Welborne – WrAnTz

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.

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.