STAG’s Policy With Regard To The Building Of New Houses

SAVE FELIXSTOWE

STAG DO NOT WANT HOUSING ESTATES ON GREENFIELD LAND AROUND THE TRIMLEY VILLAGES BUT WE ARE NOT NIMBIES

Everyone who lives in the two Trimley villages naturally enjoys - and wants to protect - the amenity value of the countryside which surrounds us. When Trinity College first announced their unwanted “Vision” there was anger and indignation and, to be honest, a degree of nimbyism in our objections. However, in the intervening years we have become more knowledgeable and more sophisticated in our arguments, and we genuinely believe that large scale house building around the Trimley Villages would be wrong for very good reasons.

STAG’s Policy With Regard To The Building Of New Houses

The two Trimley Villages are close to, but separated from, the nearby town of Felixstowe, and although the villages enjoy some shopping, leisure and education facilities, like almost every village in the land we are dependant on our larger neighbour for most of our employment, education, shopping and leisure needs.

Nobody can deny that there is a need for more housing in the District, especially affordable homes for young families, people wanting to get a first step on the housing ladder, and low paid key workers. Nor can we ignore the fact that the Regional Spatial Strategy, imposed on us by the unelected East Of England Regional Authority have decreed that in the 20 year period from 2001 to 2021 Suffolk Coastal District 10200 new houses must be built. It is the job of the Local Development Framework Task Group, chaired by Councillor Andy Smith, to decide two things

·	How many of these 10200 houses still need to be built, and

·	Where these new houses should be located.

Despite our natural wishes to prevent large scale house building on greenfield land around Trimley St Mary and Trimley St Martin STAG would have absolutely no reasonable objection to this happening, so long as -

·	The LDF Task Group produces accurate, up to date, and credible figures with regard to the number of houses actually needed, and

·	The LDF Task Group produces convincing arguments that large scale housing estates are preferable to smaller developments scattered fairly throughout the District, and

·	The LDF Task Group produces convincing arguments that the only suitable area for large scale housing developments anywhere in the District is on greenfield land around the Trimley Villages.

It is STAG’s belief that the LDF Task Group have failed convincingly in all of these arguments, as follows-

·	Last July they produced six Housing Options for the District which were based on historic figures for houses built, outstanding planning permissions and brownfield land availability which were seriously out of date, having been compiled as at 1 April 2004.

·	We believe that houses are needed throughout the District, in every major town, market town, and village, and that new housing developments should be spread across the District to fairly satisfy the needs of the whole District.

·	We believe that a number of well chosen and carefully planned small developments - rather than one large housing estate - would more accurately reflect the rural character of this District.

In addition, there are particular infrastructure reasons as to why the Trimley Villages would be unsuitable for large scale housing developments. For example, the High Road is the only road through the villages, and one of only two entry and exit routes for the Felixstowe Peninsula. In many places at present, because of day to day traffic obstacles, the High Road is effectively a one way street. In the mornings and evenings it can be very busy, and is similarly busy at the time of the school run. The extra traffic generated from around 2700 more homes would make the High Road impossible to travel on at any time of the day.

“Some very hard decisions will have to be made.”