A chronic lack of services and daily traffic jams in Thornbury would make life “completely miserable” for people moving into a proposed new housing estate, a public inquiry heard. The town has grown so fast that existing residents have felt “resentment” about the pressure being piled on GPs and other facilities, which has made it tricky to integrate newcomers into a sense of community, the hearing was told.
Lib Dem Cllr Maggie Tyrrell said the issues would only get worse if a government-appointed planning inspector granted permission for 595 homes, along with a primary school, shops, parkland, new roads and paths on top-quality farmland west of Park Farm, Butt Lane. She was speaking on day two of the appeal by developers Barwood Development Securities against South Gloucestershire Council’s failure to determine its application.
Cllr Tyrrell, who represents Thornbury on the local authority and also chairs the town council’s planning committee, told the inquiry on Friday, September 30: “I want to highlight the anxieties coming from the community into the council. From this town’s point of view, we have taken an enormous and quite rapid growth in housing.
Read more: Hundreds of new homes on farmland 'should be approved', planning inquiry told
“That means it’s really quite difficult to integrate and become a community and to stop that resentment from the old community about the changes that have happened and the pressures on services. We have those comments coming in quite often about how everything bad is about the new housing which is really unfortunate because we want to welcome new people to the town, but because it’s happening so fast, it’s really difficult.
“Adding so many more new homes will just exacerbate the situation. Every service in town is under pressure.
“There has been no increase in GP facilities or any of the NHS local facilities. It’s just getting worse and we can’t see how that can be improved in the current climate, so we just need breathing space.”
She said the experience for people on the town’s roads was “quite horrific” at peak times. “The commuter traffic is increasing all the time because we don't have more employment in the town so everyone is trying to commute,” Cllr Tyrrell told the hearing at Turnberries Community Centre.
“We are in this perfect storm of not being able to provide public transport to take cars off the road and getting more and more cars trying to commute. Without a masterplan for the town and time to embed these things to get the infrastructure in place which is needed now, I can’t see how day-to-day life would be anything but completely miserable for people who move into that area, let alone the rest of us who are already here.”
Richard Taverner, who lives near the site, said: “Surrounding roads to the development are totally unsuitable for the amount of traffic. These roads are frankly dangerous – the junction of Butt Lane, Morton Way and Gloucester Road.
“It’s only a matter of time until there is a serious accident or even worse.” Colin Gardner, of TRAPP’D (Thornbury Residents Against Poorly Planned Development), told the inquiry: “The shape of the town is being distorted by an urban bulge heading north and east, with the town’s centre of gravity travelling steadily away from the high street.
“We have counted 1,700 new houses given permission since 2011 which is an increase in the town of nearly one-third, almost entirely unplanned with next to no development in supporting infrastructure. What is needed is a call to halt this mad scramble to cash in land values, and to preserve what is left of our green spaces.”
He said GP services had failed to keep up with the town’s “uncontrolled expansion”, even with only two-thirds of the 1,700 properties having been built. The council is contesting the appeal after its planning committee decided in January it would have refused permission if it still had the power to do so.
Barwood argues consent should be granted by the planning inspector because the public benefits outweigh the harms to nearby heritage assets. If permission is granted on appeal, the developer would be obliged to make several major contributions, including improvements to the M5 junction 14, £620,000 for a new nursery on the site and £4.2million to build a primary school, as well as local road upgrades including a bus link.
The hearing continues on Tuesday, October 4, and is set to conclude on Thursday, October 13.
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