Wickham villagers hit out at Welborne plans in scathing letter

With a public consultation still open into outline plans for Welborne, Wickham Residents’ Association (WRA) has struck out at developers Buckland Development Limited (BDL) over the ‘ineptitude’ in planning for the town’s infrastructure.

The large development is set to be built north of Fareham and to the south-east of Wickham, but has been beset by delays for the past two years.

Following the submission of the application, concerns have been raised by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) regarding the development’s proximity to a major gas pipeline and two NHS clinical commissioning groups have called for on-site health provision to be dropped from plans.

Now WRA has criticised the plans, pointing to an escalation in traffic movement throughout the village and the fears regarding health provision.

Anton Hanney, WRA secretary, wrote: ‘The lack of diligent planning in the provision of infrastructure to support the 6,000-dwelling Welborne plan threatens to have a serious, negative impact on adjourning communities such as ours at Wickham.

‘We have no confidence that the highly complex Junction 10 work on the M27 will sufficiently relieve traffic flow north. Research has shown that trunk road improvements in themselves increase traffic use.’

Mr Hanney also pointed to the dispute regarding Welborne’s health hub, stating: ‘The ineptitude in infrastructure planning for Welborne is exemplified by the fact that only now has it dawned on the authors of the scheme that the CCGs are not planning to provide a GP surgery to serve Welborne.’

A spokesperson for BDL said: ‘We value comments from local groups and believe the views of those in the communities surrounding Welborne are important. We have arranged to review the comments once the consultation period is over and will respond where appropriate.’