The East Of England Regional Authority are now looking at where they can develop housing as there are so many more houses needed all over the region. Because we have some greenfield sites around Knebworth and Woolmer Green it seems obvious that we are going to be under great pressure from them, on top of the LDF looking where they can build in our area. (We’re not sure what the plans are yet for Datchworth, Oaklands, etc)
They are currently looking at and consulting on 7 sites around Knebworth for up to 2000 homes. Yes, 2000! That would literally double the size of Knebworth! This is separate to the recent LDF consultation. It seems to me to be only a matter of time before this really happens, so we should look at how to limit damage rather than deny that there will be any development in and around our villages.
One site identified is the one that we want to build our school on. But wouldn’t minimal housing, leisure facilities and a wonderful secondary school be more preferable than covering that field with 2000 houses and flats? At 92 acres in size it has a theoretical capacity for 9000 dwellings based on the 2006 national average density of 101 new dwellings built per acre.
Click here to download the EERA proposed sites map for Knebworth.
This is a 500KB PDF and may take a minute or so to download.
The idea that still makes perfect sense to me is to use the biggest site they are looking at (site 5 on the map) to build our own secondary school and that will only need the very minimum of residential development. All profits from that will be donated to local charities endowing us as a community at a time when we need it so desperately. (See funding page on weneedaschool.org for more details).
This way we achieve our schooling objective, show willing to have a very small percentage of new housing, and use the space that will help us all with its wide range of community green space, woodland and nature areas and facilities instead of filling it with houses.
It is very important to comment on their proposals – we should all do this at www.speakuphertfordshire.org.uk
If they continue to see how we feel they will carry on working with us, and our opinions can really make a difference. We have until November 25th, but if you can, take two minutes now!
Feel free to send us a copy of your e-mail for our files.
All the best, for us all,
Jules