I strongly object to this site being proposed as suitable for development for the reasons stated below:

Blofield Road, which is adjacent to site GNLP0380 is one of the main roads into Lingwood. This road is notoriously dangerous, being mostly a single-track road with passing places. Near misses on this road occur on a daily basis, due to the narrow road, lack of visibility and the amount of traffic speeding along it. In January 2020 the dangers of this road were emphasised in the most tragic of ways with a fatal accident just a few yards from this site. The proposed closure of Lingwood Lane when the South Burlingham stretch of the A47 is dualled will force more traffic to access Lingwood via Blofield Road, further compounding the risks on this road. To put an entrance to this site in the only possible location, on the blind side of a bend with limited visibility, would be ludicrous and would further increase the existing risk to unacceptable levels.

The GNLP information states that “some mature trees may need to be removed to facilitate visibility in/out of the site”. To remove mature trees for the purpose of giving better visibility is ecological vandalism and must not be allowed. It would be hundreds of years before any replacement trees would offset the same amount of carbon or have the same value to the local biodiversity as the existing trees.

The site is high grade agricultural land. Developing this site would mean the loss of habitat and would irreparably harm the biodiversity of the area. Bats, deer and birds of prey such as Barn Owls are amongst the many species often seen here.

Developing the site would increase both noise and light pollution for existing residents. Lingwood is a dark village, this corner of the village especially so, it must stay as a dark area.

There is a flooding risk across the front of the site, it often floods when there is heavy rainfall. Development of this site would remove the ability of this field to naturally soak up any heavy rainfall and increase flood risk to the surrounding area.

Developing this site would place increased load onto a part of Lingwood’s sewerage system. The Neve’s Close area has historical problems with the sewerage system.

The site is at the very corner of the village and falls outside of the defined development area. This site, if developed, would break out into open countryside. Development of the site will adversely affect the landscape setting of Lingwood, the open rural character of the area and intrude into the appearance of the surrounding countryside.

This development has no benefit whatsoever to the local community. It is neither needed nor wanted by local residents. It is located on a difficult and dangerous to access site with its own inherent topographical issues. Existing infrastructure and services within the locality are already stretched and it is thought that should this site be developed it will be to the detriment of existing residents.

The site cannot be preferred for development as there are other sites which are considered to have a greater capacity to meet the housing targets placed upon the cluster.

Developing this site would place extra burden on the dangerous Blofield Road, whereas other sites would likely spread the additional traffic to the village more evenly across the other routes into Lingwood. Blofield Road is unsuitable for improving for greater capacity, due in part to the large number of mature trees which would have to be felled to facilitate road widening.

The brown field site at the old school on Chapel Road should be used before any green field site.