Local Plan 2011-2031 Proposed Submission Draft

The plan does not represent the best interests of the district. This is a small historic village.
The infrastructure provision for transport, waste management and water supply has
not been fully thought out. Problems with the width of the roads. Lanes are too narrow to cope with significant traffic.

Green Belt land makes a significant contribution to protecting spaces between towns and maintaining the separate identity of Knebworth as a village. Development of sites KB2 will remove the Green Belt buffer between the village and the A1. There will be a loss of countryside damaging the open landscape setting.
Plus, the width of the road under the railways is a problem.
Lack of draining/inadequate drainage is a problem too.

As there is no proposal for any commercial use it is evidence of a lack of strategy for Knebworth. The village centre will be changed and this will have an impact. The facilities of Knebworth are designated as a village centre in the retail hierarchy under policy SP4. Therefore, any development of the village centre needs to take this into account. At a bare minimum, some mixed use should be proposed.

Knebworth is a small village. It's infrastructure can not cope with this amount of development. The roads are too narrow, the station is already dangerously overcrowded, as is the doctors surgery and school. Many area's flood in wet weather and plans are not well thought out.

There has been no consultation about the development of this site. The village infrastructure can not cope with this development.

A second primary school on site KB2 is not well considered. This would be adjacent
to the A1 and as such noise and air pollution will be significant. Children and
teachers cannot learn and teach in this environment. In December 2014 the Environmental Audit Committee issued a report stating that: 'A ban on building schools, hospitals, and care homes near air pollution hotspots must be introduced to
help cut thousands of deaths connected to the 'invisible killer' of traffic fumes.' A second primary school will change the village feel of Knebworth to more of a town, or urban sprawl. It will increase pressure on the roads under on the railway bridges because more people would be crossing the village each morning, in both directions, with young children. I would be naïve to assume that parents would automatically chose the primary school nearest to them, or on their side of the village.