Blurred vision for Middle Quinton

So, St Modwen and the Bird Group produce a 70 odd page document full of pretty pictures, big aspirations and brave talk of exemplar models for sustainable living. Top marks for enthusiastic prose. However, if reality is allowed to rain on their parade - this document deserves a good soaking.

We believe everyone with an interest in this proposed development should treat this ‘vision’ with the utmost caution, delivered as it is through rose-tinted glasses.

Even a cursory glance at its contents reveals wave upon wave of ‘pie in the sky’ promises, designed solely to tick government boxes yet far from deliverable in practice.

BARD represents people who are supposed to live in this urban utopia – and we see through the guff and remain utterly unconvinced. BARD shall be responding formally to this repeatedly misrepresentative document in due course, but for starters, here’s why:

Employment:
One of the Government’s stipulations is one on-site job per household. As recently 19 August, the developers were offering 3000 ‘new’ jobs (presumably net of 700 jobs currently on site). By 4 September this ‘Vision’ promises 4724 ‘new’ jobs - and say the rest required to meet DCLG criteria (some 1200) will be made up of home workers.

How can it be guaranteed that 20% of residents will work from home? How can it be guaranteed which employers will choose to relocate to this new town and what their employment numbers will be? How can it be guaranteed that the skill set of the home owners in this town will exactly match the employment opportunities on site. Together these guarantees are needed as being the only way to reduce commuting and car dependency by the 50% claimed, yet they are impossible to give.

Travel:
Travelling within any town isn’t difficult and Middle Quinton would be no exception. What really matters is travelling to anywhere without. Residents seeking jobs, hospitals, greater retail opportunities, social interaction, leisure and entertainment will need to travel to the Metropolitan Urban Areas of Birmingham, Coventry, Warwick as well as to the M5 and M40 (both north and south). In practice, this means car journeys through a network of small country roads, and if going north, across one of only two narrow bridges in the region, one over 500 years old. Naturally residents of 6000 new houses will just add to current congestion. Why impose ‘traffic calming measures in surrounding villages’ unless a major increase in traffic is anticipated? How eco-friendly is building a new by-pass to accommodate this increase in car numbers?

Schools:
4 new schools are promised – yet the small print shows that they’ll only be built once the town has grown. In the meantime it is suggested that children will be required to use ‘surplus places in existing schools in nearby towns’. Any Stratford resident will tell you that there are no surplus places in existing schools in South Warwickshire and Worcestershire education budgets are equally as stretched. The reality is that children are already being taken 40 miles by taxi to and from school each day. An influx of 14000 new residents will do nothing to alleviate this problem.

Location:
No-one should be permitted to build a town on this scale, which dwarfs the existing community, requires massive infrastructure investment from public and private funds, in an area with no existent public transport, located miles away from designated regions of employment and population growth, in a rural setting, and call it sustainable and an ‘integral element in the local pattern of towns and villages’.

David Bliss, Chairman of BARD said:

“Our experts will have a field day with this document – and piece by piece we’ll demonstrate to both the DCLG and current local residents how the wool is being pulled over people’s eyes.

“This tranquil area would suffer 15 years of building work just to construct the new town as it is currently envisaged. It purports to fulfil a housing demand that doesn’t exist in the immediate vicinity, and seeks to dictate a way of life to its residents which is self-evidently unworkable. We welcome lessons in domestic energy reduction but argue we shouldn’t need a new town to receive them!

“An eco-town site should be chosen on the basis of local need rather than Government and developer self-interest. A good initiative in a poorly thought-out location will prove both a costly mistake and a thoroughly wasted opportunity. It’s sad to see such short-sighted vision.”

ENDS
The Vision document is available from the Middle Quinton website