Ian wrote:The proposal is to change the wording to "at least 1,000 homes to the North and East of Ware, as set out in Policy WARE2" along with "with the intention to provide for a further minimum of 500 dwellings beyond this plan period, should satisfactory mitigation to identified highway constraints" where before it was "approximately 1000 homes etc.
This now changes the planned maximum number we had before to a completely open ended expansion of Ware
This makes no sense. You can't say "at least 1000" and then immediately contradict it by saying the next 500 require mitigation of traffic constraints. To actually make sense it should read:- at
*most* 1,000 homes is identified to the North and East of Ware to be delivered by 2033, with the intention to provide for a further minimum of 500 dwellings beyond this plan period, should satisfactory mitigation to identified highway constraints in both the local, and wider strategic, road networks prove achievable and deliverable. I've posted comments to this effect everywhere I can.
There are places in the Infrastructure Delivery Plan where it's stated that anything over 1000 houses in Ware requires the Hertford Strategic Traffic solution, most likely a bypass. Which has no route, funding or agreement but will be delivered by 2024!
Even if we can't stop the green belt release we should be able to limit the damage to 1000 houses given the pressure from HCC Transport and the EHDC IDP and DP statements.