I am writing to submit my views on the proposed plans to build 1250 new houses in Southbourne.
I attended the evening regarding the plans on 17th January and was horrified to hear of how many houses are planned in Southbourne and that we would have about 8 times more houses planned than any of the local areas. This will destroy Southbourne village as it a small village with one main road running through it.
There are plenty of other areas that are easily accessible by road without having to dig up a beautiful piece of land in the middle of a sanctuary, which is home to lots of wildlife. I had thought that the Southbourne plan was to keep the area in the middle of Southbourne free from development for the local community to enjoy and to protect our wildlife. Would it not be better to let our wildlife thrive in this area instead of filling it with houses, roads and pollution? We live in Eastfield Close and have a family of deer who run around the land at the back of us and around the land east of Breach Avenue. We also have some pheasants that sometimes run up and down the fields. We have bats that fly around our house and many types of birds that live in all the trees around the area. We have also found slow worms on our land and we have a squirrel in our oak tree. The plot at the back of our house has been used to grow vegetables and fruit for decades and surely it is good to have produce grown locally in the village.
Bourne Community College is full, and having to increase its place numbers already due to the other houses built in Southbourne. I know that this is filtering into all our other services in Southbourne including our doctor surgery. The road in Cooks Lane is too narrow for traffic to go down and is already dangerous for the children who walk down this road to go to school. More houses will cause gridlock at the railway crossing in Southbourne and onto the A259. I am also concerned that there will be nowhere for drainage of water so are we now going to have flooding? I know that we need housing but if we are not careful, we will end up like Chichester where the roads are constantly gridlocked with cars.