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A New Huge Estate in Winterslow ?

  12,400 new houses in the Salisbury District

2,500 of them in Winterslow or Firsdown

A special Extraordinary Full Council meeting has been arranged by the District Council  to discuss this issue on Wednesday evening 22nd April 2008 at 6 pm in the City Hall.

Click here to see the Agenda and motions for this meeting

 Please be there if you can to support our local councillors and make your feelings known !!!

Click here to see what YOU can do to put your views

Deadline to return your comment forms is the 25th April !!!
 

The following extracts (Preferred Option 8) are from a just published Salisbury District Council document called

A Core Strategy – Preferred Options – A Plan For Salisbury and South  Wiltshire 2006-2026

which details proposals for some 2,500 new houses located in either:

        - A “new settlement”, with Winterslow / Lopcombe Corner proposed as the location; or

        - Growth distributed throughout South Wiltshire; or

        - An “urban extension” at Firsdown

You can find more details on pages 51-54 of the document above, which you can view   online by  clicking on the above link.  Printed copies can be obtained from Salisbury and   Amesbury  Libraries and at the SDC Planning Office at 61 Wyndham Road, Salisbury.

Some further quotations from the SDC document

8.36 Following the “Our Place in the Future” consultation, and within the Settlement Strategy and general principles of sustainability that we must conform to, we feel that there are three main approaches we could take in terms of the distribution of housing around south Wiltshire. These are as follows:

8.37 Scenario 1 - A New Settlement

We are seeking views on whether to allocate a new settlement to the east of the district in an area where it can provide dwellings to support one of our key assets at Porton Down. This might accommodate up to 2,500 of the new dwellings south Wiltshire needs up to 2026. The justification for this would be as follows:

• It plays to one of our key strengths and supports Porton Down scientific community.
   

• It can be a catalyst to solve some of the constraints Porton Down suffers especially transport and local affordable housing.
   

• It responds to the wishes of many of the larger villages in the area to only have modest growth themselves.
   

• It has good communications including access to the London Road Park and Ride and the possibility of re-opening Porton Station as well as creating improved bus links between Porton Down, Salisbury and inbetween villages.
   

• The ‘Our Place in the Future’ consultation showed that you did not want a new settlement in the Bourne Valley with only 18% agreeing. However other locations were suggested including Lopcombe Corner on the A30 and matching housing to jobs at Porton Down. Having investigated this option through our evidence base including our Strategic Landscape Assessment and Strategic Flood Risk Assessment and technical tools such as Sustainability Appraisal, it has highlighted how constrained South Wiltshire is, and that planning for a new sustainable settlement that is well-linked by public transport to other larger settlements is an option that should be taken forward.

8.38 We accept that this is a bold suggestion and if it is not supported by the community and stakeholders an alternative would be to introduce more housing into the other strategic growth areas identified in the following scenarios. That would mean raising growth in settlements such as Laverstock, Alderbury or Firsdown where the community told us very clearly that there was no appetite for more than modest growth. Nevertheless by sharing the housing around the growth areas

then this need not represent a drastic solution.

8.39 With 2,500 dwellings at the “new settlement” a significantly lower proportion of growth would be required in the Main Villages and the Local Service Centres such as Mere, Tisbury, Wilton and Downton.

8.40 Scenario 2. Distributed Growth

In order to meet the RSS target of 620 dwellings per year without a new settlement or an urban extension to an existing settlement, then the housing would have to be distributed throughout south Wiltshire.

8.41 In line with the settlement strategy on page 44, the role of Salisbury, with its existing services and facilities, should be the principal focus for housing, with 65% being located within Salisbury and the Four Rivers Community Area. Given Amesbury’s supporting role to Salisbury, that this local centre, in combination with Bulford and Durrington accommodate 17% of new housing.

8.42 The remaining local centres including Downton, Mere and Tisbury and the main villages within the Community Areas would then accommodate the remaining housing as shown in the table below.

8.43 The detail of the locations of sites will be dealt with in the Salisbury and Wilton Action Area Plan (SWAAP) and for elsewhere in the district in the Site Specific Allocations Development Plan Documents that will be produced after the core strategy.

8.44 Scenario 3: An urban extension at Firsdown

We are additionally seeking views on whether to allocate an urban extension to Firsdown, in the east of the district. Firsdown is a settlement which has around 600 residents but only contains one basic service and facility, which is poor for a settlement of its size. This is identified within Topic Paper 3. If an urban extension was allocated this would be an opportunity to provide a number of desperately needed facilities in Firsdown such as a village shop, community hall, pub open space, and primary school.

•  The location of Firsdown on the A30 just south of the junction to Porton Down could be beneficial. Firsdown’s proximity to Porton Down would play to this key strength.
   

•  It could be a catalyst to solve some of the constraints that Porton Down suffers especially transport and local affordable housing.
   

• Firsdown has good communications including access to the London Road Park and Ride.
   

• An urban extension could provide for a regular and frequent bus service providing a settlement could be well linked to Salisbury.
   

• It is in strategic landscape terms a good choice in an otherwise constrained district.

8.45 Again we accept that this is a bold suggestion and if it is not supported by the community and stakeholders an alternative would be to introduce more housing into the other strategic growth areas identified in this document. That would mean raising growth in settlements such as Laverstock and Alderbury where the community told us very clearly that there was no appetite for more than modest growth.

8.46 With around 2500 dwellings at Firsdown, a significantly lower proportion would be required in the Main Villages and the Local Service Centres such as Tisbury and Mere.

PO 8 (Preferred Option 8)

Above we have described three alternative options, please tell us which of the three scenarios is your preferred option.

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Last updated:  20th August 2008