How to Make Your Comment Powerful

IT IS NOW NO LONGER POSSIBLE TO COMMENT ON THE EHDC PROPOSAL.

To reiterate, every individual can comment and the more comments the better. In any household all individuals can respond – every voice matters.

To make an impact, comments need to be based on valid reasons. If you simply say you don’t like the proposal, or it should be somewhere else, that will not be enough.

We strongly urge the people of Alton to unite to fight off the numerous different planning proposals that are active under different plans. If people support other developments hoping to save their own site, the only people who will win are the developers, and it is more likely that all of the sites will end up being approved. We have to come together on this and say that the people of Alton have had enough of the relentless overdevelopment we are being subjected to.

Here are some things you may wish to include in you comment:

• Alton’s infrastructure is already stretched beyond capacity and cannot accommodate this proposal.

• GP surgeries are massively oversubscribed (the Wilson Practice in 2022 was already 2,500 oversubscribed) and NHS dentists have huge waiting lists. Schools are full.

• An increase in population of approximately 3000 people will mean approximately 2000 more cars on Alton’s roads – linking up with the A31 from at the roundabout at Montecchio Way. This is an area prone to surface water flooding and congestion already.

• Increase in cars means a huge increase in traffic on Alton’s roads, on an ongoing basis.

• Insufficient roads to cope with the increase of traffic. At present Montecchio Way is heavily congested during peak times in and out of Alton, both from Mill Lane and the A31 roundabout. This is due to increase when the late opening of Lidl opens. This site will only dramatically increase traffic into the town to access schools and amenities. Other access is also not viable from surrounding rural roads.

• The site is disconnected from Alton, due to the physical barrier of the A31. The plan promotes pedestrian and cycle access to link the site with Alton. However, people would need to walk / cycle either across the dual carriageway, or over a small bridge leading through the back of the current industrial estate, with its associated heavy goods vehicles and lack of cycle paths. People will not walk / cycle into town using these routes – contrary to EHDC assertions that the site is sustainable and accessible by these means.

• There will be significant and repetitive disruption to the A31 and Alton whilst the infrastructure (power, water, sewage, etc) to this site is installed – there is no infrastructure at present.

• Loss of fertile agricultural land, which is a finite resource. Agricultural land is needed to produce food for the country’s growing population.

• Carbon emissions and climate change: a massive increase in carbon emissions during the construction phase. Loss of agricultural land also mean loss of crops which absorb carbon.

• Loss of biodiversity and beautiful countryside – the area is home to many species, including skylarks, yellowhammers and spotted flycatchers (all on the Red List for Birds, 2021), and hares, deer, red kites and buzzards. Skylarks, yellowhammers, spotted flycatchers and brown hares are all listed as species of principal importance in the government paper on Habitats & Species of Principal Importance In England (2022).

• The site is virgin agricultural land and therefore this proposal is against current Conservative Housing policy which states that building on brownfield sites, preferably urban, should be prioritised.

• The north of the proposed site is only 30 metres from the River Wey chalk stream. This plan contravenes legislation in parliament to protect chalk streams. There are only 280 chalk streams in the whole world which means they are rarer than rain forests. They must be protected.

• CPRE Position Statement on Landscape and Valued Landscape (2021) concludes that this site is an NPPF Valued Landscape to which NPPF 2019 Paragraph 180(a) applies.

• EHDC Landscape Capacity Study (2018) concludes the area within which this site sits “has a low capacity for development constrained by its strong rural character”.

• EHDC have not been able to share a full assessment of the larger site – the draft local plan has been based on assessment made in 2019 of a site proposing 600 acres which was approximately 1/3 of the size of this site. The evidence base for the new much larger site is lacking in the draft plan.

• In the earlier assessment (2019) it was identified that 44% of the site was at high risk of ground water flooding. Ground water flood risks are likely to increase as our climate changes.

• Impact to the rural character of the landscape, which is very close to the South Downs National Park (SDNP) boundary and is clearly part of the Park’s setting. 

• The A31 provides a strong physical barrier to further development and expansion of Alton. This site goes beyond the boundary of Alton into the neighbouring parish of Binsted. If this barrier is breached, where will the development stop?

• Light pollution from the site will impact negatively on the SDNP Dark Skies Reserve of which they are rightly so proud. The SDNP is only the 2nd International Dark Sky Reserve in England and one of only 16 in the world.

• The site will be visible to large parts of the surrounding district and from various points inside the South Downs National Park, including public rights of way.

If you wish, please use any / all of these bullet points when you make your comment – but please be sure to add your own words too so that EHDC can see that comments have been made by individuals and not just mass-produced.  You should be forceful, objective and not emotional in your comments.

All existing comments are available to view on the EHDC page where you submit.

We also strongly recommend that you read and comment on the chapter of the plan relating to “Managing Future Development” and question why Alton is now the only Tier 1 settlement, thus being allocated 1,700 houses, whereas the Tier 2 settlements (Whitehill/Bordon, Horndean and Liphook) are only allocated 1,098 between them). There is no justification for this unfair allocation in the Draft Local Plan and we need to challenge that.