Object

Representation ID: 9532

Received: 11/07/2022

Respondent: Yvonne Streetin

Number of people: 2

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

I would like to object to the above proposal for the reasons stated below 👎

Having recently attended a viewing at our village hall of the new planned proposal of 2040, sadly it was bought to our attention that the 2100 new homes does in fact lie within the boundaries of Wilstead and are not an extension of Wixams as stated in the plans, this is very misleading.
The land where the homes would be sited is a very important rural landscape supporting a large amount of wildlife. With roughly 5000 new residents along with their cats and dogs it will not take long for the land to be desecrated.

Wilsteads infrastructure cannot support this.

Wilstead is not a key service centre as stated in the plans and should not qualify for a major development of this scale. Wixams has very little infrastructure although the recent addition of the academy has been built to cater for the growing size of pupils requiring education and a small shop.

Wilstead however cannot cater for another influx of more children entering this area as the school at present is already at its maximum. The only other amenity we have is the local post office/ small shop plus the chemist.

We have a bus service that is totally inadequate and un reliable which runs between Bedford and Luton and have nothing running East. West or West.East, considering the length of Cotton End Road Wilstead which is nearly 2miles long.
A majority of the village residents, some elderly have a long walk to the nearest bus stop, I now have to walk a mile as the service ceased to operate some time ago.
As we already suffer from inadequate roads coming through Wilstead we can only assume that with another 2100 homes, this brings along some 5000 cars as it is the norm today for people to be a 2 car family.
Wilstead is already used as a rat run between the A600 and the A6 mainly by the people of the surrounding communities.
Hence the air quality will become increasingly polluted, should this be approved.
Congestion on the roads, A6/A421 and the Ampthill Road leading into Bedford would also be a factor to take in to account.

Both Wilstead and Wixams have no doctors or dental practice so the surgery in Ampthill which serves Wilstead has already been overwhelmed by the massive influx of new home owners from Wixams. Another 5000 plus new residents will find this totally frustrating.

Finally, may I bring to your attention that Wilstead will lose its identity as a rural village with green space and become an extension of Wixams which is something I am strongly opposed to.

One aspect of sustainable development is that you should not use sites that are valuable from an agricultural, environmental, recreational prospective for development. All the land proposed for development is on key agricultural land.

My concern is that the development would cause the merger of Wixams and Wilstead and would clearly remove the clear band of countryside between them, this should not be allowed to happen.

I sincerely hope that you are able to respect these facts put before you and consider what effect the new proposal would have on us, as a rural village.