Revised estate plans slammed
Cookham: Worry 200-home scheme would cause gridlock
Revised plans for 200 homes on land near Cannondown Road in Cookham have been slammed as like a ‘spaceship’ on the edge of the community.
Developer Bellway Homes submitted an amended scheme in response to council planning officer comments for the sites in the application, covering 8.8 hectares of land.
Its changes include reducing the height of homes across the two sites, introducing more variety in house appearance, extensions to cycleways, and an additional access road.
Bellway says it had undertaken ‘extensive’ traffic analysis which supported its plans, and funds from community infrastructure levy payments would go towards local improvements.
However, residents and councillors fear the development could place further pressure on services in Cookham and bring traffic to gridlock.
Councillor Mark Howard (Lib Dem, Bisham and Cookham) said: “I think that would be very difficult [to support the development].
“Developers should be looking at it in a more holistic way – of how they build it into the community rather than drop it like a spaceship on the outside of our village and expect the, so-called, aliens to integrate into the community by luck.”
The Cannondown Road application sits on land allocated for development in the Borough Local Plan, adopted under the Royal Borough’s former Conservative administration.
In its revised scheme, the developer reduced the size of all 2.5 storey homes to two storeys.
It also made changes to the appearance of properties by adding more varied brickwork and porches.
Bellway Homes says its plan will provide 40 percent affordable housing and new cycleway connections via Arthur Close and Whyteladyes Lane would help connect it to the area.
But Cllr Howard said questions remained over the stress an extra 200 homes would place on schools, roads and health-care facilities.
He added: “What’s been disappointing is that we’re saying the same things now as we were during the consultation process a year ago.
“It’s the same structure left on the edge of town, its miles away from everyone.
“These developers need to start coming in and actually investing into communities.”
Cookham resident Paul Strzelecki also raised concerns over the development.
“Going through all the changes – as the first [application] was an absolute basket case, totally ridiculous – the main point is this development can’t take place,” he said.
“This new set of data might have changed the shape of the houses, as far as I’m concerned that’s utterly incidental.”
Mr Strzelecki said Cookham already suffered with traffic problems, pointing out the one-way Cookham bridge and road junction by the Stanley Spencer Gallery.
He said traffic at the junction, a meeting of two key roads in the village, was an existing problem and more cars added by the Cannondown Road plan was like ‘adding sand to a funnel’.
He added: “The fact is you can’t put 200 homes with the consequential traffic without radical thinking or mitigation.
“And the radical thinking is something like you’d better put a new bridge over the Thames or banning certain cars on days of the week.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Bellway Homes said: “Extensive local traffic surveys have been undertaken throughout the preparation of the SMD (Stakeholder Masterplan Document) and the subsequent planning applications which conclude that the surrounding road network has sufficient capacity to accommodate the proposed development and other development planned for the locality.
“The necessary infrastructure to support the development will be delivered in line with the local plan requirements, supported by substantial community infrastructure levy payments, in excess £4 million – a portion of which will be allocated directly to the Parish Council for local infrastructure projects.”