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ECOGEN application 21/00832/HCS deadline 10th September 2021

by Jackie Porter on 31 August, 2021

Additional documentation has been added to the Ecogen application:

HIGHWAYS– this contains a number of proposals which your City and County councillors believe are unacceptable to residents.

The proposals do not change the hours of operation of the site but do extend the hours that lorries will move through the village. The site is currently operational from 7am to 5pm, so lorries enter and exit between 7 and 4.30pm. This paper proposes extending the working lorries time to 7am to 8pm. The consultant for Ecogen says that this additional traffic will therefore have no impact as the time between vehicles will remain around 15-20minutes.

This paper also includes an analysis of the road space on which the lorries travel ands makes suggestions to change the design of the road to fit the problem. Whilst a developer can change the entrance to their own property (if they own the lands needed) they cannot make suggestions for land which is not their own, or for which they will not bear the cost. Whilst some of the changes have been suggested in the past, changing the design of the road to fit the lorries used at this site will not solve the problem and our objections to the increase in number of vehicle movements to 20,000 a year (80 a day equates to around 20,000 a year) remains.

In the summary of the paper, Stuart Michael Associates (SMA) states that

a) The road has a good safety record so it shows the HGV’s do not contribute to a poor safety record. So why do they suggest signage improvements and a lower speed limit, shuttle working, road widening? None of this is acceptable.

b) Signage at South Wonston to discourage trafic entering from the village. They have omitted to include the impact on Wonston parish, and specifically signage at Sutton Scotney in this proposal: vehicles drive through Stoke Charity and Wonston and have wrecked gardens as they struggle through narrow village roads. Signage alone will not stop this.

c) Given the improved mitigation measures, SMA consider that the local network can accommodate the increase in HGV movements.

AIR QUALITY ASSESSMENT

This paper covers Air Quality.

Please describe in your reply if and how the lorries affect your life in this way. It is a relatively technical document, but it does contradict itself as it reminds us of Para 174 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF)which states that Planning… decisions should contribute and enhance the natural environment. by preventing new .. development from contributing to …. or being put at unacceptable risk from unacceptable levels of soil, air, water or noise pollution. Development should… help to improve local environmental conditions …

Para 186 states that …. decisions should sustain and contribute towards compliance with relevant limit values or national objectives for pollutants. It goes on to talk about AQMA (air quality management areas): in Winchester there is only 1, central Winchester, but the air quality on Lovedon Lane is, according to the BBC website, worse than elsewhere in Kings Worthy.

I will be challenging para 4.5 of this paper: there was a concern about air pollution from traffic on the B3047 in Abbots Worthy: reduced traffic in 2020/21 meant that the monitoring didn’t show issues in these years, but this should be challenged.

NOISE: applicant’s response to Environmental Health Officer’s EHO) comments

This reminds us that the EHO’s concern for noise pollution was considered as a valid reason for refusal. Mitigation measures have been proposed to reduce the noise to ‘acceptable levels’ from the site.

But they have not addressed the noise and vibration from lorries and HGV’s moving from the site to the trunk road system. (and onwards through the ‘old village’ on the A33 towards the M3)

Even if you have written before, please write to respond to these new proposals in one of these ways:

1. Email planning@hants.gov.uk, quoting 21/00832/HCS

2. Go onto the HCC website http://www.hants.gov.uk, search ‘land, planning and environment’, and then enter 21/000832/HCS into the search function.

After a data disclaimer, the planning application will come up, together with the papers described above.

Please respond before the 10th September. Thank you.

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