Local Plan 2011-2031 Proposed Submission Draft

The total NHDC plan is a make shift collection of mainly in appropriate green belt additions to villages and towns targeted at meeting a new housing number which could and should be solved with the development of a new garden city. This approach will be complexed, disruptive and distructive to communities.
Specifically the proposed development plan for the BA1 site does not contain any viable outline solution for principlly car and rail or other traffic into and out of Baldock town, or north to and from the A1 Baldock services junction (A507). The volume increase of cars directly from this plan only, has a minimum estimated total of 5,000. The traffic into Baldock (A507) is referenced in the plan as having a critical pinch point at the traffic lights. This totally understates the current situation, without the additional year by year increase together with the 5000 referenced from the development. The current queue of cars into Baldock from the north (A507) is between 15 and 25 minutes morning, lunchtime, evening and bad weather. The A507 is also a run off for a fully loaded south bound A1 each morning. The A1 currently has south bound stationary traffic backed up to this junction.
All the current traffic along the A507 passes the Radwell and Ashwell junctions on a narrow two way road with unrestricted speed. Currently turning in or out of these junctions is difficult but when crossing the oncoming traffic to make a turn is extremely dangerous, mainly from the rear as cars do not expect the road to narrow, stopping them from passing on the inside. The increases in cars would make travel into and out of the villages impossible. This clearly demonstrates that the future overall traffic situation to and from the north side into and out of Baldock is critical now. With known additions from the referenced development together with all the others in Baldock means this cannot and must not be left to an adhoc plan after the submission and must be faced and dealt with as part of the submission. The cost of alternative roads to the A507 may not be financially viable or possible and do not resolve the issue of a railway line with its fixed narrow height restricted tunnel being the real barrier and divide between this proposed site and the town.
The current proposal has no plan to accommodate or in any way deal with the huge amount of additional passengers that these new homes would put on Baldock train station. Baldock train station is already extremely busy at peak travel times in the morning and evening with a large increase in annual passenger use year on year (0.497 million passengers in 2010 - 0.624 million in 2015). The station platform can currently take a maximum length train of 8 carriages. To increase the length of train that can stop at Baldock would require both sides of the platform to be significantly extended. There are no current plans to increase the amount of trains stopping at Baldock, in fact a recent time table revision is proposing a cut in the number of fast trains that will stop at Baldock station. A clear indicator that the plan has had no connection to road or rail travel infurstructure bodies.
There is no provision for sewage, drainage or water for a site positioned on one side of the river Ival. The river relies on chalk aquafers which if bored further will dry up the supply to the river.