Local Plan 2011-2031 Proposed Submission Draft

We understand that North Herts is a popular area and is attracting additional residents and support the proposals for additional housing. However we have fundamental concerns over an allocation of sites around existing towns and villages which will cause irreversible changes to their historic character and put huge pressure on already constrained infrastructure and services.

Codicote is a village that has grown organically around the B656. Whilst the allocation of around 364 houses forms part of the overall quota for North Herts, we feel that the suggested scale of the development is completely inappropriate for the village of Codicote and outline some of our concerns below:

Traffic & Sustainability
We have concerns about the impact the new developments would have on existing traffic problems.

Codicote is not currently set up to encourage pedestrians or cycling. When walking around the village my wife often has to take our small children into the B656 road because the path is blocked by parked cars. We have tried on occasions to walk to Welwyn village (where the nearest doctor's surgery is located) and do not feel this is a safe road to walk young children down. In places it is not suitable for buggy or disabled access and traffic is very fast moving with little space between the road and pavement. The council have put in bollards in Codicote but they have not worked, wholescale revisions to the road layout and defined layby parking to the one side might help, but this would impact unfairly on residents to one side. We have lived in many areas around North Herts and feel that Codicote is one of the worse places to walk and cycle around.

I commute to London and for a few months did try and cycle to Welwyn North station. I had many near misses with cars that had little space to pass or would overtake on the many bends between the station and Codicote. In the end I had to give in and drive to the station due to these safety concerns. Parking at Welwyn North and Knebworth stations already appear to be at capacity.

We have also considered using the local bus service but this is prohibitive due to the cost and frequency of buses that serve the village.

There are relatively few employment opportunities within the village and no additional employment land is suggested by NHDC in their plan. Like our household, most people will need to work outside the village.

Although parking restrictions are currently in place in St Albans Road to offer a safe route to school for the children these restrictions are not observed or enforced.

Quarry traffic is already an issue for the village and the quarry trucks affect people's ability to walk or park safely around the village. Large numbers of additional cars and construction traffic are going to add to this issue.

Green Belt
We feel the additional developments would be inappropriate destruction of the Green Belt and find no evidence to support the 'exceptional circumstances' that would be needed in order to make the destruction legal.

Other issues

The school is currently at capacity. Even with expansion, we have concerns that it will quickly be at capacity again. If the existing site is developed this would involve a split in the school over a public footpath and worry how this would be managed in the long term. In order for the footpath to be maintained it appears a large proportion of the new development traffic would need to be accessed via St Albans Road. Parts of St Albans road are a Conservation Area and we have concerns about the impact a large increase in traffic would have on this area.

There is no local secondary school within walking or cycling distance to Codicote meaning large numbers of children would need to leave the village via car or bus each day putting even more pressure on the struggling road network.

The local surgery is at capacity and we currently have to wait up to 6 weeks for a routine appointment. We have concerns that the surgery would struggle to cope with such a large number of new patients but also the roads and area surrounding the surgery are already congested and parking is an issue. This would only get worse with more patients to serve.