* In general the proposal for new sites that might be developed for housing in the Tivetshalls is well in excess of the housing that exists in this village grouping and will thus subsume the original village structure and destroy much of the historical identity. To date South Norfolk Planning has taken great care to ensure that the layout of development around the original village greens has been maintained. The proposed developments would destroy this.
* The villages have an extremely small sewage disposal facility, which has failed on a regular basis since installation, and can barely cope with the addition of the existing small housing developments which have been allowed to occur, let alone housing development on the proposed scale.
* Similarly the electrical power system, being a 240 Volt circuit, is already one that regularly fails.
* Telephone network in many parts of the villages continues to be wholly inadequate to support broadband, to the extent that the villagers are now undertaking their own scheme, which is not designed for this size of development.
* Water pressure in these villages and the surrounding area is extremely poor and does not have the capacity, nor the leak integrity, to be upgraded for such a number of houses.
* Land surface drainage is poor throughout the villages, with many historical ditches being piped and backfilled to allow for increased field continuity, and these pipes and road crossings are regularly blocked due to vegetation, etc. For instance approximately one half of site GNLP 2041 was originally 5 fields, which included many ditches and a field pond all of which contribute to increased difficulty in land drainage through the very few remaining open ditches. Development on the scale proposed could put at risk the existing houses of the village, both modern and ancient.
* The road infrastructure is already inadequate for the traffic generated within the villages, when shared between delivery vehicles, farm equipment and private cars. Road widths have slowly increased, not by design but by erosion of the verges, due to the use of heavy vehicles. This has then been filled and tarmaced in a manner that causes large amounts of ponding throughout the villages.
* Over the last 15 years a number of small housing developments have been proposed, such as on Bonds Road, and refused by planning authorities, due to the inadequate road infrastructure.
* The main access points from GNLP 2041 and 2042, onto The Street and Rectory Road, being the main route through the village, and School Road / Star Lane, are wholly inadequate to cope with a high volume of traffic, both due to blind corners and the narrowness of these roads. Star Lane in particular would need to be completely redeveloped.
* Access from Tivetshall St Mary to the A140 is already extremely difficult, due to the increasingly high volume of traffic on this main trunk road. A 5 minute delay to gain access is quite common. The A140, as it has never been dualled, could not cope with further traffic on the scale proposed for our villages, let alone all the other developments in other South Norfolk villages.
* GNLP 2041 access onto School Road/ Star Lane would then decant its traffic onto the B1134. This road has several difficult corners and an area which frequently floods, next to GNLP2128, before meeting the Pulham roundabout and any additional traffic on this road would again create significant congestion on the A 140.
* Public transport servicing is extremely poor, to almost non-existant, with the villages access points to bus routes being without exception on narrow roads with no public pavements. Especially on wet dark winter days school children and adults, both young and elderly, seeking to use public transport are significantly at risk from these unlit heavily ponded narrow roads, as they cannot walk on the verges.
* All these aspects of infrastructure, but especially that of increased vehicle traffic will be extremely detrimental to the environment of a rural ribbon village development, such as the Tivetshalls. Not only will this create noise pollution in what is a very quiet area, but it will also create significant risks on the narrow road infrastructure and lead to a very significant increase in air pollution in this area.
* In using prime farm land within these 2 small villages, to build significant further housing, in an area which has extremely poor transport infrastructure would appear completely contrary to our nations's policy, that needs to improve its self-sufficiency in delivery of farmed products. Further, the lack of public transport facilities, requires at least one vehicle per new house, if not two, for people to be able to access schools, workplace, shopping etc. This in itself is totally contrary to central government policy to reduce our dependence on private transport. Even if electric cars eventually become the norm, the electricity requires generation and transmission and as said earlier, these villages system would not be competent for such a high draw down.
* We note that there are comments about developers taking some responsibility for infrastructure improvement. We also note that comments have been made by our local representatives suggesting a staggered development. In neither case does this guarantee the assurances of infrastructure are actually provided and developers are notorious for eventually omitting these from their plans. Staggered development would allow them to avoid any infrastructure improvements at all, the worst of all worlds.
* However, sites 2103, 0317, 0318 and 0319, might be appropriate for low density developments and affordable housing as they are peripheral to the core of the villages, have some immediate services available to them, however inadequate, and would thus not cause excessive disruption to the villages as a whole. That said, lessons should be learnt from the development of 4 affordable houses on the Street a few years ago, where significant disruption to traffic flow through the village was created over a fairly prolonged period, with apparently no control over the developer's activities.