Haddenham issues
Planning Application Hod Hall Lane
Change of use from builders yard & offices to a Travellers Site with 4 pitches.
Hod Hall Lane is the first planning item on the Planning Committee Agenda for Wednesday 7th January at 2pm. The planning officers are recommending refusal, but not on the grounds that many residents had written - drainage, access and sewage etc. The officers say, that we do not require any more sites in the North of East Cambs as we have 27 pitches, out of the 28 pitches, required by 2011.
There will be a site visit at approximately 11.30am on that day (7/1/09) where the planning committee will arrive by bus to look at the site. There will be no opportunity for members of the public to lobby the committee members at that time. . ECDC have received 62 letters of objection. The committee meeting is open to the public at 2pm and one objector will be given 5 minutes to state the case against the application. The applicant will also be given 5 minutes. The officer’s summary is below.
“Proposal: Change of use from builders yard & offices to a travellers site with 4 pitches (08/00965/FUL) Applicant: Mr. M Rugzkiewicz
1.1 The application proposes a change of use to provide four gypsy/travellers pitches, including the provision of four single storey day rooms, and hard standing areas.
1.2 The main considerations in determining the application are the existing level of provision and need for sites in the area, the impact on the character and appearance of the surrounding area, residential amenity and highway safety, the sustainability of the site, the possible presence of legally protected species on the site, and drainage and flooding.
1.3 The most up to date information on need in the local area indicates that only 1 further pitch is required in the northern part of the District in the period to 2011. This proposal would exceed that requirement by 3 pitches. In the absence of an established need for the proposed pitches, it is considered unacceptable to allow the proposed development, which would be on land designated as countryside.
1.4 For this reason, it is recommended that the application should be REFUSED.”
Full details of the planning committee agenda is available on the East Cambs web site (agenda item 4) including the main matters raised from residents letters on.
http://www.eastcambs.gov.uk/docs/agendas/planning/pl070109_H258.pdf
Work Starts To Get Cricket In Haddenham
Work has started to level the Recreation Field. This will enable the football pitch to be moved towards the allotments and allow space for a cricket square. While it will cause inconvenience for the next few months it will be worth it in the end. We have managed to get grants from The Football Foundation, from WREN and from Haddenham Charities. Please stay off the area we are working on, particularly when the new grass seed has been sown.
Heavy lorries carrying tons of gravel could thunder through Haddenham and Wilburton every two minutes under a controversial county council plan.There could be more than 1,000 extra lorries a day – or a massive 40 per cent increase – under the plan to allow gravel extraction at Mepal.Liberal Democrat councilors fear that children walking to school could be put at risk to boost the profits of gravel and waste companies. Councilor Gareth Wilson, Ely Lib Dem leader who represents Haddenham said: “Most of these lorries will take the gravel to Northstowe and the Cambridge development areas where 40,000 houses are planned to be built or to the A14 road improvements. “The idea of dispersing the heavy traffic through village roads to avoid the cost of improving the necessary trunk roads is not acceptable. Bureaucrats cannot understand that hundreds of extra lorries each day would put children’s lives in danger.”The threatened increase in traffic comes under Cambridgeshire County Council’s Waste and Minerals Plan and was raised by Cllr Wilson at Monday’s meeting of East Cambridgeshire District Council’s strategic development committee.It reveals three million tons of gravel being extracted from the Mepal site every year, transported by 150,000 20-ton lorries making return trips. This amounts to 1,154 lorries a day.“These figures are on top of the lorries travelling through the area taking oil to Cottenham for recycling, new hazardous waste planned for the Grunty Fen tip and the lorries carrying five million tons of London waste. And the hundreds of lorries that already use Haddenham and Wilburton as a rat run,” added Cllr Wilson.
Cllr Wilson fears the lorries would travel from Mepal, along the A142 turning into Haddenham village from Witcham Toll. They would travel along Station Road which is designated as an A road but has pavement only one side which alternates from one side to another, This means children going to school have to cross this busy road three times. Once through Haddenham, he claims, the lorries would head through Wilburton, turning along
Twentypence Lane causing chaos through Cottenham and Histon. “If only a third of them chose this shorter route, this would produce one every two minutes from 7.00 in the morning to 7.00 at night,” he said. Lib Dem Councilor, Pauline Wilson, who also represents Haddenham, was incensed when she heard that county council officers were hinting that the journeys could be made at night, to prevent congestion getting worse on the A10 and A14 during the daytime. She warned that if the lorries were to travel through the villages at night, residents would have no option but to block the roads to stop them. “It is bad enough that so many lorries come through our villages now, but hundreds more, and all through the night, would be intolerable” Cllr Wilson called for a bypass around Sutton to be financed by the gravel extractors and another around Willingham paid for by the Northstowe developers.
