Merry Xmas
The Battle goes into 2015
Happy New Year
To Save our Stretton
Firstly a big thank you to the 600+ people who objected to the Craythorne Road 425 Houses application and to the
150+ people who attended the SOS Update meeting in November at the Stretton Social Club. We want to confirm
that the Craythorne application has not yet come before the Planning Committee due to major objections on Schools
and Traffic. It has not yet been approved. It will not come before Planning until Monday 12th January at the earliest.
This newsletter will bring you up to date on the Stretton applications and say why we still need your help in the
future on the Craythorne Road Development, as well as other new applications threatening Stretton , like St Marys
Drive. We also need you to support the Stretton Neighbourhood Plan.
Craythorne Road
Before this application comes before the Planning Committee, Gladman needs to resolve serious objections on
schools and on the traffic related to the A38 and other local roads. Gladman are now talking to Staffordshire County
Council on potentially siting a Primary School on the development itself. However they only want to give limited
space meaning a very small school, which doesn’t meet the size of schools the County would prefer. If it is agreed it
will change the application and a period of further consultation will be required. There are also discussions
regarding Gladman contributing funds towards a Secondary School but the County have no clear plans where this
will be located. De Ferrers is full and lots of houses are already planned .We are concerned that we are in danger of
people wanting to buy or sell houses in Stretton without a clear understanding of where the Secondary School will
be. The traffic projections that Gladman have used for the traffic modelling explain that as the traffic in the centre of
Stretton will be so bad people won’t come down Bitham Lane but go into Town instead. This doesn’t reflect the fact
that traffic is bad already and people come down Bitham Lane to get to the A38 or the schools. Even on an artificially
low traffic volume the potential improvements they are suggesting on the A38, like widening the A38 slip roads, will
do little to reduce queues and will not improve safety at this old junction. Other proposals are to make The Green
two way, which we think will only result in creating two very dangerous junctions in the centre of Stretton and an
idea to put traffic lights on both junctions will just lead to severe traffic queues. It must also be noted that within
each of these areas Gladman may also persuade the County Council to agree to accept an amount of money as a
‘contribution’ towards a solution to Schools and Traffic problems. If this proves to be the case, it will then be
presented to the Planning Committee. We do not think this approach would give any certainty on schools, traffic or
on road safety in Stretton. Very often funds paid to County Councils via planning decisions (a 106 agreement) are not
necessarily get spent in the area of need – in this case Stretton!
If it is to be discussed on the 12 January, the agenda for the meeting will be confirmed early in January. The Planning
Department will also produce a report on the application including their recommendation. SOS will be reviewing that
document and identifying any issues which we think have not been resolved. If this does make the January meeting,
we will need your help to show that there is still significant opposition in Stretton to this application. Otherwise
Gladman will simply claim that their discussions have now resolved all of the issues and that Stretton residents are in
agreement with these resolutions.
On the day of the Planning Meeting the Councillors will attend a site visit that morning, to see the site for
themselves, some of them may never have visited Stretton before! They will look for potential issues and then
return to the Town Hall later in the day for the Planning meeting itself, which will start at 14.00. We can have a silent
protest when the councillors do a site visit to Craythorne Road, where we can have banners to show our areas of
concern broadcasting issues like - no clear school plans, the dangers of Craythorne Road North, the safety issues at
the Church Road junction, saving our open spaces, opposition to urban sprawl etc. It would be really useful for our
case to show that there is still a strong opposition to this by having as many people as possible taking part. Then in
the afternoon, at the Planning Meeting at the Town Hall, again it would be hugely beneficial to have as many
residents as possible showing their opposition. As there is a severe lack of parking at the Town Hall due to building
works, we are looking to provide some transport (a coach and cars) that can drop people at the location and return
them to Stretton afterwards.
As soon as we know the date and time the application will be discussed at the Planning meeting we will update the
SOS notice boards and the SOS website with the link to the planners report and to the SOS response. Many people
have already registered on the SOS website - www.saveourstretton.co.uk - and we would ask that if you haven’t
already done so then please do, as it’s easier for us to send you an update email once we get the details of the
meeting. We may well have too little time to get leaflets printed and delivered before the Planning Meeting date is
upon us. We know many people work or have other commitments and may not be able to take part in these events.
You can however still play an active role as once the Planners have released their recommendation report, you can
still respond by sending an email to [email protected] or by writing to ESBC Planning to say that you
are still concerned and do not believe this application has resolved your concerns on schools, traffic and road safety.
We have also been looking at the other Stretton Planning Applications and here is a summary:St Marys Drive -There has been an application for a 37 houses development in St Marys Drive and we are very
concerned about this due to the proximity of this road to the William Shrewsbury School entrance and the risks to
both road and pedestrian safety, as well as exacerbating the current problems with parking outside or near the
school at drop off and pick up times. The documents suggest that this is phase 1,indicating further planned
developments, leading to additional housing here and opening the way for yet more houses being built on the
Guinevere Avenue Development, as this St Marys Drive Development could provide another access road. This issue,
coupled with the lack of provision for Primary and Secondary School places, renders this application unsustainable in
our opinion. You can still object to this by emailing [email protected] quoting P/2014/01286 or by
writing to ESBC Planning, The Maltsters, Wetmore Road,Burton upon Trent, DE14 1LS. Even though the date for
objections has now passed, ESBC Planning Department will accept further objections and take them into
consideration. Remember each individual adult in a house can object.
Guinivere Avenue -We believe the field off Guinevere Avenue is now sold to a builder and we are waiting for that
detailed 100 house application which will confirm the design. We have no details as to who has actually bought the site.
Pirelli Development - The Save our Stretton team welcome the development of brown field sites over the loss of
green fields! Nevertheless, we have still been reviewing the detailed application for the 300 houses on Pirelli land by
the canal and we do have some concerns over the layout and the status of schools provision and traffic
improvements. We have raised these concerns in an objection to the Planning Department and will be looking to
work with the council and the builder to resolve these issues.
We continue to keep a watching eye on all the developments that will affect Stretton but, like anything else, all of
this takes time and commitment. We therefore want to set up ‘sub groups’ to look at these newer applications in
more detail. If you are interested please let us know via the website or contact a member of SOS. It would be really
helpful and useful to have as many residents with both local knowledge and passion to take on some of the
responsibility of fighting for the protection of the areas within which we all live. You don’t have to be an ‘expert’ at
anything – we’ve all learned as we’ve gone along. So if you live within immediate reach of any of these
developments and feel you’d like a say or some involvement in protecting your local area then please do let us know.
Local Plan and Neighbourhood Plan
The ESBC Local Plan had a first stage of examination in November and during this process some organisations like
Gladman objected to the site selection process. This resulted in the inspector asking the council to do further work
to justify some of its assessments and to suspend the process. The council expect they will restart the examination in
early 2015 and when this is completed it will provide a higher level of protection for sites like Craythorne Road and
St Marys Drive as these are not identified as sites for building.
The Stretton Neighbourhood Plan has now been accepted by ESBC and will now go out for consultation, after which
it should go for local referendum in the middle of 2015. As the plan enters consultation it starts to gain some weight
in planning applications and this will increase further after the referendum and this will help us against land
speculators. The latest neighbourhood plan will be on www.strettonplan.com and it will help if we confirm to ESBC
that we support the plan by writing to Mrs C O’Hare, Neighbourhood Planning Policy Officer, ESBC, The Maltings,
Wetmore Road, Burton on Trent, Staffs, DE14 1LS or emailing [email protected]
Please if not already - 1 Register on SOS website 2 Object St Marys 3 Support Neighbourhood Plan