GNLP0201

Proposed development is understandable and would balance development in the area, but needs to be done sensitively. Public footpaths bounding the site should be retained. Strong preference for residential fronting onto Chequers Road to maintain and enhance appearance of existing residential area. Due to alignment of Houses on Suffield Close development, Chequers Road has lots of garden walls and fences but very few open frontages, which makes the street scene feel poor. New development on the proposed site could help to address this by fronting the road and providing some passive supervision. Industrial or commercial uses behind the residential may be acceptable, subject to noise, odour and other nuisance considerations. Chequers Road is already getting husy due to Tharston Meadow development and Tharston Industrial Estate and measures should be taken to ensure new development does not generate on-street parking on Chequers Road. Some open space fronting on to Chequers Rd would be welcome to retain an open, semi-rural feel. Safety of junction of Chequers Road with Swan Lane needs to be improved if further traffic is to be generated from residential and industrial development on this site. Village services are scarce in this area and possible partial allocation for community/village services would be good in this location (immediately abutting the industrial estate).

Further to my earlier representation, which generally supported mixed use development on this site, I now feel that the site is more suited to solely residential development. This is because sites 0272, 0142 and 0576 collectively provide a much better location for commercial development and an extension of the Tharston Industrial Estate. If they are developed for that purpose, the industrial estate will be much improved, whilst the housing on site 0201 will be improved by only having commercial use to the south, with residential to the north and east and open farmland to the west. Such an arrangement would also reduce traffic flow along the narrow section of Chequers Road between its junctions with Flowerpot Lane and Santareen Road, improving safety on that stretch of highway. As a condition of residential development on site 0201, it would be useful to require the installation of a footpath on the east side of Chequers Road to join up existing footpaths and allow pedestrians to travel along Chequers Road without needing to cross the road twice (because of a missing 50m stretch of pavement opposite the industrial estate). This will become an even bigger problem if development along Chequers Road increaes traffic flow, as it will. So, i would support residential use on this site, with all commercial development allocated to the other sites.