Plans to build 281 homes next to Great Ashby in Stevenage have been approved by North Herts Council’s planning committee, despite concerns about traffic and parking in the surrounding area.
The site, bordered by Back Lane, is currently a field and was removed from the Green Belt in 2022 when it was included in North Herts’ Local Plan, the blueprint for future development in the area.
In all, 185 homes will be accessed from an extended Haybluff Drive, with the other 96 accessed from a rerouted Back Lane, which will connect to Great Ashby via Calder Way.
There will be no vehicle access between the two parts of the site, and Hertfordshire County Council’s highways department did not object to the proposals. A total of 591 car parking spaces are included in the plans.
As part of the planning permission, developer Croudace will be required to monitor any traffic issues resulting from the development and, if the county council deem any works necessary, they will be able to use up to £400,000 provided by Croudace for that purpose.
However, a raft of objectors spoke at North Herts Council’s planning committee meeting on Thursday (July 24) to express their fears about the development’s impact on traffic and parking.
Cllr Laura Williams, who represents Great Ashby ward, said: “My residents are very much for new homes. They understand the need. Many of them moved into new homes themselves 20 years ago.
“They are not Nimbys. They are reasonable people who feel deeply let down.
“They see a development that brings nearly 300 more homes, yet no credible answers on where the existing residents’ cars will go.
“Streets that already struggle with traffic volume and parking will become impassable.
“The traffic access is frankly a foreseeable crisis waiting to happen.
“Monitor and manage is not a plan. It is a plan to do nothing, to disregard, to wait and watch the inevitable and entirely foreseeable problems arise.”
Cllr Williams’ ward colleague, Cllr Vijaiya Poopalasingham, warned that there was already “chronic congestion and lack of parking capacity” on Mendip Way, and said to committee members: “Do not let another generation of Great Ashby residents suffer the same consequences of planning done poorly, and reject this application.”
Parish and community councillors raised similar concerns. Tim Moody, speaking on behalf of Weston and Graveley parish councils, said they were concerned about the use and safety of Back Lane, while Beryl Brown, a Great Ashby community councillor, said her council was “really concerned about the amount of traffic” that would be using Calder Way.
She said the community council believed there was “already an on-street parking problem” on Bray Drive, Mendip Way and Haybluff Drive, and added: “To monitor and manage a problem that’s already there seems nonsensical, it needs sorting out already.”
In response, Paul Derry, who works for Stantec on behalf of Croudace, said “the ability of adjoining roads in Great Ashby to accommodate the access routes to the site has been assessed and agreed with county council officers.”
Richard Kelly, strategic land promoter at Croudace, said: “The extent of discussions with county highways officers leads us to think that there is not much more that we can reasonably do.
“We have tried to structure this monitor and manage approach so that it can be spent as soon as the county council deems it necessary, and you, as councillors, can lobby the county council, as can residents.”
A council officer said: “Current evidence indicates that mitigation measures on Mendip Way, Calder Way and Back Lane are not required because the number of additional vehicle movements generated by the development is small.”
In addition to the £400,000 set aside for any needed mitigation measures, £2.24m will be given by the developer towards wider transport infrastructure in the area, including £319,000 towards a new SB12 bus route from Mendip Way to Lister Hospital and Stevenage railway station.
Committee members voted the plans through by five votes to two, with three abstentions.
Cllr Ian Mantle said he thought the monitor and manage approach was a better idea than “trying to double-guess from here what might be needed and what might work”.
“We have a good development here and we have a mechanism to make sure that any undesirable impacts which it has can be remedied, and I think that’s the right way to go about it,” he said.
Others, though, were worried by the access and parking situation. Cllr Dave Winstanley said the monitor and manage approach “scares” him.
He said: “There are a lot of problems in Great Ashby … I just worry that there are issues already in Great Ashby and this [development] is going to exacerbate those problems.”
Cllr Steve Jarvis said he was “not convinced” that monitor and manage would “deliver a satisfactory result in terms of mitigating the impacts”, while Cllr Martin Prescott said he was “very uncomfortable” with voting to approve the application “without more detail on exactly how the monitor and manage is going to work.”
Cllr Clare Billing echoed Cllr Winstanley’s views, but said she felt she had to support the application, given the county council’s highways department had not objected to it.
North Herts Council can currently only show a housing land supply of 3.9 years, below the required level of five years, making it harder for the authority to block new developments.
Council officers said the site would make an “important contribution” towards improving the authority’s housing land supply.
The 281 homes will include 48 one-bedroom, 76 two-bedroom, 107 three-bedroom and 50 four-bedroom or larger, with the tallest reaching three-storeys in height.
Forty per cent of the 281 homes will be classed as affordable, according to the government definition of the term.
A previous application for the site was submitted in 2023 but withdrawn due to concerns about the layout, with a “fundamental redesign” happening with the current application.
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