working to keep Devizes a special place
Campaigns - Zero New Homes
Devizes suffers from major traffic congestion. Air pollution at seven monitoring points around the town record levels of polluting nitrogen dioxide above the maximum allowed by law.
Pollution from road traffic is harmful to health, particularly for those suffering from respiratory and cardiac diseases.
Traffic levels have been increasing as more and more homes have been built and, as everyone who lives in Devizes knows, it has now reached crisis proportions.
Despite this, Wiltshire Council is now proposing to allow an additional 500 homes to be built (in addition to those currently under construction) WITHOUT putting forward any plans to tackle congestion and the consequent pollution.
And this despite the fact that the law requires Wiltshire Council to take steps to bring pollution levels back to below the legal limit.
The Trust says ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
We want Wiltshire Council to cancel all plans for further new houses UNTIL it has put in place a workable solution to our traffic and pollution problem.
It is our considered view that the Council has not taken the problem of traffic congestion seriously enough and, as a result, we now have air pollution levels which are a a danger to public health. It is particularly disappointing that in its latest plans, Wiltshire fails to put forward any viable plans to tackle our traffic problem, instead insisting that it has to build more homes so that developers will pay for road improvements. Where are the improvements paid for by previous developers? Not in roads and the cost of tackling Devizes problem will far outstrip any contributions developers may be prepared to make.
It is the Council’s responsibility to put forward a detailed infrastructure plan, showing just how they are going to tackle this problem. Worryingly, this aspect of the Core Strategy is not going to be published until after the Public Consultation on the strategy closes!
It is self-evident that the Council has been putting the “cart before the horse” for years - allowing hundreds of new homes to be built without first putting in place the necessary infrastructure. (In fact it still has not got round to doing so). Now it proposes to continue that policy, making matters much worse!
The Trust put forward its case at a Public Meeting on 22 June. To see the main presentation made at that meeting Click Here.
Wiltshire Council’s proposals are contained with the Council’s Core Strategy document. You can view the document and comment on-line here. The Trust has submitted a detailed response, a copy of which you can read here.
To follow progress in this campaign click here
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