OBJECTION TO APPLICATION 25/P/01156 (Gosden Hill)

SUMMARY

Burpham Community Association represents a significant number of households in Burpham ward and a large proportion of homes in the neighbourhoods closest to the development. It is with regret that we OBJECT to the development. 

Our regret is that we do, in fact, accept that Guildford needs many more homes, not least for Guildford residents and their children trying to find a place on the housing ladder. We are also optimistic about the emerging plans for landscape, environmental measures and amenities and look forward to contributing to discussion about those.

Our objections are:

• the intention to send construction traffic through unsuitable residential streets during Phase 1 and some of Phase 2;
• the intractable traffic congestion which will be caused in Burpham if the current access plans are accepted;
• some initial concerns about flooding, utilities and the 4-storey flats on the approach road.

As we detail below, we would welcome the development if we could see:

• a comprehensive traffic study to establish the full implications of this development on local traffic before there is any approval in principle for the development;
• the creation of access roads from the A3 through the estate before any other work commences so that this can also be used for construction traffic;
• more access points to and from the estate to avoid extreme congestion in Burpham;
• an all-ways junction at Gosden Hill on the A3;
• key flood protections built in Phase 1 rather a piecemeal schedule, to prevent increases in surface run-off, especially into Merrow Stream;
• assurances from the utility companies that the capacity for water, sewage and electricity will be in place before any homes are built;
• more detailed plans for the ‘grand landmark flats’ as the gateway to Guildford (and therefore also to Burpham)

Access – a problem with Phase 1 construction traffic

There is a great strength of feeling among residents about this issue. The plan to send construction vehicles up old London Road, Merrow Lane and New Inn Lane is unacceptable to residents. They have communicated to us their deep concern about the dangers and disruption this will pose.

These are roads where children live, where large vehicles already struggle to pass parked cars, where pupils cross on their way to school, where queues form at the constricted railway arch and the Great Oaks Park hairpin, and where harassed motorists rat-run to escape London Road queues even as they are now.  One of the roads – Merrow Lane – has no pedestrian pavement.

The solution suggested – a new hairpin access point some metres before the Great Oaks roundabout – is no better than the existing hairpin which is already difficult and has a tight sweep path even for one vehicle

We therefore object to the route proposed for construction traffic. Access from the A3 and the road through the estate need to be built first so that construction traffic avoids residential areas entirely. It will be built anyway, so bringing it forward is not an unreasonable ask. 

Access – reduced opportunities for active travel will push more cars onto the road

The plan has undergone significant shifts away from the council’s original Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) and the developers’ last iteration. The railway station and alternative access routes have been dropped and some active travel routes have been stood down e.g. into New Inn Lane. Residents are very likely to turn instead to their cars to commute to work. We are not reassured by the assertion that commuters will walk to London Road station (2.5 miles from the centre of Gosden Hill) to get into their London offices for the start of the working day.

Access – the traffic assessment underestimates the impact of traffic on Burpham

We are particularly concerned by the traffic assessment claim that cars from the 1800 houses will result in ‘negligible’, ‘low’ and ‘small’ increase in traffic (Section 7.26 of the Planning Statement), and we think that a minor change to the carriageway on Clay Lane will have only limited effect on London Road traffic. If each new home uses the national average 1.54 cars, plus school, employment Park-and-Ride traffic, there will be a minimum 3200 cars on site with only one route out to visit the shops, to go into Guildford centre, to travel north or to use our schools and facilities, and then drive home again. Burpham will be gridlocked for 3-4 hours a day.

We think that a significant statistical error has been made in sections 1.5-1.15 of the Transport Assessment where Surrey County Council’s SINTRAM model is over-ridden by the NTEM model which does not include the future impact of vehicles feeding in from Gosden Hill. Using the predicted growth factors for the whole of Guildford (2.8% and 4.2%) will not accurately reflect the increase in traffic flow through Burpham. This error has nothing to do with the road network from the new development, and it does not take into account the relative size of the new development (1800 homes) to that of Burpham (2800 homes), or even to the Paramics model in Section1.4.

Access – the damaging effects of a single access estate

With only one point of access to the new estate, traffic to and from Guildford will be channelled along London Road which is already heavily congested at peak periods, particularly at the Great Oaks Park, Clay Lane and New Inn Lane roundabouts. This will be joined by Gosden Hill traffic moving south to access Burpham’s shops, schools, amenities, Guildford town centre and the A3 northbound on-slip. That’s a lot of traffic converging on 3 small roundabouts in Burpham. The council’s own SPD acknowledges the traffic problem at peak hours.

The single access point to the estate is also vulnerable to traffic overload and gridlock. Any sort of obstruction on or near the roundabout will cut off the estate and cause tailbacks onto the A3.

More access points in and out of the estate are needed, and as challenging as it is to find those routes, councillors and developers need to look harder at the surrounding options to fan out the traffic and share the load across East Guildford.

Moreover, the Gosden Hill A3 junction needs to be an all-ways junction, not only because it will serve a large catchment area but because it will stop traffic looping south through Burpham to go north up the A3 near Sainsburys.

We are also concerned about rat-running through adjacent roads in Burpham as traffic builds. Indeed, this already happens. There has to be a comprehensive plan to deal with this and other perverse effects of creating a giant cul-de-sac at Gosden Hill which empties into Burpham.  

We call for a more credible and well-informed assessment of traffic impact on Burpham, an all-ways junction on the A3, and more access routes into the estate.

Further key concerns we wish to flag at this point

1. Flooding

We are pleased that plans reflect modern practice in surface drainage.  We can see that the attenuation ponds will mitigate flood risks in Great Oaks Park to 45% over and above the 1-in-a-100 year risk.

We do have a concern about the phasing of flood mitigation measures across the different phases of building. It will be many years before our ward is protected.  We would be reassured if the flood mitigations to attenuate Merrow Stream were to be completed in Phase 1.  This is partly because we need those defences right now, and also because construction work will strip the vegetation and expose the clay soil: we expect the surface run off to worsen our flood risk.

• Utilities

We would appreciate an assurance, backed up by the specific commitment of utility companies, that capacity for water, sewage and electricity provision will be in place before homes are built.

Water – The Utilities Statement makes it clear that there is insufficient water supply available for even the first phase and that both the cost and the timescale for providing the additional supplies would be substantial and are largely unknown. Our view is that no permission should be granted without a credible and costed plan to supply sufficient water.

Sewage – The Merrow-Burpham combined foul main pipe is already at full capacity at peak flows, as confirmed frequently in recent years by Thames Water and the Environment Agency. The Utility Statement acknowledges that more sewer pipe capacity is needed off-site. This must be in place before the first new property is connected: a ‘Grampian Condition’ is required.

Electricity – We welcome the commitment to EV charging points and solar panels and the recognition that battery storage is essential. We note that the properties will have no other source of power so will need additional electricity supply. This supply will be dependent on the completion of the Weyside substation and off-site work which will have a substantial but unknown cost and timescale. Proceeding without a credible and costed plan poses too great a risk to habitability and may well cause disruption in the surrounding area.                                                                                    

• The new flats adjacent to the A3

As the developers say, this will be a grand landmark for people arriving in Guildford and therefore into Burpham too. This will be our gateway.

There is disquiet about this proposal among residents because they think it will look monolithic and unappealing.  Some think that the notion of living quarters designed to be a ‘sound barrier’ is a distasteful notion and likely to be unappealing to future residents. There are alternative approaches to sound mitigation which could be considered.

Our principal concern, however, is that it will be very different from the prevailing style of Guildford architecture along London Road. We are a flagship ward for arts-and-crafts houses, leafy closes and a much-admired community feel to our own modern housing estates.

It is difficult to make useful comments about this significant last-minute feature because it is being hurried through via a final draft with too little detail. We would like to see more information at this important decision point so we can make a well-informed comment before approval.

INFRASTRUCTURE FIRST

As we have said many times during this process, most of our reactions to the development are positive. We want it to work.

The parcelling up of the development phases creates financial capacity for the developers but we fear it is counter-productive for infrastructure, especially with regard to flooding and construction traffic access.

Our call is simple: we wish to see infrastructure put in place first – for utilities, for realistic traffic routes, and for flood mitigation.

Yours sincerely,

Sue Hackman

Chair

Burpham Community Association