Comment

Waterbeach New Town Supplementary Planning Document

Representation ID: 167274

Received: 16/10/2018

Respondent: mr Barrie Crick

Representation Summary:

5.2 MOVEMENT AND PLACE
Objection to prioritising motor transport over sustainable transport & access to the new station should be directly from A10

New development should always put sustainable transport first i.e NOT motor transport. The whole scheme seems to revolve around the need to make sure people have ready access for car driving/parking. Recent international report on climate change - it must be our responsibility to ensure most short journeys (>@2 km) are done by walking or cycling. Present plan seems to do the opposite by routing main roads through the town centre with houses and even schools placed along side them. Better option would be a road design around the new town with better provision for walking and cycling within it to encourage more journeys by foot/cycle as often they would be quicker.

Access to the relocated railway station should be directly from the A10. This would ensure/encourage train users to walk/cycle to the station through the village instead of taking the car; another saving to the environment.

Full text:

From my initial reading of what is a very complicated document it seems to me that the people responsible for the SPD have missed a very important point, that being that any new development should always put sustainable transport first i.e NOT motor transport. The whole scheme seems to revolve around the need to make sure that people have ready access for car driving/parking. Especially since the recent international report on climate change it must be our responsibility to ensure that most short journeys (>@2 km) are done by either walking or cycling. The present plan for Waterbeach New Town seems to do the opposite by routing main roads through the town centre with houses and even schools placed along side them, which is not clever.
A better option would be a road design around the new town with better provision for walking and cycling with-in it. This would encourage more journeys to be made by foot/cycle as often they would be quicker.
Additionally I believe that access to the relocated railway station (RLW Estates) is going to be via Cody Road and/or Bannold Drove? Hopefully this is a mistake as surely any sane person would provide access directly from the A10 trunk road? This would then ensure/encourage any train users to walk/cycle to the station through the village instead of taking the car; another saving to the environment.