Draft Greater Norwich Local Plan – Part 1 The Strategy

There is insufficient detail as to HOW transport provision will be improved for the outer reaches of the GNLP area. The focus is too heavily on Norwich and Major road networks (A roads). There is no commitment to improvement within Hingham which is situated on the B1108 which is subject to ever increasing traffic numbers and carries traffic from the large areas of development in and around Watton/Carbrooke (Breckland).
The policy document notes that Hingham has "good transport links". This is not an accurate description. The Joint Core Strategy 6.53 describes Hingham as having a “limited bus service”, since the JCS was adopted there has been a reduction in bus services and threats of loss of the already severely limited direct bus service to Dereham .
In the context of the climate emergency where we need to encourage everyone to be less reliant on cars and to use public transport as much as possible, this strategy document, taking us up to 2038, is very much lacking in ambition and concrete provisions of improvement to transport links. Currently buses are available to Wymondham, Watton and Norwich every 30 minutes and buses to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and Research Park once an hour, also buses stop at around 7pm.

In terms of employment the document states Hingham is "well located to benefit from additional employment opportunities in the Cambridge Norwich Tech Corridor" - this does not seem an accurate description in the context of reliance on public transport when there is one bus an hour to the Research Park and a bus to the Hethel Innovation Centre (a 20 minute drive) would take 2 hours via Norwich. In addition, no consideration has been made to account for the fact that Hingham is on the very edge of South Norfolk bordering with Breckland and that people could quite conceivably want to travel to Attleborough or Dereham for work, local amenities or leisure and there are either limited or no public transport links directly available to these places at all (a bus to Attleborough would take over an hour verses a 10 minute drive by car, and to Dereham a 40 minute bus ride is only available twice a week, otherwise an hour and a half bus journey versus a 20 minute drive).
In terms of leisure a night bus service, enabling people to return from the city after going to the theatre or seeing a band would also be very welcome. For a strategy that claims to aspire towards a "radical shift away from the private car" current plans seem woefully inadequate.
There is no mention in Policy 4 of road infrastructure improvements to support additional traffic through the rural communities forced to accept more housing development, and no commitment to ensuring that infrastructure will be enhanced to try to ensure greater adherence to speed limits.
There are long held concerns over the safety of the B1108 Fairland crossroads – More housing development in Hingham and the surrounding areas will only increase the vehicle numbers using this already dangerous crossroad. Hingham Town Council have applied for (and have been successful) NCC Parish Partnership bid for a feasibility study into the Fairland/B1108 junction safety improvements. In order to support further development of Hingham, if it is proved to be feasible to improve this junction, a firm commitment needs to be made from the Highways authority to undertake the work.

Policy 4 sates “School capacity will be increased to provide for growth by improvements to existing schools”
With specific reference to Hingham – there is widespread concern within the community of the pressure that more housing will have on the primary school and Drs surgery. Current plans for Hingham Primary School are to replace old worn out mobile classrooms with new structures, however this will not increase the capacity of the school. With development taking place in Watton, Carbrooke and Great Ellingham, parents from Breckland are looking to enrol children in Hingham Primary School, increasing the pressure on the school’s ability to accommodate additional numbers of children (the Drs Surgery also has a wide catchment area within Breckland). There is also concern regarding the lack of sufficient local child care places to assist working parents.
It should also be noted that Hingham does not have a high school.
With regard to green infrastructure. Being that there is no public car park and businesses in the Market Place and Fairland have no dedicated parking for staff or customers, it would be unlikely to achieve provision for green travel (outside of that of providing private charging points within a development) such as provision of publicly available vehicle charging points.

Developers should also be looking to contribute to improving and sustaining infrastructure beyond the boundary of the development to help to ease the burden on existing infrastructure and facilities

Pedestrian Priority within communities – Policy 4 has no mention of providing improvement to the pedestrian network for communities, outside of Norwich. With particular reference to Hingham, nowhere in the town is there a crossing point giving pedestrian priority over the busy B1108 (or any other road within the town).
Public Parking facilities – it is unrealistic to conceive that in a rural area with a limited bus service, businesses within the “Key Service Centre” can flourish without the provision of adequate public parking. It is essential that businesses can encourage and obtain support from visitors to the town from nearby villages. If the small independent businesses within the Hingham cannot flourish, they will close and residents of Hingham will also have to travel further afield to shop. Adequate public parking must be addressed, not only for visitors to the town but those residents that need to access local services and businesses using a car due to ill health or mobility issues.
Town like Hingham to construction of large housing estates on the outskirts of town tend to mean that the people live on those estates to become a separate community. We would suggest therefore that developers provide finance to further develop existing facilities or provide new facilities for the whole community like a car park
Parking facilities for existing community buildings – within Hingham these are insufficient to support growth and to enable these facilities to thrive. The Lincoln Hall/Bowls Club/Library and the Sports Centre parking areas are inadequate in size to accommodate visitors to these venues during busy times, and it is of concern that the venues will lose bookings and revenue if they cannot provide adequate parking facilities for their potential customers.

Hingham Town Council support the policy that “Residential proposals should address the need for homes for all sectors of the community having regard to the latest housing evidence, including a variety of homes in terms of tenure and cost. New homes should provide for a good quality of life in mixed and inclusive communities and major development proposals should provide adaptable homes to meet varied and changing needs”
The Council would like to raise the a concern regarding the location of social houses within developments. These homes are often for families and are placed on less desirable plots within a development, with rear gardens adjacent to the main road, this will mean that children residing there will being exposed to increased levels of pollution and noise whilst playing in their gardens.

Having a policy specifically relating to specialist housing in particular to that of older peoples accommodation does not take into account or directly address the needs of older people generally, who reside within general accommodation within developments, for instances people that may wish to downsize from a house to a bungalow, it does not take into account that these people will grow older while in their home and may have greater needs as they age. Therefore ALL development should address the need for residents to have good access to services within the community, and infrastructure within the community be improved sufficiently to be able to provide this, for example adequate footways and pedestrian priority crossing points.

Whilst the Council believes that there should be no development until the present allocations have been built on it does believe that planners should give careful consideration to allowing more self build across the district and that they should be willing to allow some experimental green initiative building that takes account the need to address climate change/the climate emergency

Provision of accommodation for the homeless via a relevant charity

The allocation of employment locations should be considered in relation to allocation of preferred sites for housing development – and should be considered how the 2 areas would impact on each other both positively and negatively. In Hingham a preferred site for housing development is sited opposite the designated employment area, only the “positive” of the potential for providing local employment (within walking distance) to residents of the new development has been highlighted. Siting a housing development so close to a “employment area” which is already home to heavy industry can have many negative impacts on residents, with regard to road safety, increased traffic in a confined area, noise and pollution. It should also be recognised that employment does not occur in just one designated area within a community.
There appears to be no time scales with regard to the development of the employment area - i.e when would the jobs be delivered?

Under Section 3 Vision and Objectives - Economy - 116 - references are made to "improved broadband and mobile phone infrastructure" to enable "the growth of small scale businesses, more working from home and remote working". It is important to note that such improvements to infrastructure have long been promised and are yet to materialise – when will these promises be implemented? Existing businesses in Hingham, such as the pub and the solicitors already have problems for example taking payments with card machines.
It is unrealistic to conceive that in a rural area with a limited bus service, businesses within the “Key Service Centre” can flourish without the provision of adequate public parking. It is essential that businesses can encourage and obtain support from visitors to the town from nearby villages. If the small independent businesses within the Hingham cannot flourish, they will close and residents of Hingham will also have to travel further afield to shop.
Adequate public parking must be addressed, not only for visitors to the town but those residents that need to access local services and businesses using a car due to ill health or mobility issues.
Parking facilities for existing community buildings – within Hingham these are insufficient to support growth and to enable these facilities to thrive. The Lincoln Hall/Bowls Club/Library and the Sports Centre parking areas are inadequate in size to accommodate visitors to these venues during busy times, and it is of concern that the venues will lose bookings and revenue if they cannot provide adequate parking facilities for their potential customers.