Yesterday, Barratt Homes, kindly drew attention from far and wide to their planning application for Meadow Lane Trentham.  Their leaflet was somewhat misleading ( as usual ), so just to be helpful we thought we’d fill in the gaps as to what anyone buying a house there will be party to.

• Irreversible Destruction of a historical heritage site.
• Destruction of a canal corridor conservation site ( yes the whole site is a designated conservation area )
• Killing very old mature trees just to fit in more houses.
• Destruction of established and natural wildlife habitat.
• Significantly reduced safety for pedestrians and vehicles, particularly at their laughable design for the Longton Road / Meadow Lane Junction
• Endorsement of Barratt Homes disgraceful illegitimate practices, cynical misrepresentation, deceit and downright lies used throughout the planning process.  For plenty of evidence, just check out this site and the councils planning site, its all there in black and white.  It appears from a plethora of sources that this isn’t unusual for Barratts.

Those buying a house can also look forward to:

An unsafe pedestrian walkway at the Meadow Lane/Longton Road junction.  Barratt propose to widen the curve for traffic turning left from Longton Road into Meadow Lane.  The impact of this is cars turning faster into Meadow Lane and to compliment this, they propose to take at least 30% off the width of the pavement.  Hmm… faster turning traffic (and more traffic) and significantly narrower pavement.. sounds much safer than the current design when traffic has to slow right down to turn?  Will you risk walking your children to school that way?  Sounds downright dangerous.

Planning to turn right out of Meadow Lane?  You’ll be in for a long wait as significantly more traffic will be blocking your path across the central reservation as they wait to tun right into Meadow Lane. Then of course you’ll be taking a risk attempting to get onto the central reservation as it will also be significantly reduced, so you’ll be chancing it and blocking the entrance/exit to the garage, well thats if there isn’t a car already in that space waiting to turn into the garage, in which case you’ll be stranded in the path of oncoming traffic.  Lets assume you do get onto the remaining central reservation, you’ll be blocking the safe haven for cars turing into the garage, leaving them exposed in the road, on the far side of a blind spot.  Ouch!!!  thats going to hurt!

Planning on getting in/out of Meadow Lane in peak hours…  better pack a picnic!  Because they can’t conjure up any changes to the junction that will work, Barratt Homes have given up and propose to add a third lane to solve all the problems?  I’m afraid if they’d have bothered to check out the reality of working/school days at the end of Meadow Lane, they’d might have noticed that parents park cars at the end of the lane and walk around to the school, they might also have noticed vans/cars parked there legitimately for our local Trentham Bathrooms business.  So… there won’t be three lanes available, the inbound lane will have vehicles parked there blocking it entirely and at various times vehicles parked on the outbound side too.  Traffic currently backs up, but with the additional traffic, chaos is forecast.   As an aside, the last planning application over 10 years ago was thrown out for proposing pretty much the same design as this one proposed by Barratts.

Moving to the new development to be close to the water?

You won’t be disappointed.  Barratt Homes rather conveniently forgot to mention in their leaflet that the meadow contains a significant flood plain.  They’ve also modelled it on paper, without taking into account the runoff in a flood event from the Stanley Matthews Way development and are using the 1 in 100 year flood event as a marker for their plans. I’m afraid the 1 in 100 year event that Barratts cite, happens virtually annually and every few years its significantly worse.  Barratt Homes are keeping their head in the sand regarding the biggest issue… the Newstead Brook culvert which causes problems already and when it gets partially blocked ( or it just rains a lot ) it will flood those nice new houses, their gardens and cars.  See the the flood risk map and the ratings below!

One of those 1 in 100 year flood events in the meadow.

Lets suppose Barratt Homes are a reputable company and are not driven by greed to maximise profit at the expense of everyone else, then you’d expect them to properly assess flood risk and build mitigation accordingly.  See this video of what to expect in your new Barratt Home on the Flood Plain.

Not sure I recall seeing this referenced in their leaflet? It flooded four times twelve months.

In their helpful leaflet Barratt Homes make a few claims which they already know are wrong.

• “High Quality homes”.  Really? have you purchased from Barratt before?  See what their customers say below.
• “Located close to shops, schools”.  Hmm… not if you are walking.. its a long journey on foot! in fact way further than that recommended in national planning guidance.
• “Access to schools”. I’d think again about that, no one will be getting into local schools as they are already over subscribed and the Stanley Matthews Way and Wedgwood developments will make this worse.. it’ll be a long drive to a school out of the area!  The same goes for local doctors.. full!
• “Access to public transport”  This had me falling off my chair laughing!  Barratt Homes know that the only public transport available, the bus, is beyond acceptable walking distance and what transport there is, is infrequent.  They have even refused to build a footbridge over the canal, which would have made some public transport a viable option for residents.

Quality Homes lol!

This is what Barratt Homes seem to be famed for….  if you’re thinking of buying, you’ve been warned!  There are literally thousands of these, but heres a few that came up in a simple google search.

Facebook: Barratt Homes = New Faulty Towers

How the promise of a new build home was ruined by Barratt Developments PLC

Barratt Homes from Hell (“Many reasons why not to buy a Barratt Homes. lack of insulation, not correctly fitted… and a drainage problem..”)