GNLP0415

Where does one begin? This proposal is attempting to change the landscape of west Norwich. All the site investigations will throw up the development issues that would have to be overcome - I don't think I need to dwell on them but they would include, drainage, flood risk, narrow roads, access to the A47, environmental impact, landscape ruination, air pollution. But, to me, the key question is: is this beautiful area the right place to be developing a new settlement - well away from the A11 corridor and close to the stunning Yare Valley? The answer Is NO!

These sites, if developed as described, would create a whole new settlement and should be considered separately from this consultation due to its massive implications in extending the urban boundary. Areas of these sites already have a LDO for the food hub and it is not clear how / whether these two proposals would work together.

I believe the proposed developments would destroy the quite and peaceful character of Honingham village. It would also be a strain on existing local services as well as utilities. Honingham village would in effect be annexed by a new town bringing with it a rise in crime, traffic, road accidents, pollution and destruction of an established village way of life which has been around for centuries. This development would along with the proposed duelling of the A47 to include a roundabout at the junction of Berrys Lane would turn the village into a rat run. This development is an affront to the people of Honingham.

Urbanising very large rural area.
Given stated ambitions of consultation document, unnecessary, inappropriate and inflexible.
Massive impact and adverse effects way beyond Honingham and Broadland: on neighbouring villages including Barford, Marlingford and Colton, Barnham Broom (connected by network of narrow (often single track) country roads, lanes and footpaths); on environment-traffic etc; on landscape and variety of wildlife and birds, varied wildlife habitats and corridors (connected mosaic of fields, trees, woodland, copses, hedges, river valley).

The concept of a major new settlement in this rural area is inappropriate. It would remove a considerable area of land from agriculture which has been the mainstay of Norfolk's growth over the centuries.
Easton and Costessey which are expanding Norwich to the west down the A47 have a commitment for 1,612 new houses already. A further 3,900 new homes in Honingham and Colton will completely destroy the character of the entire area and extend Norwich's urban sprawl further west.
The settlement summary on Honingham is full of platitudes noting that constraints can be overcome by new settlement scale development and that the site is large enough to provide local services. To go on to describe sites as being very remote if considered separately, but presumably not in the aggregate, is really curious!

The proposed development will entirely change the nature of the village if it was implemented. This would in effect link Easton Colton and Honingham entirely changing the nature of the area from that of village to small town. The local roads are insufficient to carry the traffic and would require massive improvements. Currently the traffic congestion along this stretch of the A47 is dreadful and would only be made worse by adding further new homes - I appreciate a new road is proposed however I understand this is now delayed and the route hasn't been agreed - planning these two things separately wouldn't seem to make sense - further planning the new road without knowing the route of the NDR final section would again appear to be folly. Whilst any new road MAY be capable of carrying the through traffic(I'm very doubtful)the links on and off the new road would become heavily congested even if numerous roundabouts were used to assist entry and exist. Currently at peak travel times it can take 80 minutes to travel into Norwich from Honingham and what you propose will only make this significantly worse. It is clear this development would result in frequent car use as it would simply be another dormitory with no facilities or employment opportunities meaning the vast majority of residents would need to use cars to get around - couple this to lack of public transport and it simply seems madness to consider these plans
Locally there would appear to be far more practical brown field locations where future development could take place. If I understand correctly Easton has plans for further housing in addition to these proposals which will further congest the local area.
Small local developments which would allow the villages to retain their character would be acceptable such as the small plans for the centre of Honingham, Colton and around the PH in Marlingford.

I am horrified by this proposal which appears to extend Norwich as far as Honingham. When I was born here it was a rural village, I had hoped that it would remain so, Norfolk is a famously rural county and should be maintained as such rather than be developed for the benefit of an already wealthy landowner. This proposal is galloping urbanisation and should be completely unacceptable. The tiny concession to nature implies that it would be satisfactory to preserve less than 1% of the countryside, I find the concept of a county 99% developed totally abhorent. Please reconsider.

I object to the proposal as outlined for the following reasons,
1.Misuse of food producing farm land,
2 destruction of wild life habitats - deer, kites,buzzards and a multitude of other animals in the conservation area woodlands
3.Lack of sustainable power, sanitation, water and road services for this huge development
4. Considerable extra pressure on ambulance and hospital service which is struggling to cope already.
5. Destruction of way of life of residents in Colton and Honingham
6. Why such a large land grab by Norwich when it should be easier to add a few houses to villages in Norfolk

I live on Mattishall Road directly opposite this proposed development. The said development would destroy the beautiful villages of Honingham and Colton and turn this into an urban sprawl. I frequently see all forms of wildlife in this area and these habitats will be decimated. There is a limit on how humans can carry on destroying all other forms of life, this is totally unacceptable. Bear in mind once built upon this farmland is lost forever. There will be an increased risk of flooding, if you come to Mattishall Road you will see it is already an issue on the lower fields. Mattishall Road is a dangerous road, if you speak to highways they are aware of how many accidents and deaths have happened on the two junctions at Berry's Lane and the Colton road opposite our driveway. How will this ever be made safe. It seems such a shame that small communities are being swallowed up by greed, surely different sites can be found which don't directly affect local villages that already exist.

I live directly opposite this huge proposal, and I object to it because of the following.
Loss of valuable farmland, once built on this land is gone forever.
There is an Abun dance of wildlife in this area and those habitats will be destroyed.
Considerable increase of traffic and Mattishall Road has had numerous accidents and some deaths because highways fail to implement speed safety initiatives.
There is strong potential for flooding and this is already evident at the bottom of Mattishall Road.
Loss of the village way of life as this proposal would join Honingham And Colton creating another urban sprawl.Planners have a duty of care, to maintain village life which can be passed onto future generations

The Parish Council is unanimously opposed to the proposed new settlement. At a well-attended public meeting, called by the Council on February 19th 2018 in Colton Village Hall, all the attendees were opposed: this should not seem surprising given the scale of the proposal. The residents of Marlingford and Colton Parish value their environment as it is. This was clearly established in the Parish Plan for Marlingford and Colton in 2006 (available at marlingfordandcoltonpc@norfolkparishes.gov.uk). As indicated in the Parish Plan, they value the quiet, friendly and rural nature of where they live, with a very strong appreciation of the local landscape and wildlife. Nothing has happened since then, including various public and parish council meetings, to suggest that those views have changed.
The Council's objections are:
It is not necessary to build a new settlement in order to achieve the housing targets in the Greater Norwich Local Plan. The proposed location is greenfield rather than the preferred brownfield or public land. As the Topic Paper states: new settlements can be an expensive and slow means of meeting housing need, their delivery can be risky and unpredictable and providing infrastructure to support them risks reducing funding for potentially more sustainably located extensions to existing settlements. The proposed settlement, being isolated from any existing settlements, would undoubtedly have high infrastructure costs for roads, water, sewerage and electricity. It is suggested in the Topic Paper that there should be easy access, particularly on foot and by bicycle, to primary and secondary schools and an existing range of retail, health and leisure services in an existing settlement to support the early years of development of the community and to provide choice. The nearest Service Village is Easton where a development of approximately 890 houses is now commencing - it is not hard to see that there could be capacity constraints with the primary school; the nearest high school is the Ormiston Victory Academy in Costessey, about 4 miles away; the nearest surgery is the Roundwell Medical Centre, about 3.5 miles away.
The whole development would represent an extension of the Norwich Urban Area westwards to Honingham and Colton. There would be a loss of visual amenity, increased traffic, noise, atmospheric pollution, and light pollution of the night sky, together with the loss of much attractive countryside and valuable agricultural land. Site D and parts of Sites A and C are grade 2 agricultural land; the grade 2 land that is located in the south-western third of the Food Enterprise Zone (FEZ), Site C, will be lost as the FEZ develops. It is surely not the time to be losing something like 120ha (about 300 acres) of good quality agricultural land.
The area occupied by Site A is particularly attractive with undulating topography and woodland - a Norfolk County Council Maintained Unsurfaced Road, Grange Lane, runs through the site, from Colton Road at the west end to Blind Lane at its eastern end; Grange Lane is regularly used by walkers. Site D occupies attractive countryside and, being on high ground, would be visible from a considerable area. The Council has no comments on Sites E and F other than to say that Colton Wood, a semi-natural ancient woodland, and much of the Yare Rural River Valley, in the area proposed for a Country Park, are already accessible by five public rights-of-way: http://maps.norfolk.gov.uk/highways/.

I do not want any further expansion to Honingham

This is town and country planning at its worst. It will simply help continue the ribbon development along the A47 - Costessey/Longwater/FEZ/Easton/Food Hub/ Subject Development/Honingham/Hockering/North Tuddenham and stretch south to Wynmondham. It is below NCC's guidelines for new settlement sustainability and no rail station. Will encourage car dependency and clog Dereham Road. Valuable greenfield land visually and for biodiversity will go forever.Large public funds required to provide infrastructure. Will put pressure on for a prohibitively expensive Wensum Vlley Link road, destroying sensitive river valleys and hills. Good/fair agricultural land will go.

We are a village community in Honingham and wish to remain so.
These proposals turn the whole area into a suburb of Norwich.
In conjunction with the NDR and Highways England A47 upgrade,there is a strong likelihood that we villagers in Honingham could be in the centre of a continuous building site for many years.
In particular the development of houses off Fellows Road with access up Mill Lane is never going to be viable. Mill Road is a track with just about room for one vehicle. Widening it would mean taking away Gardens from seven properties. One of which is the Old Mill with a 300 year old wall.

This development proposal is completely unacceptable and appears to be an attempt to change the character of Honingham just for profit. No longer would we enjoy being part of the countryside but become engulfed by Norwich urban sprawl
Dualling of the A47 Easton Hockering due 2021 onwards that in itself dissects the village from the local church of Honingham these plans do not take into account the A47 dualling
Surely rather than engulfing the beautiful village of Honingham it would be much better to spread the development in smaller pockets around the district.

The proposals are inappropriate and to the detriment of Honingham which is a small lovely village. Settlement to the south of the A47 would destroy the character of Honingham and Colton and the spread of the urban area of Norwich too far west.

strongly objecting building houses gnlp0415g. This land is opposite my dwelling ruining my view from my home making mattishall road unabarebale with traffic spoiling the villages/wildlife adding to more fatal accidents on this road causing extinction of equestrian/ dog walkers routes. currently see deer/many wild birds, rabbits, badgers, foxes the list is endless for wildlife and their habitats using the fields/woodlands surrounding our village, the amount of houses you are proposing will destroy village life/our small communities. we would require another school/medical facilities/playgrounds destroying the wildlife, putting pressure on our hospital which is already at full stretch.

strongly objecting building houses gnlp0415g. This land is opposite my dwelling ruining my view from my home making mattishall road unabarebale with traffic spoiling the villages/wildlife adding to more fatal accidents on this road causing extinction of equestrian/ dog walkers routes. currently see deer/many wild birds, rabbits, badgers, foxes the list is endless for wildlife and their habitats using the fields/woodlands surrounding our village, the amount of houses you are proposing will destroy village life/our small communities. we would require another school/medical facilities/playgrounds destroying the wildlife, putting pressure on our hospital which is already at full stretch

We object to the proposed greater Norwich plan, we realize there is a need for more housing, but this should be done brown sites. As we are told to take a long term view, if this is the case then we should leave the green field for growing crops if we don't then we will have to import more & more food is that good for the the inviroment?
Also we have a diverse bird population which we enjoy seeing I am sure this will be lost or greatly reduced..

There's no justification for a development site of this size in this area. It will destroy the rural nature of the district and the surrounding villages. The infrastructure does not exist to support it. It's a threat to the varied wildlife. Affordable housing could be accommodated within the Norwich area on brownfield sites. This development will not benefit those on low incomes who need affordable homes but will greatly benefit the landowner and developer at the expense of those who already live in what is a beautiful, rural environment which enriches all who live, work or visit it.

I do not want heavy vehicles travelling through our quiet village, this would create noise and this is not why we moved to Colton, stop this now!

This whole plan is making Norwich, Easton and Honingham one large built-up area. We must have a largr green-belt around our gret city.

The scale of this development is totally inappropriate for the area. It will result in four villages (Easton, Colton, Marlingford and Honingham) being joined up in an urban sprawl. It will ruin this beautiful area of Norfolk countryside. Development needs to be focused on the A11 corridor.

Norfolk is known as quiet, scenic, tranquil County. Developments of this nature destroy that image. A development of this size would take away the identities of Honingham, Colton, Marlingford, Easton and Barford.
Much is said about improvements to the A47. There are stretches of the road being dualled but they only really improve access on & off the road. The road overall is still very poor with no prospect of improving, unlike the A11 which is now sorted. The A11 corridor is more suited to development, linking as it does with Cambridge, London & the A14 to ports & Midlands.

I fully object on the plans for these developments as Honingham is a rural peaceful village and i feel if this application were passed it would ruin what is at the moment a beautiful quite part of the Norfolk countryside. It would effect the wildlife which includes the red kites that nest in the area, the roads around Honingham are nit big enough to take this extra development. I live in the village of Honingham through choice, because it is quiet and safe, and the community is wonderful. this size of development would bring a great strain on all amenities.

I strongly object to any housing in or around the land in Colton. It's a lovely rural village on it's own more hosing would mean lots more traffic through the village and it can't cope with the traffic now especially if there is an accident on the a47!!! Our village should be left as it is !! There are not many unspoilt countryside places left and having awful modern housing estates would spoil our quiet village we do not need to merge with Easton or honingham . Having the food hub passed is bad enough

1) My first point applies to GNLP0415 and many of the other proposed sites around Norwich. I am strongly against development on farmland. Fields and pastures are a precious, finite resource and in a world of increasing population (and, sadly, increasing global tensions) we must do all we can to preserve and improve them. We have a duty of care to coming generations and decisions we make today must not damage the lives of tomorrow. Future generations will need farmland for its original purpose and their wellbeing must not be sacrificed for current short-term convenience. Building on farmland also runs counter to current efforts that are being made to promote the consumption of local produce and reduce food miles.

2) The proposed development would greatly overload existing infrastructure and, if development must go ahead, there needs to be parallel (preferably preceding) development of services and roads. Please note that the current changes proposed for the A47 (extending the dual carriageway) are the result of existing congestion problems. The addition of a further 4,000 houses would create a serious problem.
Steps would also have to be taken to prevent The Street (Honingham's principal road) becoming a rat-run for vehicles accessing the A47.

3) The proposed development would significantly impact the existing villages. Areas GNLP0415-A and -G approach within 250 metres of existing housing in Honingham and cannot be described as "very remote" from the village.

Honingham is an historic small village that needs to be protected from losing its identity from merging with nearby towns by the proposed development of 4000 homes. A green belt around Norwich should be set up to safeguard and protect the countryside from urban sprawl and preserve the wellbeing and quality of life of its residents. The development would not only ruin the countryside but increase traffic, pollution, crime and cause increased strain on already overloaded public services. New developments should be built on inner city brownfield and derelict areas that do not change nearby residents current quality of life.

This proposal would extend the urban into the countryside
A new settlement in this location, is not the appropriate way to deliver housing and industrial employment areas
Development should be dispersed around the Greater Norwich Local Plan area
with primary focus being given to Brownfield sites in Norwich

I object to the construction of a new settlement on good agricultural land in a rolling attractive landscape. The proposed new settlement would completely dwarf the small village of Honingham and would end up as a sprawl of houses connecting Honingham, Colton and Easton with no identity and no heart. It is likely to end up as a huge estate providing houses but nothing else. Would the shops, schools, doctors etc ever be built? We, as residents of Honingham don't have to go very far to see what has happened at Queen's Hills, Costessey.

I read in the EDP today about how wonderful a new settlement could be. The author wondered why there weren't more examples of such a good idea in this country. Perhaps he should live and work in Milton Keynes.

Creating a new settlement out of fields and potentially damaging precious countryside is not the answer. The council should look at brown field sites first and then smaller housing developments in existing villages and small towns. Norwich needs a green belt around it to protect the identities of the surrounding villages. Without it, Norwich itself will lose its identity and become a massive urban sprawl.