Little Hadham Rural Meeting Notes – 25th March 2008
Notes of Feedback Session - Combined
Q. What do you like about the Rural Area?
· All likes are worth preserving
· Allotments
· Playgrounds / sports facilities (bowls)
· Local GP surgery & dentist
· Farmers market
· Local church
· Pubs
· Local school
· Pleasant open areas / recreation space
· Access to roads / trains links villages to other places
· Footpaths
· Bridleways
· Little Hadham bypass
· Brickendon – good rail link to London
· Proximity & access to facilities in town
· Good transport links – Little Hadham road network – links to airport
· Fresh air / clean air – lack of pollution
· Countryside
o SSSI’s
o Woods
o Puddles, rural, good walking
o Accessibility
o Footpaths
o Ponds
o silence
· Environment
· Pantomime
· Relatively crime free / Low crime rate, personal safety
· Mixture of ages
· Community spirit
· Sense of community – hall brings community together
o Village fete
o Village hall - theatre
o Village school
· Friendly, neighbours
· Working farms
· Architecture / listed buildings
· Village feel / village
· Peace & tranquillity
· Gaps between villages
· Pretty
· Green
· Character
· Not over-populated
· Space
· Visual isolation
· Parish news
· Local businesses
· Parish councillors
· Absence of travellers
· Spatial awareness – small village within wider landscape
Q. What do you dislike about the Rural Area?
· Declining community – reduced sense of community
· Vandalism
· Threat of Stevenage – urban sprawl
· Licensing laws - opening hours
· ‘Village cliques’
· Travellers
· Trees being cut down: ‘Bury Green’
· Flooding
· Unsuitable (business) use of farm buildings
· Traffic lights – better regulation needed
· Increasing through traffic / disregard for size and weight of traffic (lorries)
· Rat-running
· Aircraft noise / air traffic
· Lack of frequent & reliable public transport – limited destinations / not enough buses
· Poor road maintenance / repairs – pot holes
· Poor or non existent ditch / verge maintenance – linked to size of lorries
· A120
o Speeds – very dangerous
o Speeding, bad drivers
o Too dangerous to cycle
o Litter
· Road widening
· Want quicker response on planning apps
· Need more say on policies in general
· EH inconsistency on planning matters
· Enforcement issues not followed up consistently
· Planning blight
· Need to have a say in the type of affordable housing i.e. shared equity etc
· Small houses – mansions
· Threat of housing estates
· Unsuitable tenants for housing – anti-social
· Housing presence
· No local policeman / lack of policing (i.e. Aston)
· Dislike no local shop
· Threat / loss of community facilities & businesses e.g. village shop / post office
Q. What do you think are the Issues & Opportunities facing the Rural Area?
· Affordable housing
o Not ghettos of affordable housing
o Affordable housing becomes homes for non EH and local residents - seen as a pay-off to ‘exec homes’
· Change
o Fear of too much change
o Change more noticeable in villages/rural areas - makes communities feel like they want to move away
· Gypsy & travellers
· Sustainability = contradictory
· District has become less attractive to relocate to
· Population growth
· How do we protect our village / rural character
· Better use of brownfield sites
· New town / village
· Threat of urbanisation
· Threat of closure of local services
· Apathy of local people in Little Hadham
· Want more small building plots rather than large estates
· Need to cluster new developments in order to prevent sprawl and retain the countryside
· Homogeneity of villages
· Re-categorisation of Hadham Ford
· Need to provide residential areas with its own facilities such as shops
· Need to make the most of natural asset of canal in Bishop’s Stortford – fronting development onto canal
· Peak traffic in Bishop’s Stortford
· Road service dis-repair & footpath maintenance
· Little Hadham bypass
· Congestion
· Not enough consultation with other villages – only 3 villages [Rural Awareness Meetings]
· Lack of consultation/notification on particular issues such as Conservation Areas
· Lack of value for money on Council Tax
· East of England Plan (RSS) dictating - what choices do we have? Non-elected bodies making choices
· Feels like community will not be listened to
· Enforcement concerns
· Contradictory government input
· Provision of infrastructure (water) for housing increase in East of England Plan
· What room have we got to create a locally distinctive Core Strategy?
· Making more use of parish plans
· Stansted Airport
o Expansion
o Flight paths / NATS
o Foreign corporate interests
o Jobs
o Competing in a global market