Object

Representation ID: 18016

Received: 11/10/2021

Respondent: Mike Wood MP

[DUH213]

Please find enclosed a copy of my response to the consultation on the draft Black
Country Plan, with regard to site reference DUH213 at Crestwood Park.

I object to the proposal due concerns relating to:


• Loss of green space and recreational facilities
• Impact on local wildlife and natural habitats
• Cumulative impact of many other developments in the local area on local roads,
schools and health services
• The site is poorly located for the parts of the Black Country that are expected to
experience highest population growth over the course of this plan.

I hope that you will reconsider these proposals.

I am responding as the local Member of Parliament for Dudley South and my comments reflect a variety of different emails and letters that I have received from local residents in relation to this site.

I wish to object to the proposals for site DUH213 - the open green land opposite Crestwood
Park Primary School on the Crestwood Park estate in Kingswinford.

The selected site off, Lapwood Avenue, is an open space that is directly opposite a primary school, on a road that is already severely congested. Often both sides of the road are full of vehicles – this of course also overflows on to other nearby roads.

The proposal to build 45 houses on this well-loved space would undoubtedly cause
difficulties for parents and residents of the estate. Developing on this site would mean the loss
of valuable recreation space for local residents and pupils at the three surrounding schools,
and would fundamentally alter the character of this pleasant residential estate.

The site assessment for this site erroneously suggests, that there would be no “Impact on the wider road network”, this is not true. There would be a significant effect will happen on the local road network, several times a day, outside the school.

Lapwood Avenue is accessed via the busy Bromley Lane. This road has been the location of several road traffic collisions and accidents, including a local school girl. Development on this site would add further to the congestion and hazards already associated with this stretch of road.

The surrounding roads simply do not have the infrastructure to deal with this let alone the proposals to create an access through the estate and the newly proposed Ketley Quarry site.

This takes me on nicely to my next objection. The very suggestion of opening up Lapwood Avenue to access the new Ketley Quarry site (BCP Ref 203) would also further impact the business of local roads in addition to create a shortcut through to the Dudley Road. This will also cause a significant increase in road traffic, with people accessing the estate as a rabbit run though to the Dudley Road.

It is worth reminding the authority that there are also new large housing estates just moments away from Crestwood Park including the new estates on Stallings Lane which was rightly built on brownfield.

The methodology underlying the draft Black Country Plan is fundamentally flawed. Instead of recognising the need to link areas for development with levels of population growth in different parts of the region, the draft plan is indifferent to where in the Black Country sites are located. This has led to the perverse - and illogical - proposal that very large numbers of houses (including those that have either recently been completed or which are currently under construction) ought to be developed in a small area around Kingswinford and Pensnett even though ONS project very low levels of population growth in those parts of the region, while boroughs with far higher projected population growth are due to build far fewer new homes than Dudley. This is enormously unfair on residents in Dudley who face the loss of precious green spaces so that homes can be built that are not needed by local people, but it is also
unfair on those families in areas of the Black Country that will need many more houses but will be expected to move miles away to the other side of the region.

There is a clear need for decision-makers to make renewed efforts to secure additional brownfield sites, to invest in any land remediation necessary to make them suitable for housing development, and to avoid development on important green spaces such as this.

I very much hope that these objections are not only noted but that this site is removed from the draft plan at the first opportunity.