Local Plan 2011-2031 Proposed Submission Draft

I have previously written to you in January and May of this year with comments on the draft plans. Now that the definitive plan has been published we are, it would seem, asked to comment again. The points I would wish to make are mostly the same as I made before but I will be much briefer this time.

The need for additional dwellings is accepted but before any expansion of Codicote is allowed the following points MUST be addressed (you have acknowledged some of them in the paragraphs 13.80 to 13.83 but it is not 100% clear how committed the council is to taking appropriate action)

1. The village school would definitely need to be expanded. There have already been problems with local parents finding it difficult to obtain a place for their children.
2. The additional dwellings would definitely require action on the infrastructure for which the water company is responsible. This year there have been frequent problems necessitating the digging up of roads.
3. On top of the problems created by lorries going to Codicote Quarry, it does not take much to cause holdups to traffic on the High Street, and building additional houses not only in Codicote but in villages to the North and West is not calculated to improve this. Assuming that no extra lane is built on the A1(M) in the timespan covered by this plan, and that no other bypass of the village is likely to be built in the near future, there is probably no easy answer to this, but one thing that could help the traffic flow would be decent parking space off the High Street if some way could be found to provide this.
4. As the village seems to suffer more than its fair share of power cuts, it would be desirable to that developers should be required to work with the electricity supplier to deal with this.
5. It is already difficult to get appointments at the nearest Doctors' surgery in Old Welwyn; although it is appreciated that this is something that is mainly within the remit of the NHS, the NHDC may have a part to play in encouraging extra provision.
6. There are a number of footpaths giving access to the surrounding countryside that should not be allowed to disappear, for example the section of the Hertfordshire Way leading west from St Albans Road past the school towards Codicote Bottom, to name but one.
7. There is a considerable amount of wildlife centered on the area to the West/Southwest of the area labeled CD5, (including black squirrels which are not usually found this far south and west in England). It is suggested that any development should respect this, both during construction and afterwards.