Object

Representation ID: 9837

Received: 28/07/2022

Respondent: Mr Peter Tansell

Legally compliant? Not specified

Sound? Not specified

Duty to co-operate? Not specified

Bedford Local Plan response (east of Wixams)
I have lived in Wilstead for over 50 years and I originally chose to live here because of it's close knit rural village community. It strikes me that the building proposals will override this and our village will be consumed in the the larger sprawl that is Wixams. The Village identity would be lost once we get swallowed up by Wixams. These houses are not in Wixams. They are within the parish boundaries of Wilstead. Is this a deliberate attempt to mislead?

Your assumption that Wilstead is a key service area is false. We do not have a doctor's surgery in the village. Most villagers travel 8 miles to the surgery in Ampthill. We have a poor bus service. Two buses and hour and both arriving within 10 minutes of each other. There no east to west service. We have one village school and Wixams has a primary and secondary school. The latter has not been included in the Wixams quota. Some of the facilities claimed by the Borough, have in fact been provided by the hard work of villagers who raised funds to facilitate them. The bowls club was funded by and built by a group of villagers in the 1980's and the allotments have also been maintained through local interest.
We have already had substantial building of new houses in recent years and they have stretched village resources. The school has been hard pressed to accommodate the new influx of pupils. In my experience, school building follows after house building and there will be a huge demand for school places when our school has already had difficulties offering places to our current population. The volume of traffic around the village, especially at school times has increased and parking is chaotic at times. The new developments have not provided enough spaces to park and parking on pavements and grass verges is now commonplace. Any further substantial housing development would only make this situation worse. The proposed development is out of proportion with the existing size of our village and road use would be vastly increased putting further strain on our roads and causing poorer air quality.
We have concerns currently about traffic along Cotton End Road which is used as a cut-through for journeys from A6 and A600. Speeding is a real problem even after the installation of speed signs. Volume of traffic on this road will increase considerably if a large new development is allowed.
I have served on the village P3 walking group and have volunteered with the upkeep and maintenance of all the village paths. I object to having a large conurbation adjoining our pubic rights of way. Buildings which are adjacent to these paths restrict the rural aspect that walkers expect when using our paths. The 2100 new dwellings would have a huge impact on our unspoilt rural countryside and the homes of substantial wildlife.
I am totally opposed to these proposals and I hope they are refused.