Local Plan 2011-2031 Proposed Submission Draft

Deards End Lane is a Conservation Area. Building additional dwellings will cause several problems. The green belt buffer between Knebworth and Stevenage will erode more and more. There is the risk of damage to the character of the Conservation Area. Today Deards End Lane is often used as a rat run between Park Lane and Stevenage Road and that will only get worse. The road is too small for lots of traffic and the Railway bridge is too narrow especially on the South Side of the Bridge. Seeing how the situation is now will make this an impossible situation when 200 additional dwellings will be built here. A similar problem exists at the Railway Bridge on Park Lane/Station Approach. This bridge is too small and the additional traffic of 200 dwellings will be dangerous for cars but mostly for pedestrians who have to walk over a small footpath.This plan is not positively prepared in considering the different sites in Knebworth independently. None of the sites exceeds 500 but combined they do and they should be considered as a whole because they will all together have a considerable impact on the village and should be thought through. As it stands there is no strategy and without this the proposal is wrong. The plan is not justified: other sites should be considered. It is wrong to grow a village by 31%.