Local Plan 2011-2031 Proposed Submission Draft

I would like to make my objection to the proposed local plan for the following reasons:

Firstly for the inevitable traffic problems. We in Baldock have finally had historical traffic problems eased with the relocation of the A505, due to our long awaited by-pass. Those of us who have lived in Baldock for any length of time remember the chaos of grid locked roads. It is unclear what measures this plan has taken regarding a model of capacity planning for vehicle increases as a direct result of the potential number of houses being mooted.

Secondly our infrastructure. Baldock Town is described as a small Market Town. I would question how has the impact of such an increase in the local population has been measured in terms of the current infrastructure available in the Town, as it is not clear in the proposed plan. By infrastructure I include not only Dr and Dentist surgeries, but schools, parking and our drainage system. Baldock Towns' old Victorian drainage network is well over capacity, as those in the town with basements will know. Storm drains overflow into basements and drains back-up on pavements in the town centre. Drains also block due to overuse and regularly need rodding in lower areas. Church Street being the prime example.

I've touched on parking, but again this is an area that will require support in Baldock within the plan to sustain such potential increases in housing. It may be that the plan eventually provides its own shops, surgeries etc., but many of us are all aware of the Great Ashby scheme, where such provision was expected, but has not materialised to date. How can we guarantee that the Great Ashby debacle doesn't transfer to Baldock?

Is the plan robust enough to withstand the requirements that such an influx in population needs? From what we have seen and heard about it to date, we in Baldock very much doubt this. Questions have been raised at forums without adequate recourse and we in Baldock have little faith that our voice is heard. Even with this new build, Baldock will still be the smallest of the Towns and as such our voice is seldom heard over the needs of the larger towns in North Hertfordshire, even with the full support of our local councillors.

Currently Baldock's road and rail networks are already feeling the strain. At peak times it can still take over half an hour to enter the town on certain roads, especially through our traffic lights at the main crossroad and although a new road system is mooted, no-one can assure the locality that this will come to fruition.

Thirdly, we have recently officially lost our Police Station, where the land was also utilised as a small housing development. Currently in Baldock our crime rates are very low and we much appreciate the efforts involved to retain that situation. However, with new housing and new people this is also going to create inevitable increases on policing and community officers.

And my final point is to do with the youth of Baldock within the neighbourhood plan. What provision is there to keep the young people who will move into the Town entertained? If entertained and kept busy, with sports and facilities provided young people are an asset to any development. But bored and neglected young people encourage a more hostile and volatile atmosphere, where boredom very often leads to vandalism and problematic behaviour. We certainly want to avoid this, but the building of one small community hall does not answer this need at all, if indeed it is ever built.

Certainly Baldock is already doing its bit for a local plan in terms of new housing development proportionally. We do need to do this and there are plenty of infill schemes and new builds proposed, without the need for over 2,800 buildings in one new development on green belt land on its outskirts, which will double the population and have a detrimental effect on the locality, which most of us are objecting too.

Although born and raised in Baldock, since 1985 I have lived on Clothall Common, a housing development built from the early 1980's. I can certainly confirm that there was, for many years, a 'them and us' culture within the town, which I can see being repeated. On that development there were at least 3 affordable schemes, including self build, to get the local people like myself onto the Estate. This time, there seems to be a minority proportion of 'affordable housing', which again, most of the locals probably won't be able to afford. Therefore we would like an assurance that at least some of these houses, if the scheme gets the go ahead, will see that local people can receive some benefit, as otherwise our lives will be detrimentally affected just to alleviate other over crowded areas, perhaps not even Hertfordshire at all.

Please do consider us, the local population and all of our objections. We have lived through this state of affairs with traffic problems before and are loath to have it forced upon us again when we have finally been able to have our Town back, with our bypass and restructured High Street, which we have fully embraced and built upon.

We have been told that people will walk into Baldock from the new development. Who is anyone trying to kid. No one walks anywhere anymore if they can help it and if we rely on this sort of thinking and conjecture, Baldock is doomed!