Your correspondent, Simon Lever, is quite right to worry about the impact of traffic going to and from the proposed development at Bushfield Camp. 

He will be shocked, I am afraid, to know the developer is proposing far more than the ‘1,000 cars’ he refers to. 

No less than an average of 4,542 new journeys daily throughout the year would be made as a result of this proposal. 

This means that on many days there will be well over 5,000 additional journeys, and that at busy times there will be more than 20 additional journeys per minute. 

Parking for 2,500 would be needed for this volume of additional traffic, unless the developer wants to use the streets of Badger Farm, Oliver’s Battery, and Compton.

It is disappointing the applicants have not “come clean” and told us this. They have tucked away a lot of bad news in the appendices to their outline application. 

Not many people will have done the necessary arithmetic. In planning jargon, additional traffic is the difference between ‘do something’ and ‘do minimum,’ and the ES Chapter E lists traffic increases on individual roads. 4,542 is the total of additional trips on Badger Farm Road at the access point to the development. I assume the developer is keen not to highlight this number. However it is very close to the hidden number the developer has used in the climate calculations in Table 8 of Appendix M1 GHG Calculations.

The developer suggests that emissions from transport will remain the same for 60 years. This seems to ignore, not only the Winchester Carbon Neutrality Action Plan, but also the government’s Net Zero Development Plan transport profile, and of course The Climate Change Act 2020.

All the proposals to reduce emissions from transport are weak and there are no targets for moving away from fossil-fuel vehicles. Infrastructure proposed for cycling, walking, and public transport is inadequate, without firm commitments.

As proposed, this development will blow climate targets and is too incompetent to deserve consideration.

Phil Gagg,
St Swithun Street, 
Winchester 

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