1. Historic Environment (HE) & Countryside and Green Belt (CGB):
As a History society the first matter we wish to draw your attention to is the effect any large increase in housing would have on the historic character and culture of Baldock and its setting within the countryside. This historic value of the town has been noted over the years by various authorities and I summarise them below for your information:
* Sir Patrick Abercrombie's Greater London Plan of 1944 considered Baldock to be
compactly developed with little discordant building and with a pleasing
relationship with the countryside, especially towards the north. In other words an
unspoilt, small country town. The report concluded that the town was "not
topographically suited for any appreciable expansion".
* In 1974 the Department of the Environment assessed the Baldock Conservation
Area as being of Outstanding Historic Interest.
* In 1977 NHDC and HCC jointly published the Baldock Town Scheme which
stated that "Baldock is one of five Hertfordshire towns listed by the Council for
British Archaeology as being of National Importance".
* Today the town has over 100 listed buildings in the town centre, equivalent, pro
rata, to an historic centre like Ely. It has one of the finest medieval churches in
Hertfordshire and the relationship of the church with the town clustered around in
its attractive valley setting is an important part of its charm.
Over the years neither BUDC nor NHDC have taken notice of these views or taken much care of the historic townscape and the rural setting which is so vital to it. The town has doubled in population since 1945 but nevertheless has managed to retain some of its rural charm and small-town feel because to the north and north-east there has been little development and because the countryside still reaches into the town from the south-east.
Yet these are precisely the areas that the Council have listed for development.
The Council planners appear to have completely ignored the requirement of the National Planning Policy Framework which requires that councils must "recognise that heritage assets are an irreplaceable resource and conserve them in a manner appropriate to their significance."
Likewise they have ignored the Government's intention that the Green Belt (which, like all the countryside, must surely also be considered a 'heritage asset') should be
preserved. Instead the only discernable planning issue that appears to have been taken into account is availability and political expediency, that is to say, 'let us dump these houses on the smallest town with the smallest vote'. As Sir Oliver Heald, MP, has pointed out, Green Belt land is supposed to be protected wherever possible yet, even though most of the District is not Green Belt, the Council have allocated the bulk of the housing on Green Belt land.
It seems from their Local Plan documents that the Council considers that its
responsibility for the heritage aspect of the towns in its care extends only as far as the boundaries of their conservation areas (this is despite the requirement of the NPPF that there should be 'conservation and enhancement of the natural and historic environment including landscapes' clearly implying that the two are one and the same, and that the setting of one in the other is important.) The Council's Plan is indifferent to this and the likely consequence, as far as Baldock is concerned, can be seen elsewhere all over the country in, what English Heritage calls, 'heritage ghettos': isolated islands of old buildings along a street frontage surrounded by unsympathetic and inappropriate urban development and infilling. Baldock's heritage character is that of a small country town in its country setting and that is the 'heritage asset' that should be preserved and not simply a selection of old buildings.
2. The economic effect on the town (ETC):
To a great extent, the economy of Baldock town centre, such as it is, relies on its
attractive character to draw people into the town. However, if there is to be any
significant return to a prosperous town centre it will need to attract more tourists and visitors from outside the town because the experience of the last 30 years has
demonstrated that population growth does not bring noticeable extra trade to the town centre. The town has only one real asset to attract that further trade and that is its historic character, because it has little else to offer a visitor. Without that asset there is little hope of a recovery. The Plan says that the survival of tourism "depends upon conserving and maintaining the quality of the resources upon which it depends" (ETC5) yet in Baldock the housing proposals threaten to destroy that very quality of attractiveness that is its only relistic hope.
In fact there are signs of prosperity returning to the town centre for the first time in
decades and visitors are being attracted to the town because of its character. The recent improvements to the town centre seem to have played a part in this and, with the new Arts and Heritage Centre project, there are grounds for hope that things may improve further, but it is a tenuous hope and could easily be destroyed by massive, unsympathetic development.
I should also point out that these considerations do not apply, to anything like the same degree, to the other towns in the district which are already of such a size that a few thousand extra houses would make little difference to them. The proposals are more akin to hugely increasing in size an historic village like Ashwell. It will be noted that Council would not countenance such an increase at Ashwell and yet almost precisely the same arguments apply to Baldock as they do to Ashwell.
Natural environment (NE):
Apart from the aesthetic damage to the landscape these proposals will bring and the loss of valuable farmland (which ought to be considered vital for our food security) we are concerned about the potential damage to the River Ivel. It is noticeable that the Ivel, which is an important and rare chalk-stream habitat, as well as an important local amenity, has run dry on several occasions in recent years and there is the possibility of doing irreversible damage to the river, its flora and fauna and environment, if the local water table or the capacity of the sewerage treatment works is overwhelmed by such a large increase of housing. This is not a concern that is really dealt with in the Plan except in vague terms.
There is also the related question as to whether local ground water sources can adequately supply the river and a development of this size with water especially in time of drought.
A great deal of money was spent on carefully landscaping the A505 Bypass to minimise its environmental impact on the lower end of what is surely one of the prettiest valleys in the District with its picturesque views of the town from the hills at its head. This would be so much money - ratepayers' money - wasted if the 'trapped land' is to be developed in BA2, and BA3.
Infrastructure delivery (ID):
Baldock's road network is already under strain despite having two bypasses. For large parts of the day there is congestion in the historic town centre which cannot be relieved because it is caused largely by local traffic. The Council acknowledges that this already causes significant pollution in the Whitehorse Street and Hitchin Street areas which nearly exceeds national guidelines and yet despite claiming that your policy 'addresses the protection of the health of the residents' it will, in fact, make it worse.. A massive increase in housing would exacerbate these problems and, because so much of the traffic is local with local destinations, they are unlikely to be solved by the proposed relief road to the eastern A505 junction in area BA1. If the present town is still congested after the construction of two bypasses then a town 40% larger is not going to be relieved by a third bypass heading in the wrong direction. Wrong, that is, because most of the traffic through the town centre seems to be going to or from Letchworth with school runs also causing extra difficulties at certain times of the day. No one would use this proposed relief road to go to Letchworth, or the supermarkets, or the schools, because of the length of the
diversion and the likelihood of traffic jams on Letchworth Gate.
Area BA1 is a particular cause of concern here because its sheer scale is likely to cause severe congestion at the Whitehorse Street/Clothall Road/Station Road/Royston Road junction which will also have to cope with added traffic from BA2, BA3 and BA4.
Pedestrian access to the town from BA1 would also be severely limited by the
dangerously narrow pavements under the railway bridge and it is hard to imagine that parents would be happy for younger children to use it. This would add to the likelihood of BA1 being cut off from the town and increasing congestion on the school run.
The proposals for BA2, BA3 and BA4, as well as increasing traffic volume at the
abovesaid junction would mostly add to the existing problems in South Road, a
residential road that is already being used as a 'rat run' and is too narrow to deal with greater volumes of traffic The Preferred Options Plan appears not to have investigated the feasibility of the third bypass/relief road for BA1, either as a realistic means of relieving the congestion in the town centre or for its economic viability. In effect the railway holds a ransom strip and may use it to extract a sizeable sum. There is also the cost of building a bridge over the railway. Who would pay these costs? Is it the developer or the Council? If the latter why
should we be throwing ratepayers money at, what the NHDC's own planning portfolio
holder considers, a 'flawed plan'?
The proposed increase is proportionately so large and so rapid that it is going to put
severe strain on schools, medical services, surgeries, water supply and the railway system none of which are likely to be adequately catered for and some of which are beyond the control of the Council but nevertheless need to be considered. It will therefore cause significant problems and severely impact on the quality of life of the residents of this town and neighbouring villages.
As Baldock's treated sewerage flows into the Ivel it is vital that the treatment system is able to cope with a 75% increase in volume and be in place before a problem occurs. Has the cost of this been assessed and, again, who is to pay for the consequent costs?
NHDC's Vision and Objectives for Baldock:
It would seem that there is no discernable vision or viable plan for the future of Baldock beyond dumping the bulk of the District's housing problem here. There is no indication that there will ever be an ultimate capping of population/housing or any alternative to further urban sprawl, just a rush to solve an immediate problem.
There seems to have been no attempt to find alternative sites for housing in order to
spread the distribution more fairly. In particular there is no indication that Herts County Council has been approached about any of its other considerable landholdings within the District. There is a sizeable holding north of Ickleford, for example, on a very unremarkable, flat piece of countryside (unlike the attractive countryside around Baldock); it is convenient to Arlesey Station on the mainline which would be far better able to cope with increased traffic than the Cambridge branch line and it is on the main Hitchin to Bedford road with consequent employment opportunities in those towns, yet it has not been considered.
Baldock, on the other hand, has few employment opportunities, except those offered on the Letchworth Industrial Area, and this fact will be another cause of increased traffic through the town.
The consequence of dumping far more houses than the town needs, or that local
employers require, is that Baldock will become largely a dormitory town with a
consequent detrimental effect on its sense of community and its economy.
All three of our MPs consider the plan flawed, inadequate and unfair; even the NHDC
Planning Portfolio holder apparently agrees. If so, how can it be acceptable to proceed with a flawed plan?
Most people would surely agree that to meet the District's quota each town and village should accommodate its own housing needs and those of the employers and industries within those communities. It is against all natural justice and fairness that the quota should be allocated largely to one town simply because the land has been made available and because it is the smallest town with the least votes and power to oppose it.
This Local Plan threatens to destroy the identity of the last remaining small rural market town in your District and the equally precious sense of community that makes it such a pleasant place to live.

I would like to protest most strongly, on behalf of the members of this Society, about the possibility of massive and disproportionate housing development at Baldock. The following remarks refer to site references BA1, BA2, BA3 and BA4.
1. Historic Environment (HE) & Countryside and Green Belt (CGB):
As a History society the first matter we wish to draw your attention to is the effect any large increase in housing would have on the historic character and culture of Baldock and its setting within the countryside. This historic value of the town has been noted over the years by various authorities and I summarise them below for your information:
* Sir Patrick Abercrombie's Greater London Plan of 1944 considered Baldock to be
compactly developed with little discordant building and with a pleasing
relationship with the countryside, especially towards the north. In other words an
unspoilt, small country town. The report concluded that the town was "not
topographically suited for any appreciable expansion".
* In 1974 the Department of the Environment assessed the Baldock Conservation
Area as being of Outstanding Historic Interest.
* In 1977 NHDC and HCC jointly published the Baldock Town Scheme which
stated that "Baldock is one of five Hertfordshire towns listed by the Council for
British Archaeology as being of National Importance".
* Today the town has over 100 listed buildings in the town centre, equivalent, pro
rata, to an historic centre like Ely. It has one of the finest medieval churches in
Hertfordshire and the relationship of the church with the town clustered around in
its attractive valley setting is an important part of its charm.
Over the years neither BUDC nor NHDC have taken notice of these views or taken much care of the historic townscape and the rural setting which is so vital to it. The town has doubled in population since 1945 but nevertheless has managed to retain some of its rural charm and small-town feel because to the north and north-east there has been little development and because the countryside still reaches into the town from the south-east.
Yet these are precisely the areas that the Council have listed for development.
The Council planners appear to have completely ignored the requirement of the National Planning Policy Framework which requires that councils must "recognise that heritage assets are an irreplaceable resource and conserve them in a manner appropriate to their significance."
Likewise they have ignored the Government's intention that the Green Belt (which, like all the countryside, must surely also be considered a 'heritage asset') should be
preserved. Instead the only discernable planning issue that appears to have been taken into account is availability and political expediency, that is to say, 'let us dump these houses on the smallest town with the smallest vote'. As Sir Oliver Heald, MP, has pointed out, Green Belt land is supposed to be protected wherever possible yet, even though most of the District is not Green Belt, the Council have allocated the bulk of the housing on Green Belt land.
It seems from their Local Plan documents that the Council considers that its
responsibility for the heritage aspect of the towns in its care extends only as far as the boundaries of their conservation areas (this is despite the requirement of the NPPF that there should be 'conservation and enhancement of the natural and historic environment including landscapes' clearly implying that the two are one and the same, and that the setting of one in the other is important.) The Council's Plan is indifferent to this and the likely consequence, as far as Baldock is concerned, can be seen elsewhere all over the country in, what English Heritage calls, 'heritage ghettos': isolated islands of old buildings along a street frontage surrounded by unsympathetic and inappropriate urban development and infilling. Baldock's heritage character is that of a small country town in its country setting and that is the 'heritage asset' that should be preserved and not simply a selection of old buildings.
2. The economic effect on the town (ETC):
To a great extent, the economy of Baldock town centre, such as it is, relies on its
attractive character to draw people into the town. However, if there is to be any
significant return to a prosperous town centre it will need to attract more tourists and visitors from outside the town because the experience of the last 30 years has
demonstrated that population growth does not bring noticeable extra trade to the town centre. The town has only one real asset to attract that further trade and that is its historic character, because it has little else to offer a visitor. Without that asset there is little hope of a recovery. The Plan says that the survival of tourism "depends upon conserving and maintaining the quality of the resources upon which it depends" (ETC5) yet in Baldock the housing proposals threaten to destroy that very quality of attractiveness that is its only relistic hope.
In fact there are signs of prosperity returning to the town centre for the first time in
decades and visitors are being attracted to the town because of its character. The recent improvements to the town centre seem to have played a part in this and, with the new Arts and Heritage Centre project, there are grounds for hope that things may improve further, but it is a tenuous hope and could easily be destroyed by massive, unsympathetic development.
I should also point out that these considerations do not apply, to anything like the same degree, to the other towns in the district which are already of such a size that a few thousand extra houses would make little difference to them. The proposals are more akin to hugely increasing in size an historic village like Ashwell. It will be noted that Council would not countenance such an increase at Ashwell and yet almost precisely the same arguments apply to Baldock as they do to Ashwell.
Natural environment (NE):
Apart from the aesthetic damage to the landscape these proposals will bring and the loss of valuable farmland (which ought to be considered vital for our food security) we are concerned about the potential damage to the River Ivel. It is noticeable that the Ivel, which is an important and rare chalk-stream habitat, as well as an important local amenity, has run dry on several occasions in recent years and there is the possibility of doing irreversible damage to the river, its flora and fauna and environment, if the local water table or the capacity of the sewerage treatment works is overwhelmed by such a large increase of housing. This is not a concern that is really dealt with in the Plan except in vague terms.
There is also the related question as to whether local ground water sources can adequately supply the river and a development of this size with water especially in time of drought.
A great deal of money was spent on carefully landscaping the A505 Bypass to minimise its environmental impact on the lower end of what is surely one of the prettiest valleys in the District with its picturesque views of the town from the hills at its head. This would be so much money - ratepayers' money - wasted if the 'trapped land' is to be developed in BA2, and BA3.
Infrastructure delivery (ID):
Baldock's road network is already under strain despite having two bypasses. For large parts of the day there is congestion in the historic town centre which cannot be relieved because it is caused largely by local traffic. The Council acknowledges that this already causes significant pollution in the Whitehorse Street and Hitchin Street areas which nearly exceeds national guidelines and yet despite claiming that your policy 'addresses the protection of the health of the residents' it will, in fact, make it worse.. A massive increase in housing would exacerbate these problems and, because so much of the traffic is local with local destinations, they are unlikely to be solved by the proposed relief road to the eastern A505 junction in area BA1. If the present town is still congested after the construction of two bypasses then a town 40% larger is not going to be relieved by a third bypass heading in the wrong direction. Wrong, that is, because most of the traffic through the town centre seems to be going to or from Letchworth with school runs also causing extra difficulties at certain times of the day. No one would use this proposed relief road to go to Letchworth, or the supermarkets, or the schools, because of the length of the
diversion and the likelihood of traffic jams on Letchworth Gate.
Area BA1 is a particular cause of concern here because its sheer scale is likely to cause severe congestion at the Whitehorse Street/Clothall Road/Station Road/Royston Road junction which will also have to cope with added traffic from BA2, BA3 and BA4.
Pedestrian access to the town from BA1 would also be severely limited by the
dangerously narrow pavements under the railway bridge and it is hard to imagine that parents would be happy for younger children to use it. This would add to the likelihood of BA1 being cut off from the town and increasing congestion on the school run.
The proposals for BA2, BA3 and BA4, as well as increasing traffic volume at the
abovesaid junction would mostly add to the existing problems in South Road, a
residential road that is already being used as a 'rat run' and is too narrow to deal with greater volumes of traffic The Preferred Options Plan appears not to have investigated the feasibility of the third bypass/relief road for BA1, either as a realistic means of relieving the congestion in the town centre or for its economic viability. In effect the railway holds a ransom strip and may use it to extract a sizeable sum. There is also the cost of building a bridge over the railway. Who would pay these costs? Is it the developer or the Council? If the latter why
should we be throwing ratepayers money at, what the NHDC's own planning portfolio
holder considers, a 'flawed plan'?
The proposed increase is proportionately so large and so rapid that it is going to put
severe strain on schools, medical services, surgeries, water supply and the railway system none of which are likely to be adequately catered for and some of which are beyond the control of the Council but nevertheless need to be considered. It will therefore cause significant problems and severely impact on the quality of life of the residents of this town and neighbouring villages.
As Baldock's treated sewerage flows into the Ivel it is vital that the treatment system is able to cope with a 75% increase in volume and be in place before a problem occurs. Has the cost of this been assessed and, again, who is to pay for the consequent costs?
NHDC's Vision and Objectives for Baldock:
It would seem that there is no discernable vision or viable plan for the future of Baldock beyond dumping the bulk of the District's housing problem here. There is no indication that there will ever be an ultimate capping of population/housing or any alternative to further urban sprawl, just a rush to solve an immediate problem.
There seems to have been no attempt to find alternative sites for housing in order to
spread the distribution more fairly. In particular there is no indication that Herts County Council has been approached about any of its other considerable landholdings within the District. There is a sizeable holding north of Ickleford, for example, on a very unremarkable, flat piece of countryside (unlike the attractive countryside around Baldock); it is convenient to Arlesey Station on the mainline which would be far better able to cope with increased traffic than the Cambridge branch line and it is on the main Hitchin to Bedford road with consequent employment opportunities in those towns, yet it has not been considered.
Baldock, on the other hand, has few employment opportunities, except those offered on the Letchworth Industrial Area, and this fact will be another cause of increased traffic through the town.
The consequence of dumping far more houses than the town needs, or that local
employers require, is that Baldock will become largely a dormitory town with a
consequent detrimental effect on its sense of community and its economy.
All three of our MPs consider the plan flawed, inadequate and unfair; even the NHDC
Planning Portfolio holder apparently agrees. If so, how can it be acceptable to proceed with a flawed plan?
Most people would surely agree that to meet the District's quota each town and village should accommodate its own housing needs and those of the employers and industries within those communities. It is against all natural justice and fairness that the quota should be allocated largely to one town simply because the land has been made available and because it is the smallest town with the least votes and power to oppose it.
This Local Plan threatens to destroy the identity of the last remaining small rural market town in your District and the equally precious sense of community that makes it such a pleasant place to live.

I would like to protest most strongly, on behalf of the members of this Society, about the possibility of massive and disproportionate housing development at Baldock. The following remarks refer to site references BA1, BA2, BA3 and BA4.
1. Historic Environment (HE) & Countryside and Green Belt (CGB):
As a History society the first matter we wish to draw your attention to is the effect any large increase in housing would have on the historic character and culture of Baldock and its setting within the countryside. This historic value of the town has been noted over the years by various authorities and I summarise them below for your information:
* Sir Patrick Abercrombie's Greater London Plan of 1944 considered Baldock to be
compactly developed with little discordant building and with a pleasing
relationship with the countryside, especially towards the north. In other words an
unspoilt, small country town. The report concluded that the town was "not
topographically suited for any appreciable expansion".
* In 1974 the Department of the Environment assessed the Baldock Conservation
Area as being of Outstanding Historic Interest.
* In 1977 NHDC and HCC jointly published the Baldock Town Scheme which
stated that "Baldock is one of five Hertfordshire towns listed by the Council for
British Archaeology as being of National Importance".
* Today the town has over 100 listed buildings in the town centre, equivalent, pro
rata, to an historic centre like Ely. It has one of the finest medieval churches in
Hertfordshire and the relationship of the church with the town clustered around in
its attractive valley setting is an important part of its charm.
Over the years neither BUDC nor NHDC have taken notice of these views or taken much care of the historic townscape and the rural setting which is so vital to it. The town has doubled in population since 1945 but nevertheless has managed to retain some of its rural charm and small-town feel because to the north and north-east there has been little development and because the countryside still reaches into the town from the south-east.
Yet these are precisely the areas that the Council have listed for development.
The Council planners appear to have completely ignored the requirement of the National Planning Policy Framework which requires that councils must "recognise that heritage assets are an irreplaceable resource and conserve them in a manner appropriate to their significance."
Likewise they have ignored the Government's intention that the Green Belt (which, like all the countryside, must surely also be considered a 'heritage asset') should be
preserved. Instead the only discernable planning issue that appears to have been taken into account is availability and political expediency, that is to say, 'let us dump these houses on the smallest town with the smallest vote'. As Sir Oliver Heald, MP, has pointed out, Green Belt land is supposed to be protected wherever possible yet, even though most of the District is not Green Belt, the Council have allocated the bulk of the housing on Green Belt land.
It seems from their Local Plan documents that the Council considers that its
responsibility for the heritage aspect of the towns in its care extends only as far as the boundaries of their conservation areas (this is despite the requirement of the NPPF that there should be 'conservation and enhancement of the natural and historic environment including landscapes' clearly implying that the two are one and the same, and that the setting of one in the other is important.) The Council's Plan is indifferent to this and the likely consequence, as far as Baldock is concerned, can be seen elsewhere all over the country in, what English Heritage calls, 'heritage ghettos': isolated islands of old buildings along a street frontage surrounded by unsympathetic and inappropriate urban development and infilling. Baldock's heritage character is that of a small country town in its country setting and that is the 'heritage asset' that should be preserved and not simply a selection of old buildings.
2. The economic effect on the town (ETC):
To a great extent, the economy of Baldock town centre, such as it is, relies on its
attractive character to draw people into the town. However, if there is to be any
significant return to a prosperous town centre it will need to attract more tourists and visitors from outside the town because the experience of the last 30 years has
demonstrated that population growth does not bring noticeable extra trade to the town centre. The town has only one real asset to attract that further trade and that is its historic character, because it has little else to offer a visitor. Without that asset there is little hope of a recovery. The Plan says that the survival of tourism "depends upon conserving and maintaining the quality of the resources upon which it depends" (ETC5) yet in Baldock the housing proposals threaten to destroy that very quality of attractiveness that is its only relistic hope.
In fact there are signs of prosperity returning to the town centre for the first time in
decades and visitors are being attracted to the town because of its character. The recent improvements to the town centre seem to have played a part in this and, with the new Arts and Heritage Centre project, there are grounds for hope that things may improve further, but it is a tenuous hope and could easily be destroyed by massive, unsympathetic development.
I should also point out that these considerations do not apply, to anything like the same degree, to the other towns in the district which are already of such a size that a few thousand extra houses would make little difference to them. The proposals are more akin to hugely increasing in size an historic village like Ashwell. It will be noted that Council would not countenance such an increase at Ashwell and yet almost precisely the same arguments apply to Baldock as they do to Ashwell.
Natural environment (NE):
Apart from the aesthetic damage to the landscape these proposals will bring and the loss of valuable farmland (which ought to be considered vital for our food security) we are concerned about the potential damage to the River Ivel. It is noticeable that the Ivel, which is an important and rare chalk-stream habitat, as well as an important local amenity, has run dry on several occasions in recent years and there is the possibility of doing irreversible damage to the river, its flora and fauna and environment, if the local water table or the capacity of the sewerage treatment works is overwhelmed by such a large increase of housing. This is not a concern that is really dealt with in the Plan except in vague terms.
There is also the related question as to whether local ground water sources can adequately supply the river and a development of this size with water especially in time of drought.
A great deal of money was spent on carefully landscaping the A505 Bypass to minimise its environmental impact on the lower end of what is surely one of the prettiest valleys in the District with its picturesque views of the town from the hills at its head. This would be so much money - ratepayers' money - wasted if the 'trapped land' is to be developed in BA2, and BA3.
Infrastructure delivery (ID):
Baldock's road network is already under strain despite having two bypasses. For large parts of the day there is congestion in the historic town centre which cannot be relieved because it is caused largely by local traffic. The Council acknowledges that this already causes significant pollution in the Whitehorse Street and Hitchin Street areas which nearly exceeds national guidelines and yet despite claiming that your policy 'addresses the protection of the health of the residents' it will, in fact, make it worse.. A massive increase in housing would exacerbate these problems and, because so much of the traffic is local with local destinations, they are unlikely to be solved by the proposed relief road to the eastern A505 junction in area BA1. If the present town is still congested after the construction of two bypasses then a town 40% larger is not going to be relieved by a third bypass heading in the wrong direction. Wrong, that is, because most of the traffic through the town centre seems to be going to or from Letchworth with school runs also causing extra difficulties at certain times of the day. No one would use this proposed relief road to go to Letchworth, or the supermarkets, or the schools, because of the length of the
diversion and the likelihood of traffic jams on Letchworth Gate.
Area BA1 is a particular cause of concern here because its sheer scale is likely to cause severe congestion at the Whitehorse Street/Clothall Road/Station Road/Royston Road junction which will also have to cope with added traffic from BA2, BA3 and BA4.
Pedestrian access to the town from BA1 would also be severely limited by the
dangerously narrow pavements under the railway bridge and it is hard to imagine that parents would be happy for younger children to use it. This would add to the likelihood of BA1 being cut off from the town and increasing congestion on the school run.
The proposals for BA2, BA3 and BA4, as well as increasing traffic volume at the
abovesaid junction would mostly add to the existing problems in South Road, a
residential road that is already being used as a 'rat run' and is too narrow to deal with greater volumes of traffic The Preferred Options Plan appears not to have investigated the feasibility of the third bypass/relief road for BA1, either as a realistic means of relieving the congestion in the town centre or for its economic viability. In effect the railway holds a ransom strip and may use it to extract a sizeable sum. There is also the cost of building a bridge over the railway. Who would pay these costs? Is it the developer or the Council? If the latter why
should we be throwing ratepayers money at, what the NHDC's own planning portfolio
holder considers, a 'flawed plan'?
The proposed increase is proportionately so large and so rapid that it is going to put
severe strain on schools, medical services, surgeries, water supply and the railway system none of which are likely to be adequately catered for and some of which are beyond the control of the Council but nevertheless need to be considered. It will therefore cause significant problems and severely impact on the quality of life of the residents of this town and neighbouring villages.
As Baldock's treated sewerage flows into the Ivel it is vital that the treatment system is able to cope with a 75% increase in volume and be in place before a problem occurs. Has the cost of this been assessed and, again, who is to pay for the consequent costs?
NHDC's Vision and Objectives for Baldock:
It would seem that there is no discernable vision or viable plan for the future of Baldock beyond dumping the bulk of the District's housing problem here. There is no indication that there will ever be an ultimate capping of population/housing or any alternative to further urban sprawl, just a rush to solve an immediate problem.
There seems to have been no attempt to find alternative sites for housing in order to
spread the distribution more fairly. In particular there is no indication that Herts County Council has been approached about any of its other considerable landholdings within the District. There is a sizeable holding north of Ickleford, for example, on a very unremarkable, flat piece of countryside (unlike the attractive countryside around Baldock); it is convenient to Arlesey Station on the mainline which would be far better able to cope with increased traffic than the Cambridge branch line and it is on the main Hitchin to Bedford road with consequent employment opportunities in those towns, yet it has not been considered.
Baldock, on the other hand, has few employment opportunities, except those offered on the Letchworth Industrial Area, and this fact will be another cause of increased traffic through the town.
The consequence of dumping far more houses than the town needs, or that local
employers require, is that Baldock will become largely a dormitory town with a
consequent detrimental effect on its sense of community and its economy.
All three of our MPs consider the plan flawed, inadequate and unfair; even the NHDC
Planning Portfolio holder apparently agrees. If so, how can it be acceptable to proceed with a flawed plan?
Most people would surely agree that to meet the District's quota each town and village should accommodate its own housing needs and those of the employers and industries within those communities. It is against all natural justice and fairness that the quota should be allocated largely to one town simply because the land has been made available and because it is the smallest town with the least votes and power to oppose it.
This Local Plan threatens to destroy the identity of the last remaining small rural market town in your District and the equally precious sense of community that makes it such a pleasant place to live.

I would like to protest most strongly, on behalf of the members of this Society, about the possibility of massive and disproportionate housing development at Baldock. The following remarks refer to site references BA1, BA2, BA3 and BA4.
1. Historic Environment (HE) & Countryside and Green Belt (CGB):
As a History society the first matter we wish to draw your attention to is the effect any large increase in housing would have on the historic character and culture of Baldock and its setting within the countryside. This historic value of the town has been noted over the years by various authorities and I summarise them below for your information:
* Sir Patrick Abercrombie's Greater London Plan of 1944 considered Baldock to be
compactly developed with little discordant building and with a pleasing
relationship with the countryside, especially towards the north. In other words an
unspoilt, small country town. The report concluded that the town was "not
topographically suited for any appreciable expansion".
* In 1974 the Department of the Environment assessed the Baldock Conservation
Area as being of Outstanding Historic Interest.
* In 1977 NHDC and HCC jointly published the Baldock Town Scheme which
stated that "Baldock is one of five Hertfordshire towns listed by the Council for
British Archaeology as being of National Importance".
* Today the town has over 100 listed buildings in the town centre, equivalent, pro
rata, to an historic centre like Ely. It has one of the finest medieval churches in
Hertfordshire and the relationship of the church with the town clustered around in
its attractive valley setting is an important part of its charm.
Over the years neither BUDC nor NHDC have taken notice of these views or taken much care of the historic townscape and the rural setting which is so vital to it. The town has doubled in population since 1945 but nevertheless has managed to retain some of its rural charm and small-town feel because to the north and north-east there has been little development and because the countryside still reaches into the town from the south-east.
Yet these are precisely the areas that the Council have listed for development.
The Council planners appear to have completely ignored the requirement of the National Planning Policy Framework which requires that councils must "recognise that heritage assets are an irreplaceable resource and conserve them in a manner appropriate to their significance."
Likewise they have ignored the Government's intention that the Green Belt (which, like all the countryside, must surely also be considered a 'heritage asset') should be
preserved. Instead the only discernable planning issue that appears to have been taken into account is availability and political expediency, that is to say, 'let us dump these houses on the smallest town with the smallest vote'. As Sir Oliver Heald, MP, has pointed out, Green Belt land is supposed to be protected wherever possible yet, even though most of the District is not Green Belt, the Council have allocated the bulk of the housing on Green Belt land.
It seems from their Local Plan documents that the Council considers that its
responsibility for the heritage aspect of the towns in its care extends only as far as the boundaries of their conservation areas (this is despite the requirement of the NPPF that there should be 'conservation and enhancement of the natural and historic environment including landscapes' clearly implying that the two are one and the same, and that the setting of one in the other is important.) The Council's Plan is indifferent to this and the likely consequence, as far as Baldock is concerned, can be seen elsewhere all over the country in, what English Heritage calls, 'heritage ghettos': isolated islands of old buildings along a street frontage surrounded by unsympathetic and inappropriate urban development and infilling. Baldock's heritage character is that of a small country town in its country setting and that is the 'heritage asset' that should be preserved and not simply a selection of old buildings.
2. The economic effect on the town (ETC):
To a great extent, the economy of Baldock town centre, such as it is, relies on its
attractive character to draw people into the town. However, if there is to be any
significant return to a prosperous town centre it will need to attract more tourists and visitors from outside the town because the experience of the last 30 years has
demonstrated that population growth does not bring noticeable extra trade to the town centre. The town has only one real asset to attract that further trade and that is its historic character, because it has little else to offer a visitor. Without that asset there is little hope of a recovery. The Plan says that the survival of tourism "depends upon conserving and maintaining the quality of the resources upon which it depends" (ETC5) yet in Baldock the housing proposals threaten to destroy that very quality of attractiveness that is its only relistic hope.
In fact there are signs of prosperity returning to the town centre for the first time in
decades and visitors are being attracted to the town because of its character. The recent improvements to the town centre seem to have played a part in this and, with the new Arts and Heritage Centre project, there are grounds for hope that things may improve further, but it is a tenuous hope and could easily be destroyed by massive, unsympathetic development.
I should also point out that these considerations do not apply, to anything like the same degree, to the other towns in the district which are already of such a size that a few thousand extra houses would make little difference to them. The proposals are more akin to hugely increasing in size an historic village like Ashwell. It will be noted that Council would not countenance such an increase at Ashwell and yet almost precisely the same arguments apply to Baldock as they do to Ashwell.
Natural environment (NE):
Apart from the aesthetic damage to the landscape these proposals will bring and the loss of valuable farmland (which ought to be considered vital for our food security) we are concerned about the potential damage to the River Ivel. It is noticeable that the Ivel, which is an important and rare chalk-stream habitat, as well as an important local amenity, has run dry on several occasions in recent years and there is the possibility of doing irreversible damage to the river, its flora and fauna and environment, if the local water table or the capacity of the sewerage treatment works is overwhelmed by such a large increase of housing. This is not a concern that is really dealt with in the Plan except in vague terms.
There is also the related question as to whether local ground water sources can adequately supply the river and a development of this size with water especially in time of drought.
A great deal of money was spent on carefully landscaping the A505 Bypass to minimise its environmental impact on the lower end of what is surely one of the prettiest valleys in the District with its picturesque views of the town from the hills at its head. This would be so much money - ratepayers' money - wasted if the 'trapped land' is to be developed in BA2, and BA3.
Infrastructure delivery (ID):
Baldock's road network is already under strain despite having two bypasses. For large parts of the day there is congestion in the historic town centre which cannot be relieved because it is caused largely by local traffic. The Council acknowledges that this already causes significant pollution in the Whitehorse Street and Hitchin Street areas which nearly exceeds national guidelines and yet despite claiming that your policy 'addresses the protection of the health of the residents' it will, in fact, make it worse.. A massive increase in housing would exacerbate these problems and, because so much of the traffic is local with local destinations, they are unlikely to be solved by the proposed relief road to the eastern A505 junction in area BA1. If the present town is still congested after the construction of two bypasses then a town 40% larger is not going to be relieved by a third bypass heading in the wrong direction. Wrong, that is, because most of the traffic through the town centre seems to be going to or from Letchworth with school runs also causing extra difficulties at certain times of the day. No one would use this proposed relief road to go to Letchworth, or the supermarkets, or the schools, because of the length of the
diversion and the likelihood of traffic jams on Letchworth Gate.
Area BA1 is a particular cause of concern here because its sheer scale is likely to cause severe congestion at the Whitehorse Street/Clothall Road/Station Road/Royston Road junction which will also have to cope with added traffic from BA2, BA3 and BA4.
Pedestrian access to the town from BA1 would also be severely limited by the
dangerously narrow pavements under the railway bridge and it is hard to imagine that parents would be happy for younger children to use it. This would add to the likelihood of BA1 being cut off from the town and increasing congestion on the school run.
The proposals for BA2, BA3 and BA4, as well as increasing traffic volume at the
abovesaid junction would mostly add to the existing problems in South Road, a
residential road that is already being used as a 'rat run' and is too narrow to deal with greater volumes of traffic The Preferred Options Plan appears not to have investigated the feasibility of the third bypass/relief road for BA1, either as a realistic means of relieving the congestion in the town centre or for its economic viability. In effect the railway holds a ransom strip and may use it to extract a sizeable sum. There is also the cost of building a bridge over the railway. Who would pay these costs? Is it the developer or the Council? If the latter why
should we be throwing ratepayers money at, what the NHDC's own planning portfolio
holder considers, a 'flawed plan'?
The proposed increase is proportionately so large and so rapid that it is going to put
severe strain on schools, medical services, surgeries, water supply and the railway system none of which are likely to be adequately catered for and some of which are beyond the control of the Council but nevertheless need to be considered. It will therefore cause significant problems and severely impact on the quality of life of the residents of this town and neighbouring villages.
As Baldock's treated sewerage flows into the Ivel it is vital that the treatment system is able to cope with a 75% increase in volume and be in place before a problem occurs. Has the cost of this been assessed and, again, who is to pay for the consequent costs?
NHDC's Vision and Objectives for Baldock:
It would seem that there is no discernable vision or viable plan for the future of Baldock beyond dumping the bulk of the District's housing problem here. There is no indication that there will ever be an ultimate capping of population/housing or any alternative to further urban sprawl, just a rush to solve an immediate problem.
There seems to have been no attempt to find alternative sites for housing in order to
spread the distribution more fairly. In particular there is no indication that Herts County Council has been approached about any of its other considerable landholdings within the District. There is a sizeable holding north of Ickleford, for example, on a very unremarkable, flat piece of countryside (unlike the attractive countryside around Baldock); it is convenient to Arlesey Station on the mainline which would be far better able to cope with increased traffic than the Cambridge branch line and it is on the main Hitchin to Bedford road with consequent employment opportunities in those towns, yet it has not been considered.
Baldock, on the other hand, has few employment opportunities, except those offered on the Letchworth Industrial Area, and this fact will be another cause of increased traffic through the town.
The consequence of dumping far more houses than the town needs, or that local
employers require, is that Baldock will become largely a dormitory town with a
consequent detrimental effect on its sense of community and its economy.
All three of our MPs consider the plan flawed, inadequate and unfair; even the NHDC
Planning Portfolio holder apparently agrees. If so, how can it be acceptable to proceed with a flawed plan?
Most people would surely agree that to meet the District's quota each town and village should accommodate its own housing needs and those of the employers and industries within those communities. It is against all natural justice and fairness that the quota should be allocated largely to one town simply because the land has been made available and because it is the smallest town with the least votes and power to oppose it.
This Local Plan threatens to destroy the identity of the last remaining small rural market town in your District and the equally precious sense of community that makes it such a pleasant place to live.

I would like to protest most strongly, on behalf of the members of this Society, about the possibility of massive and disproportionate housing development at Baldock. The following remarks refer to site references BA1, BA2, BA3 and BA4.
1. Historic Environment (HE) & Countryside and Green Belt (CGB):
As a History society the first matter we wish to draw your attention to is the effect any large increase in housing would have on the historic character and culture of Baldock and its setting within the countryside. This historic value of the town has been noted over the years by various authorities and I summarise them below for your information:
* Sir Patrick Abercrombie's Greater London Plan of 1944 considered Baldock to be
compactly developed with little discordant building and with a pleasing
relationship with the countryside, especially towards the north. In other words an
unspoilt, small country town. The report concluded that the town was "not
topographically suited for any appreciable expansion".
* In 1974 the Department of the Environment assessed the Baldock Conservation
Area as being of Outstanding Historic Interest.
* In 1977 NHDC and HCC jointly published the Baldock Town Scheme which
stated that "Baldock is one of five Hertfordshire towns listed by the Council for
British Archaeology as being of National Importance".
* Today the town has over 100 listed buildings in the town centre, equivalent, pro
rata, to an historic centre like Ely. It has one of the finest medieval churches in
Hertfordshire and the relationship of the church with the town clustered around in
its attractive valley setting is an important part of its charm.
Over the years neither BUDC nor NHDC have taken notice of these views or taken much care of the historic townscape and the rural setting which is so vital to it. The town has doubled in population since 1945 but nevertheless has managed to retain some of its rural charm and small-town feel because to the north and north-east there has been little development and because the countryside still reaches into the town from the south-east.
Yet these are precisely the areas that the Council have listed for development.
The Council planners appear to have completely ignored the requirement of the National Planning Policy Framework which requires that councils must "recognise that heritage assets are an irreplaceable resource and conserve them in a manner appropriate to their significance."
Likewise they have ignored the Government's intention that the Green Belt (which, like all the countryside, must surely also be considered a 'heritage asset') should be
preserved. Instead the only discernable planning issue that appears to have been taken into account is availability and political expediency, that is to say, 'let us dump these houses on the smallest town with the smallest vote'. As Sir Oliver Heald, MP, has pointed out, Green Belt land is supposed to be protected wherever possible yet, even though most of the District is not Green Belt, the Council have allocated the bulk of the housing on Green Belt land.
It seems from their Local Plan documents that the Council considers that its
responsibility for the heritage aspect of the towns in its care extends only as far as the boundaries of their conservation areas (this is despite the requirement of the NPPF that there should be 'conservation and enhancement of the natural and historic environment including landscapes' clearly implying that the two are one and the same, and that the setting of one in the other is important.) The Council's Plan is indifferent to this and the likely consequence, as far as Baldock is concerned, can be seen elsewhere all over the country in, what English Heritage calls, 'heritage ghettos': isolated islands of old buildings along a street frontage surrounded by unsympathetic and inappropriate urban development and infilling. Baldock's heritage character is that of a small country town in its country setting and that is the 'heritage asset' that should be preserved and not simply a selection of old buildings.
2. The economic effect on the town (ETC):
To a great extent, the economy of Baldock town centre, such as it is, relies on its
attractive character to draw people into the town. However, if there is to be any
significant return to a prosperous town centre it will need to attract more tourists and visitors from outside the town because the experience of the last 30 years has
demonstrated that population growth does not bring noticeable extra trade to the town centre. The town has only one real asset to attract that further trade and that is its historic character, because it has little else to offer a visitor. Without that asset there is little hope of a recovery. The Plan says that the survival of tourism "depends upon conserving and maintaining the quality of the resources upon which it depends" (ETC5) yet in Baldock the housing proposals threaten to destroy that very quality of attractiveness that is its only relistic hope.
In fact there are signs of prosperity returning to the town centre for the first time in
decades and visitors are being attracted to the town because of its character. The recent improvements to the town centre seem to have played a part in this and, with the new Arts and Heritage Centre project, there are grounds for hope that things may improve further, but it is a tenuous hope and could easily be destroyed by massive, unsympathetic development.
I should also point out that these considerations do not apply, to anything like the same degree, to the other towns in the district which are already of such a size that a few thousand extra houses would make little difference to them. The proposals are more akin to hugely increasing in size an historic village like Ashwell. It will be noted that Council would not countenance such an increase at Ashwell and yet almost precisely the same arguments apply to Baldock as they do to Ashwell.
Natural environment (NE):
Apart from the aesthetic damage to the landscape these proposals will bring and the loss of valuable farmland (which ought to be considered vital for our food security) we are concerned about the potential damage to the River Ivel. It is noticeable that the Ivel, which is an important and rare chalk-stream habitat, as well as an important local amenity, has run dry on several occasions in recent years and there is the possibility of doing irreversible damage to the river, its flora and fauna and environment, if the local water table or the capacity of the sewerage treatment works is overwhelmed by such a large increase of housing. This is not a concern that is really dealt with in the Plan except in vague terms.
There is also the related question as to whether local ground water sources can adequately supply the river and a development of this size with water especially in time of drought.
A great deal of money was spent on carefully landscaping the A505 Bypass to minimise its environmental impact on the lower end of what is surely one of the prettiest valleys in the District with its picturesque views of the town from the hills at its head. This would be so much money - ratepayers' money - wasted if the 'trapped land' is to be developed in BA2, and BA3.
Infrastructure delivery (ID):
Baldock's road network is already under strain despite having two bypasses. For large parts of the day there is congestion in the historic town centre which cannot be relieved because it is caused largely by local traffic. The Council acknowledges that this already causes significant pollution in the Whitehorse Street and Hitchin Street areas which nearly exceeds national guidelines and yet despite claiming that your policy 'addresses the protection of the health of the residents' it will, in fact, make it worse.. A massive increase in housing would exacerbate these problems and, because so much of the traffic is local with local destinations, they are unlikely to be solved by the proposed relief road to the eastern A505 junction in area BA1. If the present town is still congested after the construction of two bypasses then a town 40% larger is not going to be relieved by a third bypass heading in the wrong direction. Wrong, that is, because most of the traffic through the town centre seems to be going to or from Letchworth with school runs also causing extra difficulties at certain times of the day. No one would use this proposed relief road to go to Letchworth, or the supermarkets, or the schools, because of the length of the
diversion and the likelihood of traffic jams on Letchworth Gate.
Area BA1 is a particular cause of concern here because its sheer scale is likely to cause severe congestion at the Whitehorse Street/Clothall Road/Station Road/Royston Road junction which will also have to cope with added traffic from BA2, BA3 and BA4.
Pedestrian access to the town from BA1 would also be severely limited by the
dangerously narrow pavements under the railway bridge and it is hard to imagine that parents would be happy for younger children to use it. This would add to the likelihood of BA1 being cut off from the town and increasing congestion on the school run.
The proposals for BA2, BA3 and BA4, as well as increasing traffic volume at the
abovesaid junction would mostly add to the existing problems in South Road, a
residential road that is already being used as a 'rat run' and is too narrow to deal with greater volumes of traffic The Preferred Options Plan appears not to have investigated the feasibility of the third bypass/relief road for BA1, either as a realistic means of relieving the congestion in the town centre or for its economic viability. In effect the railway holds a ransom strip and may use it to extract a sizeable sum. There is also the cost of building a bridge over the railway. Who would pay these costs? Is it the developer or the Council? If the latter why
should we be throwing ratepayers money at, what the NHDC's own planning portfolio
holder considers, a 'flawed plan'?
The proposed increase is proportionately so large and so rapid that it is going to put
severe strain on schools, medical services, surgeries, water supply and the railway system none of which are likely to be adequately catered for and some of which are beyond the control of the Council but nevertheless need to be considered. It will therefore cause significant problems and severely impact on the quality of life of the residents of this town and neighbouring villages.
As Baldock's treated sewerage flows into the Ivel it is vital that the treatment system is able to cope with a 75% increase in volume and be in place before a problem occurs. Has the cost of this been assessed and, again, who is to pay for the consequent costs?
NHDC's Vision and Objectives for Baldock:
It would seem that there is no discernable vision or viable plan for the future of Baldock beyond dumping the bulk of the District's housing problem here. There is no indication that there will ever be an ultimate capping of population/housing or any alternative to further urban sprawl, just a rush to solve an immediate problem.
There seems to have been no attempt to find alternative sites for housing in order to
spread the distribution more fairly. In particular there is no indication that Herts County Council has been approached about any of its other considerable landholdings within the District. There is a sizeable holding north of Ickleford, for example, on a very unremarkable, flat piece of countryside (unlike the attractive countryside around Baldock); it is convenient to Arlesey Station on the mainline which would be far better able to cope with increased traffic than the Cambridge branch line and it is on the main Hitchin to Bedford road with consequent employment opportunities in those towns, yet it has not been considered.
Baldock, on the other hand, has few employment opportunities, except those offered on the Letchworth Industrial Area, and this fact will be another cause of increased traffic through the town.
The consequence of dumping far more houses than the town needs, or that local
employers require, is that Baldock will become largely a dormitory town with a
consequent detrimental effect on its sense of community and its economy.
All three of our MPs consider the plan flawed, inadequate and unfair; even the NHDC
Planning Portfolio holder apparently agrees. If so, how can it be acceptable to proceed with a flawed plan?
Most people would surely agree that to meet the District's quota each town and village should accommodate its own housing needs and those of the employers and industries within those communities. It is against all natural justice and fairness that the quota should be allocated largely to one town simply because the land has been made available and because it is the smallest town with the least votes and power to oppose it.
This Local Plan threatens to destroy the identity of the last remaining small rural market town in your District and the equally precious sense of community that makes it such a pleasant place to live.