Local Plan 2011-2031 Proposed Submission Draft

Letchworth is a Garden City, a core principal being the protection of green spaces as enforced on all residents. Its a farce that the council can deem it acceptable to build on greenbelt land, land that the hertiage foundation spent a lot of money building the Greenway round to encourage outdoor activity. The land is regularly used by walkers, runners and children and is a small gap of green between Stotfold, Fairfield and Letchworth. With increasing development from Fairfield there will be very minimal space between this and Letchworth if the development were to go ahead as planned.

Access is also not well planned, the roundabout at the end of Norton way north/ Wilbury Road/ Norton Road/ Eastholm is already very busy with traffic going from norton way north and onto the grange. This makes it very busy when trying to access from Wilbury Road and this significant increase in traffic will only exacerbate the issue making it dangerous for children that cross the road to get to school or into town.

Infrastructure is poorly accounted for given the increase in housing. Whilst the plan references more schooling will be looked at (which would be essential) it makes no reference to the A1 or trains. This is a commuter town and already traffic on the A1 is horrendous in the mornings with a 15 mile journey to Welwyn Garden City taking an hour on a regular basis. The only change referenced is to the A1 junction at Letchworth. Whilst this can be improved this is not what causes the delays. The A1 needs widening between Stevenage and Welwyn to cope with the huge volume of traffic already.

Train links are also challenging already, more housing will make this a lot worse without addressing two issues. Firstly train capacity is not enough, at peak times it can be a challenge to get a seat in the morning. The trains will not cope with hundreds of extra passengers. Secondly and most importantly parking for commuters needs addressing. The existing car parks are tiny, holding barely 30 cars. This means already commuter cars clog up neighbouring roads wherever they can (e.g. Cowslip Hill) making it very dangerous for pedestrians and passing traffic. Given all this housing will be at least 2km from the station this needs addressing as the current town cannot cope with the existing situation let alone more.