Where to Build Options

[Simon Kirby]

The Council's Core Strategy with its strategic housing sites is currently being decided by a planning inspector - but if you were to decide the matter what would you do? Try to say why too, as it's always good to know why.

[spartacus]

Can't you vote for all of the first three? I would, as none of them are near to my house

[Newbelly]

I voted for "Brownfield" on the understanding that this refers to brownfield land.

[Simon Kirby]

Has to be Sandleford for me. With appropriate access roads it has excellent access to the A34 and A339 which won't trouble the existing traffic densities, and it's close to the town centre and south newbury trading estate. It also somes with a Country Park which creates public access where currently there is none and preserves the Sandleford woodland while losing nothing of any wildlife value in what is currently just a farmer's field.

Shaw and Chieveley are out-of-town developments which will never have the facilities of Newbury, brownfield development is OK if you want a flat in the town but it can't deliver family houses with gardens, and it can't deliver 2,000 new homes, and not building at all is just selfish because people need to live somewhere and Newbury is a good place to live.

[Simon Kirby]

Can't you vote for all of the first three? I would, as none of them are near to my house

You can now, though if you've voted already I don't think you can edit your vote, sorry.

[Simon Kirby]

I voted for "Brownfield" on the understanding that this refers to brownfield land.

Can you say which brownfields?

[Newbelly]

Has to be Sandleford for me. With appropriate access roads it has excellent access to the A34 and A339 ....

Maybe one day we can think about something other than ease of transport by car?

Brownfield sites do not just exist in the centre of a town.

[spartacus]

Can you say which brownfields?

How about Brownsfield Road in Thatcham so that the Town Council can be squashed.... The cricket ground would go too which wouldn't be good mind.....

[spartacus]

Maybe one day we can think about something other than ease of transport by car?

Teleporting may be some way off yet.............

Alternatively (and cheerfully) perhaps a couple of the European 'Stans with their stocks of former Soviet weaponry will have a public squabble over oil and gas reserves and plunge the world into a nuclear winter and back to the Dark Ages.... We'll be back to mutant horses and cart....

[Andy Capp]

Not in my back yard!

My vote would be Lambourn, Pangbourne, Tilehurst, and all the above.

[Simon Kirby]

Alternatively (and cheerfully) perhaps a couple of the European 'Stans with their stocks of former Soviet weaponry will have a public squabble over oil and gas reserves and plunge the world into a nuclear winter and back to the Dark Ages.... We'll be back to mutant horses and cart....

So it comes down to a choice between Richard Adams' Watership Down and John Wyndham's The Chrysalids.

[Newbelly]

Teleporting may be some way off yet.............

Alternatively (and cheerfully) perhaps a couple of the European 'Stans with their stocks of former Soviet weaponry will have a public squabble over oil and gas reserves and plunge the world into a nuclear winter and back to the Dark Ages.... We'll be back to mutant horses and cart....

What I meant was that planning should be for the long term, and ease of access by car should not always be the primary concern for house building (as the post I was responding to seemed to infer).

[blackdog]

Has to be Sandleford for me. With appropriate access roads it has excellent access to the A34 and A339 which won't trouble the existing traffic densities, and it's close to the town centre and south newbury trading estate. It also somes with a Country Park which creates public access where currently there is none and preserves the Sandleford woodland while losing nothing of any wildlife value in what is currently just a farmer's field.

Shaw and Chieveley are out-of-town developments which will never have the facilities of Newbury, brownfield development is OK if you want a flat in the town but it can't deliver family houses with gardens, and it can't deliver 2,000 new homes, and not building at all is just selfish because people need to live somewhere and Newbury is a good place to live.

Sums it up pretty well, though I'd add the infrastructure around Sandleford (shopping, surgery, secondary school).

[Simon Kirby]

Sums it up pretty well, though I'd add the infrastructure around Sandleford (shopping, surgery, secondary school).

With 2,000 new homes there'll be a need for some more infrastructure like a bit of an extension to the Falkland doctor's surgery maybe, but like you say much of the infrstructure is already there and there's plenty of space to accomodate what's lacking. As you posted previously, if the road access onto the A339 and Andover roads was done well there'd be precious little impact on the existing traffic.

[Newbelly]

With 2,000 new homes there'll be a need for some more infrastructure like a bit of an extension to the Falkland doctor's surgery maybe, but like you say much of the infrstructure is already there and there's plenty of space to accomodate what's lacking. As you posted previously, if the road access onto the A339 and Andover roads was done well there'd be precious little impact on the existing traffic.

I am not sure how you can say that 2000 new homes will have precious little impact on existing traffic.

[Andy Capp]

I am not sure how you can say that 2000 new homes will have precious little impact on existing traffic.

Yes and I anticipate that it will have an adverse effect on Thatcham's level crossing and the route to it from Greenham.

[Simon Kirby]

I am not sure how you can say that 2000 new homes will have precious little impact on existing traffic.

I don't think it will, not if it's planned well. How many homes wil that make in South Newbury, 10,000? That's not exactly a large conurbation and it is well-served by good roads.

[Simon Kirby]

What I meant was that planning should be for the long term, and ease of access by car should not always be the primary concern for house building (as the post I was responding to seemed to infer).

Why?

[GMR]

I suppose the answer to your question is anywhere so long as it isn't near me.

[On the edge]

Might also be worth talking to Reading again, they actually wanted a good lump of WBC's allocation a few years back.