Category: Planning & Environment

Hellborne Begins


Welborne Garden Village. That is the name of the new 6000 home development just north of Fareham. The name sounds lovely doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the locals have a different name for it.

Hellborne

Welborne will be located to the north of Fareham and adjacent to the A32 and around the existing M27 Junction 10. And therein lies the issue. After suffering months of disruption on the M27 while the road was upgraded to a smart motorway motorists can now look forward to many more months of disruption as Junction 10 is “improved”

The first steps of this improvement include the construction of a new motorway underpass and three new slip roads. To facilitate these improvements there will be a series of overnight closures of the A32, north of the M27. Starting from 27th February, 2023 thru to 3rd March, 2023.

Later, in March, the M27 itself will be closed to enable execution of topographical, drainage and geotechnical surveys. In order to undertake the surveys the following closures are planned.

6th, 7th and 8th March, 2023 between 9pm – 6am, the M27 will be closed in a west-bound direction between Junctions 11 to 9. Then 9th and 10th March, 2023 the M27 will be closed in an east-bound direction between junctions 9 and 11.

So the works are beginning.

You only have to travel a couple of miles west to Junction 9, the Whitely/Segensworth junction, to see a prime example of a motorway junction overwhelmed by the traffic trying to access the residential, commercial and industrial developments on the north side of the M27. At peak traffic times the motorway becomes a car park, and a pretty scary one at that.

Do we trust that the planners have a solution to this for Junction 10 !!! I have my fingers crossed.

Welborne and the associated works are forecast to go on for some twenty years. It will not be a fun time.

£4.2m development approved – Ignores Needs Of Locals


https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/politics/controversial-ps42m-housing-development-portsmouth-gets-go-ahead-2951117

Yet another development goes ahead, driving rough shod over the needs of, and ignoring the existing issues that plague, the local residents.

Proposals for 16 affordable homes, comprising 7 houses and 9 flats, to be built on the corner of Doyle Avenue and Nothern Parade in Hilsea.

16 homes, but with parking provision for only 12 cars. According to the councils own standards the site should provide 29 parking spaces, yet they approved this much reduced proposal.

Why ? Why have guidelines if you don’t stick to them ?

“The surrounding roads are past saturation point as confirmed by the highways engineer. Evenings and weekends are dire as people are parking illegally” So says Janet Rennell-Smith, a local resident from nearby Westwood Road.

Lib Dem Councillor Lee Hunt, not missing an opportunity for a dig at the current Conservative Government, said “The city council is under huge pressure from the Conservative government to build 12,000 new units of accomodation in or city and that’s what we’re trying to acheive”

Typical blame game from the Lib Dems, sounds like our honorable councillor is saying “It’s not our fault, we were just following orders”

Tory Councillor, Terry Norton, was at least prepared to stand up to all that “pressure” and requested that the proposal be rejected.

This is typical of the local councils, in this area, who crumble and give in to the all powerful developers rather that standing firm and considering the needs of their constituents, the folks that voted them into office in the first place.

Our councillors should be forcing developers to provide adequate parking for any new development and to ensure that any such development does not exacerbate any existing issues.

Portsmouth is an island city so is cannot expand past its coastal border. Any development that provides an increase residential units will always add to the traffic and the need for parking. Portsmouth is already blighted by a lack of available parking. Many folks cannot park outside their own homes, typically ending up several streets away. Portsmoth council has also created further parking issues after closing roads in Southsea, supposedly to protect people exercising during the pandemic lockdown.

This new development will only aggravate an already fractious situaion.

Was An Opportunity Missed ?


On Tuesday 5th July, 22 Landscape Architects and invited guests from across the county visited the West of Waterlooville development to see best practice in Sustainable Urban Drainage systems (SUDs). The 247 hectare site has a custom designed infrastructure to reduce the risk of flooding to homes and promote biodiversity. Rain water is collected in channels […]

via SUDs Explored — West of Waterlooville

It is a well-known fact that many of the flood problems around the UK have been exacerbated by the continual building of large housing estates and associated road systems. These prevent the normal, slow soak away of rain water. Instead the water is channeled away via drains and gutters, moving the water down stream at an ever-increasing speed and volume. Ultimately dumping the water into river systems that never had to cope with this level of flow before.

So I am pleased that the developers were ahead of the game when planning the drainage system for the West of Waterlooville site. I would have expected nothing less.

However, in these environmentally aware times, we are always being encouraged to conserve water. So why does all of this carefully controlled “filtered” waste water get channeled out to sea ?

Surely, if the developers were so ahead of the game they would have designed the drainage system so that the water was pumped away to local reservoirs.

Similarly, I would expect the Welbourne developers would be looking hard at the drainage and waste water management.

 

Operation Listen – TOMORROW !!!


OPERATION LISTEN

 

“MAKE YOURSELF HEARD”

 

Meeting at 9am Wed 15th Oct, Fernham Hall, Fareham.

 

If you have any concerns about having a new 6,000-home community dumped on your doorstep you need to make yourself heard.

Continue reading “Operation Listen – TOMORROW !!!”

Parking at Waterlooville Precinct – What you need to know – The Mayne Blog


Please follow the link below for really useful information regarding Waterlooville parking

 

Parking at Waterlooville Precinct – What you need to know – The Mayne Blog.

Village’s struggle enters European stage – Portsmouth News


THE plight of villagers in Hambledon will be taken to Brussels following the visit of an influential Member of the European Parliament

What’s has this got to do with Brussels and the EU ?

While it is nice to know that one of our MEPs, Richard Ashworth, is taking an interest I fail to see how the EU can be involved.

This is part of a wider UK issue, much of which has been caused by lack of action by our local and national authorities.

Central government has systematically cut or removed funding for many of the organisations responsible for managing our environment. The net of this is a reduction in manpower leading to works, that have been carried out for hundreds of years, remaining undone.

Add to this the idiotic planning approvals that have seen homes built on flood plains and the huge developments in general that are replacing open ground, which can absorb water, with houses and roads which do not absorb water but cause accelerated run off.

These are local issues which should be dealt with at a local, to the UK, level. This is not a European issue.

Right now, we should be curtailing the sending of UK funds to foreign countries. That money should be spent to resolve local UK issues.

Village’s struggle enters European stage – Portsmouth News.

Fears over future of field at centre of three Hampshire villages


Fears over future of field at centre of three Hampshire villages – Portsmouth News.

The developers are out for one thing and one thing only, to line their own pockets and the sad thing is that our local planners are letting them get away with it. Taylor Wimpey are threatening to build 220 new homes on a beautiful piece of countryside just a short distance away  from an existing development of 275 homes.
Lynn McIver, speaking for Taylor Wimpey, has said

 ‘We are confident that this scheme will provide an attractive and sustainable development of much-needed housing in the area, as well as delivering affordable housing for local people.’

Decimating our local heritage, our beautiful countryside is never “attractive”. Hampshire is being eroded, one plot, one field, one farm at a time. This is just the latest foray by the developers and if allowed to proceed will be a disaster.

A consultation is scheduled to be held in Clanfield Memorial Hall, South Lane, on March 7, from 2pm to 7.30pm.

Be there and make your voices heard.

See also http://wp.me/pVDP6-1WO

West of Waterlooville Forum Friday 22nd November 2013


If, per their drawings and graphics, they actually create the variety of tasteful properties promised. If the legacy they leave us with is a new residential site with a bit of style, instead of the typically  boring and uniform boxes which has become the norm. Then I for one am for this development.

It’s a shame that the initial West of Waterlooville development by Taylor Wimpey at “Wellington Park” (Dukes Meadow, Old Park Farm) off the Hambledon Road is so awful. My observations, so far, of the Wellington Park  development are that it is overcrowded and is of a mediocre design. Taking the road around the perimeter, towards the new tip, does not give a very good perspective. The site presents a pretty bland face to Joe Public.

And let’s spare a thought for the folks who had a view across Hambledon Road, across open fields and up the back of Portsdown Hill. They certainly have not been presented with a sympathetic replacement for that marvellous view. Rather they have had multistory apartments built directly in front of them. The equivalent of the developers, the planners and the architects presenting the home owners with a corporate middle finger.

I do hope that Phase 2 of Berewood is handled with a bit more sensitivity.

West of Waterlooville

For those who could not attend the forum I’ve attached the presentation given by Redrow Homes for Phase 2 of the Berewood Site

REDR130524 Berewood Forum – Low Res

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Serious concerns over Welborne


And well there might be serious concerns over Welborne, the new town to be built north of Fareham.

Welborne - An artists impression of the new town to be built north of Fareham
Welborne – An artists impression of the new town to be built north of Fareham

It doesn’t require expensive surveys to be carried out. It doesn’t require the employment of expensive consultants. Anyone with half an ounce of common sense can see what is going to happen, knows what chaos will descend on this area once those new houses are built. One only has to take a look at the Segensworth area, try travelling through it during peak traffic times.

Once complete, the town, to be named Welborne, will have 6,500 homes, roughly the same amount as Petersfield.

So a town the size of Petersfield will be created just over a kilometer from the town of Fareham. The amount of traffic that the new development will generate on the M27 corridor is truly unknown but it can be guessed at. I guarantee that we will see similar log jams on the new, yet to be built, M27 slip roads, similar to those seen at Segensworth.
The traffic levels around Fareham are already high especially with access to the M27 and also on the road down to Gosport and Lee. Welborne will certainly add significantly to that since the local councillors have indicated that future Welborne residents will also be looking to the new jobs being generated at Daedalus.

Fareham Councillor Sean Woodward is being quite disingenuous when he says of opponents to Welborne …..

‘I’d love to know what their alternative is. It’s easy to say do not build anything, anywhere, but councillors are charged with providing new housing and we have 2,000 families on the waiting list which need housing.

Woodward states that the current  need is housing for 2000 families is somewhat less than the 6,500 homes proposed for Welborne.

Planning for future demand is all well and good but its the density of the housing being proposed that is the concern.

Woodward certainly  knows the chaos to come because, despite all assurances, the infrastructure will not be in place to support the additional load. The roads, the utilities, the available employment, all will be sadly lacking.

This will be an urban disaster.

Country campaigners raise serious concerns over Welborne – Politics – Portsmouth News.

SOFA Denmead – Good Luck With Your Fight


Good luck to the residents of Denmead and Old River in particular. I hope that common sense prevails but on past performance I suspect that the authorities will bow to the wishes of the developers and ignore those of the local residents. Even worse they will ignore the evidence and common sense.

SOFA Denmead.

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