Local Plan 2011-2031 Proposed Submission Draft

I am writing to express my objections to your plans to overdevelop Baldock - in particular BA1 Blackhorse Farm.

I have lived in Baldock for 20 years and it is a historic and quite unique community-based old country town.

The proposals to build 3500 new homes, and potentially doubling its size, are ludicrous. Not only will this destroy our historic country town with overdevelopment but, due to the natural increase in population over the years, our town is already struggling to cope. Building these extra homes is a death sentence to the current residents and will totally transform the visible landscape and our community.

Section 5 (T) Traffic jams into the town are already an everyday occurrence - going into town by car is a 10 minute journey for under a kilometre. The unpopular routing of the Baldock Bypass did little to ease any congestion years ago and I can honestly say that congestion is now just as bad, if not worse, than it has ever been. People travelling to work from the train station already park everywhere - the roads are full and it is a dangerous place for our children to be walking. I urge any of the people in charge of this decision to come to Baldock and sit at the Whitehorse Traffic lights themselves - I spend a lot of my time there waiting in endless queues of traffic.

Walking into town is tricky with the narrow paving under the railway bridge and the amount of lorries and cars. Adding 7000 extra vehicles to Baldock's roads WILL BE SUICIDE.

Section 4 (CGB) This is GREEN BELT LAND - does that not mean anything anymore? Is this even legal? Sections 79 & 80 of The Government's Planning Practice Guidance state that The Government attaches great importance to Green Belts. The fundamental aim of Green Belt policy is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open; the essential characteristics of Green Belts are their openness and their permanence and to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns. Our neighbours who have been farming here all their lives will be out of business - their land filled with houses - North Herts is an area of beauty and the landscape will be irreversibly changed. We should be using existing Brownfield sites - there are lots in the Hitchin, Letchworth, Baldock, Stevenage area.

It is not fair to expect Baldock to take this overdevelopment - it is already growing at twice the rate of Letchworth and Hitchin. It is not fair for it to take 35% of new housing when it is 30% smaller. Doubling the size of the population will damage the well established community here.

The people who live in Baldock will not be the ones who gain from this proposal - our MP Sir Oliver Heald agrees.

Then what about our Schools and Doctors? It's hard to get an appointment already - schools are oversubscribed - people are trying to move into Baldock just to have a chance of their children attending schools here. Will Knights Templar have to continue expanding and building extra classrooms on the old playing field and in the playground - the school is big enough already - if it grows even more it wont be able to keep up the high standards and the level of commitment it has to its students.

And the sewage system, how will that cope? Renewing the infrastructure will be disruptive to residents and businesses - how will this work? Where will all the rainwater go when we cover the fields with concrete - people in Baldock are paving over their gardens for parking spaces every day to get their cars off the road - are we to expect flooding and a change to the ecosystem as well.

I cannot imagine a worse thing to happen here - it is so damaging to expect a relatively small historic town to cope with this, even if there are new schools and roads built - it will be chaos for years and years and Baldock will never recover. Goodbye old Baldock - if this happens you wont survive.