Redrow rattled by Plaid petition success

It appears Redrow is rattled by the success of the online petition launched against its plans to build 1500 houses on the Ruthin Road, Wrecsam.

The petition, which was originally in paper form, states:

 1.I object to between 1000 and  3000 cars on the Lower Berse Farm site polluting the local atmosphere and congesting Ruthin Road, Bersham Road, Berse Lane and the A483 junction.

2. I object to a large building development compressing land prone to flooding and encouraging flooding and structural damage to existing local properties.

3. I object to prime agricultural land being used for housing when there are significant areas of open and brownfield land available in the city centre.

4. I object to a huge influx of people pressurising our overstretched NHS services and schools.

5. I object to a new water treatment facility, a sewage works, with provision to pump raw sewage into the river Clywedog.

6. I object to these 5 pieces of environmental vandalism devaluing our community, our landscape and existing local properties in order to maximise Redrow profits.

Redrow has written to local Plaid Cymru councillor Katie Wilkinson to "correct" the petition. Unwittingly, they have reinforced the key objections: 

Firstly, with regard to traffic – the petition references 1,000 to 3,000 car movements a day butdoes not provide a source for such figures. Our transport assessment, carried out by SCP (an independent assessment agency), states that 835 car movements in and out of the site would be made in the morning peak hour, with 859 car movements taking place in the afternoon peak hour. 

These are additional rush-hour traffic movements to the existing congestion. The developer concedes 1700 additional journeys at peak times but there will be other journeys for people working shifts, visiting relatives or friends, taking the kids to school and leisure trips. There will be deliveries to the estate as well. With hindsight, 1,000 is a huge underestimate but 3,000 looks pretty close.

Secondly, regarding any flood risk – a flood consequence assessment carried out by Waterco (independent environmental impact assessors) has been prepared and areas where potential for flooding have been identified would not be built on under our proposals. The site is designed to operate at a greenfield run off rate, meaning that the areas of isolated flooding will be made no worse as a consequence of development, nor will there be any knock-on impact downstream.

So Tarmacing a large area of green space will not increase flood risk and won't make the current flooded areas any worse. Of course.

Thirdly, the site is currently situated in the Green Barrier, as designated by the Wrexham Unitary Development Plan (UDP). However, the emerging Local Development Plan (LDP) proposes to allocate the land for development, which this proposal is consistent with. 

Which is precisely why Plaid Cymru is opposing the LDP - it enables this specific development as well as a similar-sized housing estate on the Cefn Road.

Fourthly, regarding access to the NHS/GPs – the emerging LDP does not set out a requirement for provision of a GP surgery to deliver homes on this site. 

Another reason why the LDP is not fit for purpose - any large housing development will have a knock-on effect on health and other infrastructure.

Fifthly, your reference to wastewater treatment works – raw sewage will not be discharged into the river Clywedog. A wastewater treatment plant is being proposed as a potential solution for the site to deliver nutrient neutrality. The only water that would leave that site and discharge into the Clywedog, would be water that had been treated by the plant.

Perhaps we need to get Redrow to run all Dwr Cymru Welsh Water facilities because they have clearly developed a fantastic new system to prevent all river pollution. Dwr Cymru has admitted to 100,000 incidents of raw sewage entering Welsh waterways in just 12 months. To our knowledge, Redrow does not operate wastewater treatment plants.

One amusing side note - the letter, which complains that we do not focus on the positives (er, it's a protest petition) calls it a "community-led development". Now Plaid locally has made much of the contrast between "developer-led communities" and "community-led development" over the past decade - perhaps Redrow has got them mixed up?

It also mentions delivering "up to 225 of affordable homes" - this is not exactly a cast-iron commitment. The viability test that would be likely if Redrow had to put in additional costs for road improvements would knock that figure down substantially. In addition, Redrow's definition of "affordable" is 30% below market value. So if a four-bed house is on open market sale for £400,000, then an affordable version would be £280,000 with a significant deposit. 

Redrow is rattled by the success of the petition to date - nearly 500 local residents have already signed and the arguments being made against such a large housing development are cutting through. If you haven't signed the petition yet, please do so here. Please share with friends and neighbours to make it clear what you think of the development.