The Locational Strategy Page 3

Contents

Introduction Page 2

The Locational Strategy Page 3

Minimising and Adapting to Climate Change Page 4

Transport Page 5

New Development Page 9

Housing Page 10

Strengthening the Local Economy Page 14

Environment Page 15

Conclusion Page 17

Signatures Page 18

Introduction

Fens Residents Association welcomes revisions in the Core Strategy Preferred Options Report (November 2010), in particular the reduction in the numbers of new houses proposed for the south west extension to the town and the inclusion of an enlarged Green Wedge alongside Greatham Beck.

However, in spite of all the extra work and research undertaken by Planning Officers, many issues remain contentious to a large number of residents. This document details these issues including:

• The need for so many homes.
• The new junction on the A689.
• The effect on the existing road infrastructure.
• Fears about flooding.

Although our main concerns are related to the south west extension, in particular at Claxton, a number of wider issues are referred to.

THE LOCATIONAL STRATEGY

Preferred Option CS1: Locational Strategy

The Association agrees with the strategy of development of brownfield sites and maintaining a compact urban form with strategic gaps between the town and the villages.

However:

• Any development at Claxton would not support a compact urban form. It could not adjoin an existing built up area and inevitably would be an isolated community – a new “village without a soul”.
• Development at Claxton would severely compromise the strategic gap around Greatham which is already much smaller than around the other villages.
• Greatham Beck between the A689 and Owton Grange Farm forms an obvious natural Urban Fence which should be respected and protected.
• Whilst we support executive housing at Wynyard Woods West we do believe that, should the new hospital be built at Wynyard with associated industries and housing, the development north of the A689 should also incorporate some non-executive homes for employees.

MINIMISING AND ADAPTING TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Preferred Option CS2: Climate Change

We support the priority of the development of brownfield land and areas that have the potential to be well served by sustainable forms of transport.

However:

• The development of Claxton in particular would only serve to increase car use. Residents attracted to Claxton would tend to be mostly commuters. Any public transport would require almost total subsidy. Currently bus subsidies are being dramatically cut making it unlikely that subsidies will be available, making public transport provision unsustainable. This will be an untenable position for those in affordable housing.

• Greatham Beck is part of the longest watercourse in the borough and is classed as MainRiver by the Environment Agency. This watercourse connects Elwick/A19 to the Tees Estuary. At times it is already full to capacity where it runs on the west of the Fens estatedealing with surface water drainagefrom a very extensive catchment area, including the whole of the area proposed for the south west extension. Homes in Newark Road and surrounding areas are even now in a flood risk zone. There can be no extra stormwater discharge into Greatham Beck. Bearing in mind that any newbuild will reduce the benefit of natural soak-away, where will the extra run-off water go? Can attenuation tanks be guaranteed to be a 100% solution?
• Any new houses should have built in facilities for water recycling, solar power etc.

TRANSPORT

Preferred Option CS3: Strategic Transport

Preferred Option CS4: Improving Conectivity in Hartlepool

Proposed Junction on A689

Under current proposals, the new estate at Claxton will be served by a distributor road that will originate from a new junction with the A689, approximately halfway between two existing junctions (the Stockton Road access/egress from Greatham village and the High Street access/egress from Greatham village),as shown below.

Proposed new junction.

Unfortunately, the Stockton Road junction is half of an uncontrolled staggered junction with Dalton Back Lane, which is on the Claxton side of the A689. This staggered junction is on the crest of a hill on a 70mph road – a factor that makes the junction inherently dangerous. It has also been the scene of fatalities in the past – which is why it is permanently illuminated for safety purposes.

The selected location of a new junction could not be more conspicuous and visible from Greatham. Greatham`s topography makes both of the existing junctions relatively inconspicuous, but the proposed new junction is towards the bottom of a valley which forms the natural view from the village.

It also is not the best location from which to serve the proposed estate, as it runs along the edge of the estate. Distributor roads are often referred to as spine roads, and as the name infers, they usually run through the middle of estates, as this is the best way to distribute the traffic rather than have all of it coming from one side.

The inevitable effect of placing the road to the east of the proposed estate will be for the majority of residents on the western side of the estate who wish to travel out of town to seek egress via Dalton Back Lane and join the A689 from the uncontrolled junction – adding further danger to this inherently dangerous junction. The alternative to this would be to travel a significant distance to the east, through small residential roads, in order to access the new distributor road, before joining the A689 and only then commencing in a westerly direction. This type of vehicle movement is highly unlikely due to the much shorter distance to Dalton Back Lane, but would have safety implications for the residential roads if it did happen.

So there are no less than three very good reasons not to place the junction in this location:-

1. Highway Safety to all users (including through traffic on A689)
2. Impact upon Greatham village
3. The usefulness/amenity value to the potential residents of Claxton.

There is however, a very obvious alternative to this proposal that also takes the opportunity to resolve the existing dangers inherent in the existing staggered junction, as shown below.

If the access/egress from A689 to Dalton Back Lane was closed and a new four way traffic light controlled junction placed at the existing junction with Stockton Road, it will eliminate the staggered junction, eliminate the need for yet another junction on the A689, eliminate the presence of a very large junction directly in line of sight from the village, and it would locate the road through the middle of Claxton, thereby aiding the distribution of traffic to the residential areas.

Linkage to the Dalton Back Lane can be achieved via a short link to the new distributor road thereby forcing the Dalton traffic to use a safe traffic light controlled junction just as the Claxton residents would.

FRA`s alternative junction

Western bypass

Clearly this term is a misnomer - the A19is the western bypass and has been in place for decades. If it ever got the go ahead, this proposal would be for a ring road. Clearly the intention would be for circulation rather than bypassing.

Misnomers aside, the traffic figures for Hartlepool do not come close to justifying the construction of such a road and the likelihood of it happening is even less than the likelihood of

• dualling B1277 Brenda Road and A178 Tees Road or even
• the Marina to the Headland bridge,

-two other strategic developments in the Core Strategy. Indeed the dualling of Brenda Road has been an unrealised strategic objective in previous plans for some time now.

The reality is that it will be, at best, a housing estate distributor road provided by the developer. It would take the construction of many thousands of houses and the destruction of huge amounts of countryside to realistically continue to the north of Brierton Lane, so it is

probable that Brierton Lane would become the northern limit permanently. FRA do not believe that a western bypass is currently realistic, but believe that the junction proposal above is appropriate whether it is to become a complete circulator, reaching the A179 at Hart or whether it is to become an estate road terminating at Brierton Lane.

Linkages

Whether it goes to Hart or stops at Brierton Lane, the road from the A689 will need linkages to the existing network. The current proposals indicate links to Macrae Road and Brierton Lane. If this strategy is followed, there is a high probability that high volumes of traffic will aim to short cut into town from the new junction (be it the FRA proposal or the HBC proposal) turning Brierton Lane and Macrae Road into future “Falcon Road” situations. If this situation is created it is likely to be as intractable as the current “Falcon Road” situation continues to be.

Truro Drive

FRA have significant concerns about the short to medium term effect that the proposed development will have onTruro Drive. The proposal is to start at the A689 and work in a north easterly direction, with only one access onto the estate via the new junction with the A689. Throughout this developmental period, all residents of the new estate are likely to add to the already high volumes of traffic on Truro Drive, in order to access the Fens shops and other facilities such as schools, doctors etc. This will have a detrimental effect on the residents of Truro Drive, who already believe that there is too much traffic on this road.

NEW DEVELOPMENT

Preferred Option CS5: Planning Obligations and CPO

Contributions should be sought from developers for:

• Highway infrastructure including the upgrading of existing roads which would connect to new estates e.g. Brierton Lane, McRae Road, Owton Manor Lane and Catcote Road.
• The construction of a completely new sewage collection system that does not connect to the existing network, but is delivered to sewage treatment separately from the existing network.
• Surface water cannot go into the NWL sewerage network. The local watercourse Greatham Beck is already at over capacity during flooding events and Newark Road is already at threat and is part of a flood zone. Surface water must be removed from the site and away from Greatham Beck to avoid adding further pressure to this already stretched natural resource.
• The establishment of the new Green Wedge in exemplary form, i.e. tree planting, landscaping, wetland creation and footpaths. The creation, management and maintenance of the green wedge should commence once any permissions have been granted and not be dependant upon the start of any building.
• Match funding for a conservation officer post is absolutely essential for the Green Wedge to be properly managed.

PreferredOption CS6: Community Facilities and Services

FRA believe that for an estate of 1500 homes, community facilities are very important. Shops, schools and community facilities are needed, but there is little evidence regarding what will be provided. It is important not to repeat the mistakes made when the Fens estate was built without adequate facilities.

We are concerned that residents would be able to reject facilities which initially they think they do not need and which they will later regret. This happened when the Fens was first built, residents rejected community facilities that are now desperately needed.

We are also aware that, at least in the early stages of development, residents of Claxton will need to access the local centres at Fens and Owton Manor West for shops, a Post Office, pharmacy and other health care facilities etc.

HOUSING

Preferred Option CS8: New Housing provision

The Core Strategy appears to rely entirely upon evidence contained in the document “Future Housing Provision in the Borough for the next 15 Years”, which in turn makes a significant number of references to the “Strategic Housing Market Analysis (2007)”. The opinions put forward in response to the claimed need to provide a net 320 homes per annum are based upon detailed critiques of both of these documents, produced by FRA. The sections of each document relevant to FRA have been commented upon on a paragraph by paragraph basis in these documents, which demonstrate precisely which assumptions are disputed and why. The opinions expressed here are merely a précis of the full findings, which are available from FRA on request.

Strategic Housing Market Analysis 2007 (SHMA)

David Cumberland Housing Regeneration Ltd (DCHR) was commissioned by Hartlepool Borough Council in December 2006 to undertake the SHMA. It is intended to provide the Council with the background evidence on current dwelling profile, market trends, market drivers, current need, future requirements for affordable housing and market housing and the requirements of household groups with particular needs e.g. families, older people and people with specialist needs. It is made clear in the introduction that it “…provides Hartlepool with the core outputs required to satisfy CLG Guidance and also provides robust and defensiblematerial to support LDF preparation. The report was published in June 2007.

The document has a number of flaws when examined in detail, however the most significant issue is that it is basing future demand upon trends established during the banking bubble of 1998 – 2007, the result of catastrophic competition for market share following the deregulation of banks. The SHMA study data appears to relate to the 2001 – 2006 period.

During this period, it was not uncommon for 120 – 125% mortgages to be awarded to buyers who were not required to provide adequate evidence of ability to repay as all of the banks competed with a ferocity and lack of risk management that had previously been unimaginable. This in turn has been a contributing factor to the biggest market crash since the 1920’s – the full effect of which has still not fully bitten.

It is reasonable at this point to note that both the economy and the housing market (which is always driven by the availability of mortgages) have a number of years of recession ahead (covering both the short and medium term of the Core Strategy). It is also reasonable to note that the mortgage market will never recover to the point that it was at during the study period. In the future minimum deposits are likely to be of the order of 10% and could well be as high as 30 – 35% depending upon circumstance. Certainly, they appear to be averaging at around 18% at the moment.

These readily available facts will inevitably have a severe impact upon demand for private housing, as lots of potential home owners will find it impossible to secure mortgages.

Consequently, FRA would suggest that the demand figures quoted in the SHMA, which was completed approximately 3 months prior to the market crash, hold no relevance to a future so radically different from the study period. In short, all of the data relating to market demand needs to be brought up to date and relate to the currently understood conditions in order to achieve some credibility.

In relation to the flaws contained, there is far too much detail to contain in this response but a significant, headline flaw is that the use of the term “Housing Demand” is highly ambiguous. In section 1.4 – Definitions, Housing Demand is defined as “the quantity of housing that households are willing and able to buy or rent.” However, detailed examination of the SHMA reveals that there is no research into the ability to buy and in actual fact all of the data relates to the aspiration to buy. At the end of the day, the writer aspires to own a Ferarri, but his ability to buy is somewhat limited. Clearly, this aspiration will never lead to demand, and neither can it be assumed that many of the aspirations quoted in the SHMA will lead to demand. Following the mortgage business crash, most will clearly not lead to demand. Indeed section 3.58 clarifies that the entire market demand analysis is no more than aspirational when it makes it clear that it is “Market demand based on household aspirations”. This is in contradiction with the definition and leads to further questions about the credibility of the base research as it appears to bear no relation to any form of “real” market demand.

For further comments on SHMA please refer to the document “Comments on the Hartlepool SHMA 2007”, which is available on request from FRA.

Future Housing Provision in the Borough for the Next 15 Years – November 2010

The introduction to this document notes that “this Housing Provision paper draws together various sources of evidence to establish a sustainable and achievable future housing provision that is needed in the Borough and that can be delivered over the next 15 years”. Having examined it in detail, the sources quoted appear to be limited to the SHMA 2007, noted above, along with two sets of data on household formation rates from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and Tees Valley Unlimited (TVU) which appear in Tables 2 – 4 and Graph 1. It appears to rely quite heavily on the DCLG evidence. The information is discussed in detail in Section 7 of the report.