Object

Representation ID: 7502

Received: 21/09/2021

Respondent: Mr Doug & Liz Stapleton

We would like to register our strong objection to this proposal, much of the land for which is currently high quality agricultural land. There is no element of brownfield development, which is a priority under the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework, included in this proposal, just a desire to concrete over vast amounts of agricultural land and destroy existing wildlife habitats and corridors. There are other proposals for the Local Plan rejected by the Council which include brownfield elements which should be prioritised in accordance with the Government’s Policy Framework. It is a development of over 10,000 homes covering an area from Colmworth to the A1 at Eaton Socon and Wyboston, The homes would bring with them around 20,000 extra cars, plus a considerable volume of associated delivery vehicles etc which would totally overwhelm the local road network. This proposal is hugely excessive and would totally erase a very rural area and it’s historic settlements, which would become, in effect, suburbs to a town the size of Biggleswade and two thirds the size of St Neots.

The site covers a very rural area with few access roads and minimal infrastructure. Apart from the far east end of the site near St Neots the only road access points are unclassified roads incapable of handling, and unsuitable for, heavy traffic loads or HGV’s. Several roads immediately surrounding and within the site are single-track roads and none have been scheduled for widening and given that there are many roadside nature reserves along these roads it would be difficult to widen them without destroying valuable wildlife habitats. The construction work involved for this town would create considerable disruption for neighbouring communities extending for many years, which is a totally unacceptable burden on those rural communities.

The development of this town will cause enormous damage to the local environment and biodiversity, destroying many wildlife habitats and wildlife corridors. We understand that the area is home to protected species such as Bath Asparagus, Small Eggar Moths, Sulphur Clover, Crested Cow Wheat, Red Kites, Corn Buntings. It is also home to much other wildlife and biodiversity including Badgers, Foxes, Deer, Bee Orchids, Buzzards, Tawny and Barn Owls, Egrets, Skylarks, Dragonflies and other species. Buzzards have nested in the area for a number of years and given the regularity with which they are now seen in the area, we believe that Red Kites may well be nesting in the area. Large parts of the feeding areas for Buzzards, Kites, Tawny and Barn Owls will be covered in concrete resulting in the disappearance of these magnificent birds. A friend, who is a leading expert on Owls in this country, has confirmed to us that if this development goes ahead it is inevitable that all the Tawny and Barn owls living in the area will be lost. We believe that Honeydon has by far the largest area of roadside nature reserves in the Borough which are likely to be destroyed If developers try to “improve” the local roads to make them suitable for the massive amount of additional traffic which will arrive with this crazy development. This country is now one of the most nature depleted countries in the world, ranked an abysmal 218th out of 240, thus leading the world in destroying the natural environment. Pollution levels of air, water, soil, noise, and light will also be significantly impacted. The Government are now proposing to include in their Environmental Bill a legal requirement to halt the decline in wildlife by 2030. If this proposal to build Denybrook proceeds it will not comply with that requirement in the area but will have the opposite effect of even more decline given the loss of habitats and wildlife corridors which will result.

It is very concerning that this proposal involves the loss of a considerable amount of good quality agricultural land (something like 2,400 acres I believe). Increasingly we are seeing the effects of global warming across the planet. Whilst the Government is committed to achieving considerable reductions in emissions, we are only responsible for 1% of the world’s emissions. Unless all countries, particularly the heaviest polluters, similarly commit to making considerable reductions and take urgent action to achieve those reductions, the aim to restrict global warming to 1.5 degrees will not be achieved. We think that it is highly unlikely that there will be the will to make the reductions necessary across the globe when Countries such as China, which has the highest level of emissions at 27%, a 2% increase over 2020, is committed to building large numbers of coal-fired power stations to drive it’s post-pandemic economy when if it was serious about reducing emissions, it would be closing existing ones down. The continued destruction of the Amazon rainforest, once a globally important carbon sink which absorbed more carbon dioxide than it released, has now resulted in it accounting for one billion tonnes of carbon emissions every year. With increasing rates of tree loss and in the number of fires, many of them deliberately lit to clear land, this situation is only going to get worse. It is now highly likely that our current reliance on the import of food products will be increasingly heavily affected in future years by the impact of global warming on the world and we will need to rely much more on home production, so to be planning to concrete over this amount of good quality agricultural land to meet housing needs, whilst being contrary to government policy, also seems to be verging on insanity.

There are 5 watercourses which feed into the Ouse just upstream of St Neots from the Denybrook area. These are all known to flood and St Neots has flooded many times in recent years, including most recently earlier this year. The concreting over of this area will obviously make this situation much worse as it is very likely that we will see increasingly more regular heavy rainfalls causing flash floods. There are no main sewers serving the area and also no bus services in the area. In my view it is unlikely to significantly benefit Bedford Town centre, which now appears to be in serious decline, given its close location to St Neots and the fact that by the time it is built there will be easy mainly dual carriageway access to Cambridge and Milton Keynes,

The building of this amount of houses with a population of probably 30,000 plus will have a considerable impact on health and emergency services in the area, hospitals, doctors, dentists, ambulances, fire services and police. The health service now has considerable problems and is working under considerable pressure as a result of the pressures on services caused by the pandemic and resulting in considerably increased waiting lists for many services.

The people in the rural areas affected by this proposal, many of whom have lived here for many years (ourselves included), and others who have moved in more recently, all chose to live in, or move to a rural environment because they value the peace, quiet, countryside views and access to peaceful countryside which they can enjoy for leisure activities. This proposal will take that away from them for ever.

For all the reasons outlined we would therefore urge the Council to reject this proposal and allow this part of north Bedfordshire to remain as a rural agricultural area.