Chilton Woods, the impact on Acton and points north, discussed.

Yesterday evening Acton Parish Council considered its response to the Chilton Woods planning application that was recently lodged at Babergh District Council. In addition to the councillors some 13 residents of Acton went along to the meeting.

None of the proposed development actually falls into the parish of Acton, although the village lies immediately to the north of the site.  Not altogether surprisingly therefore the principle discussion at the meeting was around the impact of traffic on the area.

Even though the site is planned so that traffic is encouraged to travel east/west rather than north/south, it is certain that some vehicles will seek to drive to and from the north.   Travelling north from the site will bring them to the T junction in front of the Crown pub in Acton, which is a difficult spot even now, and where there is very little scope for road widening.  Alternatively drivers may well decide to cut down to the by-pass through Newmans Green, where the road is only single track and is already damaged by cars seeking to pass one another. 

Currently the plans are very unclear as to what is going to happen at the point that Acton Lane leaves the site to the north.  Road closure is a possibility, but the expectation is that this will not happen.  At present the problems this might cause do not seem to have been properly thought through.

Another issue is that of the impact of the development on Acton School (and indeed on other schools in the area).   It seems that until 500 of the houses have been completed there is no intention to build a new school at Chilton Woods.  It is understood that children will be accommodated by the erection of temporary classrooms at nearby schools.  This is all very well, but I do wonder if this is as easy as it sounds, particularly given the fact that Chilton Woods is not the only new housing proposed in the area.

There has been a good deal of criticism about the sheer size of the application….there are apparently some 154 separate documents available to view on the Babergh website.   The paperwork is however reasonably well indexed, and we did not have too much trouble finding what we needed.

However, the Sudbury Society has produced a short guide to the application and I have an electronic copy.   If anyone would like one please let me know.