In November we had an amazing response to our village questionnaire with over 770 responses from 1,750 homes. We do want to thank everyone who took part, your comments are vital and very important in helping us know your views and represent them. We had a lot of very valuable comments and some common complaints too.
A selection of data from the questionnaire results
This is what is happening with the data now:
1. THE VILLAGE PLAN
The original purpose of the Questionnaire was to guide the content of our Community Development Plan. This will set out the vision of the community for the growth and changes in the villages between now and 2030. In the coming months we will be sharing the first draft of this plan and inviting everyone to see it and vote on whether they accept it. With the plan agreed, it will guide the Council, planners, developers and other agencies on what is important to our community.
2. REDROW PLANNING APPLICATION
The proposal that brought together our group and mobilised the village was the Redrow Chester Road development of 190 houses. At this time the Planning Department are still waiting for revised plans and updated information from Redrow before it goes to planning committee. That is expected around the 22nd February but could be later. In the meantime, we have included the data from the Questionnaires in a robust document which sets out 36 different ‘Reasons for Objection’ where we can demonstrate harm to the village and why the proposal is unsustainable. You can view the 66 page document here:
3. COMPLAINTS
Within the Questionnaire responses there were a number of repeated topics that are clearly very important to people. We are in the process of extracting all of the comments and data and sharing it with the relevant authorities and organisations, as well as our own Community Council, so that action can be taken. The big topics include:
- Dog mess
- Traffic / Traffic calming / Parking / Noise
- New school site (and some feedback on our schools)
- Spar parking
- Doctors appointments
- Buses and public transport
4. FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
The intention of the Community Development Plan is to define what growth the village will accept and what type of growth is needed. in order to re-balance the mixture of housing available to support the community in the future. Pending the writing of the Community Development Plan and its endorsement by the residents of the village, we believe all proposals should be robustly objected to because they are premature and outside our existing village plan. There is already planning approval for another 45 houses in the village (excluding the handful not completed on the Groves site).
There is an application in process for a further 190 by Redrow on Chester Road. Plus there are two proposals in pre-application stage for a further 64 houses / apartments - all of which are outside the village boundary.
There are another 13 sites with unknown intentions but expected to bring forward applications at some point.
In addition to those, we know that after 2019 when the new school in completed on Abbots Lane, the Penyffordd Junior School site will be need to be developed.
This remains a village under threat of over-development - 78% of villagers believe that it has grown enough. However appealing individual applications may be, the total impact on the village services, traffic and quality of life will be further affected unless growth is planned and sustainable.
Once the plan is complete, there should be dialogue with planners and developers to bring forward those sites and application types which fulfill the needs and wishes of the community, as defined by the plan.
Once again we do thank everyone who took the trouble to complete the questionnaire and share their views.