What is Infrastructure?
Road capacities, health-care provision, playgrounds and even water supply need to be considered when making decisions on new housing development. The open spaces that make living in Fleet and its surrounding areas so popular need to be considered. If more new housing is built in the green gap between Fleet and its surrounding villages, then many people will no longer be able to walk and cycle into their local countryside (and will have to get into their cars) and the character of the place will change. The group wants to be sure that any more housing in our area will be to support local needs and not to satisfy developers wishes or ‘top down’ Government targets. “We just want to be sure that our children can get places in good local schools that are not like large inner-city schools, that we can get better health care, with the doctor of our choice, and that our dangerous and over-crowded roads are not made even worse” say the residents.
Current Situation
At least 7000 homes have already been built in Fleet, Church Crookham & Crookham Village over recent years, much of it without adequate infrastructure or affordable housing, relying heavily on existing infrastructure, GP practices for example, with Calthorpe Park School almost doubling in size.
Issues
Infills and bolt-on developments do not provide adequate infrastructure. For example at Edenbrook hundreds of homes are being built with nothing but houses. This is not good for the residents who live there and certainly not good for those who need a doctor’s appointment, for example. Fleet, Church Crookham & Crookham Village have taken more than their fair share of development and it really cannot cope with anymore of the same.
Sites need to be significantly larger than 5 dwellings to come with infrastructure. We are likely to need a site the size of Hartland Park to satisfy future building requirements for the next local plan. If there was a brownfield land available, achievable and suitable, developers would have found it by now. Even sites of 500 aren’t enough to deliver infrastructure like secondary schools and surgeries but do have a massive impact on existing services.
The continual construction of retirement homes in some areas such as Fleet means an ageing population and further demand on medical facilities with no additional capacity provided.
Although the various infrastructure providers have an obligation to support new housing developments, there is little strategic planning and they have little influence over where housing development go, so they are continually playing ‘catch up’ with the demand for services.
Infrastructure Plan:
FACE IT believes it’s time to plan and it’s time to protect our remaining few urban green & amenity spaces. All future housing must be delivered with supporting & mitigating infrastructure, with 40% affordable housing and with sustainability, alongside significant contribution to Hart’s declared Climate Change Emergency.
A trade-off on infrastructure should be apparent in the housing options moving forward into the next update to the Local Plan as this should be taken into consideration when we consider small developments versus a larger development.
Current Infrastructure Projects affecting Hart:
South East Water - Water main installation project between Fleet and Odiham, Hampshire