Issues and Options

It is difficult to see how the Borough will benefit significantly from the proposed ‘arc’ especially if it relies on the current Bedford Midland railway station. Parking at the station is already at capacity, as is the surrounding road network during peak times, so until these issues are addressed then this proposal only adds to that problem. The resulting congestion is detrimental for existing residents and impacts the surrounding rural areas as roads become ‘rat runs’ by drivers looking for alternative ways to avoid the queues. As the ‘arc’ development and underlying infrastructure changes are far from assured, it might be better for the Local Plan to concentrate on developing local business opportunities rather than rely on ‘gains’ that may be a long time in being realised, or worse, may never occur.

No comment at this time

Nothing chosen

As per the response to question #1, having a specific Policy around the management and improvement of green space would help contribute to this objective. Bedford should look to create a green ‘standard’ that developers follow to make the most of the environmental assets the Borough has to offer.

No comment at this time

Making sustainable modes of transport safe and easily accessible, especially in and between rural areas. The Camel Trail in Cornwall, for example, attracts hundreds of people to walk and cycle it every day because it has very long stretches which are kept isolated from motorised transport. Creating similar traffic free networks between urban and rural areas in Bedfordshire would encourage wider use and reap significant health benefits to the residents. Substantially increasing the frequency of bus services to rural communities would benefit residents and help support new development.

As per the response to question #1 current policies do not look to protect and enhance the River Great Ouse and Valley Area which is a serious omission. The importance of access to quality Open Green Space and Countryside in terms of the positive contribution to health and wellbeing does not seem to have been considered.

No comment at this time

Given the significant amount of time and effort that is required to create a Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP) it is somewhat disappointing to note that the Borough Council is intending to take a potentially combative approach to those NDPs that have been, or are in the process of being, adopted as they relate to the new Local Plan 2040. When referencing the need for a new Local Plan, so soon after the last one was adopted, it is stated that “The second reason related to the speed with which new development would be built in coming years and the progress being made by local communities with their own neighbourhood plans, which the Local Plan 2030 relies upon to identify housing sites. The Inspectors saw that an early review of the Local Plan 2030 offers the opportunity for the Council to intervene if necessary, in order to maintain house building rates” and then “In due course parish councils with neighbourhood plans in place will decide if they want to review those plans to allocate development beyond 2030, either in accordance with the local plan review or because there is a local need to do so. If parish councils do not want to update neighbourhood plans then they can work with the Borough Council to include in the local plan review any additional sites that are needed”; this can be reasonably interpreted as BBC will enforce new housing development on those communities that do not look to revise their NDPs in line with latest BBC ‘targets’. This approach was also confirmed on the recent Local Plan overview presentation hosted by the Borough. This seems somewhat disrespectful to the hundreds of people who have given up many thousands of hours to work voluntarily on their NDP’s just to have it generically ‘overwritten’ by BBC. This also appears to be in complete contradiction to the stated Government aim of an NDP i.e. that it “provides the opportunity for communities to set out a positive vision for how they want their community to develop over the next 10, 15, 20 years in ways that meet identified local need and make sense for local people”. To our mind the whole point of an NDP is that it utilises local expertise and knowledge to provide a more focused development plan that meets the needs of the local community and their area, whereas a Local Plan, by its nature, is far more generic. The proposed approach by BBC potentially destroys the NDP ethos and as such the Borough’s position needs to be reconsidered as a matter of urgency, or better still, be dropped entirely; certainly for those communities that are very near to, or have completed Regulation 14.