Its disappointing that Barratt Homes have not yet forwarded a copy of their notes from our meeting with them…  Hmmm… this may be to do with the factual problems highlighted being a little too inconvenient  for them to handle.

However I’m excited to let you know that the the Council’s Highways consultee comment has just been posted on the Planning website.   In a nutshell the Highways consultant recommends:

“a refusal on highway safety grounds”

This is a major body blow for Barratt Homes ridiculous application.  They’ve been found out lying and misrepresenting data.  For ease ( and your enjoyment ), I’ve reproduced the report below. Although we’ve still a long way to go, this means that the tide has turned in residents favour!  Read and enjoy!!!!!

Continue reading →

Update 15 Oct

Apologies for the delay publishing more details of the meeting.  We’ve collated our copious notes and will post a summary soon.  However we were hoping that Barratt Homes would have given us sight of their own ‘minutes’ by now and we could have provided an updated blog with combined information.  It’ll be interesting to see if Barratt’s minutes concur with our own, given the issues that were discussed (or side stepped).  So we’ll hold tight and publish asap.

In the mean time, we’ve heard from the council that the application hearing is now likely to be in December!

Orignal post

The meeting with Barratt Homes went ahead this-afternoon.

To enable us to give everyone a quick update, we’d asked if Barratt reps were comfortable with us recording the meeting.  Disappointingly their preference was for the meeting not to be recorded so we put our iPhones away.

As we’re now not able to share recordings, it will take us a few days to collate our notes, but we’ll share them as soon as we have them available.

In brief though, nothing ground breaking took place and Barratt continued to say they are complying with technical requirements for the application ( regardless of or any care for, the reality of the impact on the local community ), even if they did ‘inadvertently’ misrepresent their own data in their own documents..  However, there were several points worth noting which will be interesting to readers and it was interesting to see that Barratt Homes and their Transport expert denied knowledge that they had used significantly incorrect lane widths ( double the actual width ) on Longton Road and also stating that they believed that the traffic queues had been manually counted on Meadow Lane.   So…. we highlighted several misrepresentations of important data in Barratts own transport assessment documents and pointed out that no-one was present in Meadow Lane at any time to count the queues…..

Plenty more to come…..   and in fairness Barratt reps did say they’d look into the facts we pointed out….   It will be interesting to see if we get an honest response from them, which to date has been sadly lacking.

One final comment for tonight…  Barratt’s transport rep now says that they are relying on the inclusion of the cycle lanes as a fully usable part of Longton Road.   They told us that cars regularly use the cycle lane!!!!  really?  anyone seen that?  So that’s more rubbish from their transport advisor and his calculations still mean they rely on Longton Road being used as a dual carriageway….  Incredible eh?  and… in the latest transport assessment from Barratt, they actually claim each lane in Longton Road is over 10m wide… that’s three lanes in each direction, just like the M6!!!!

More to come once we’ve had time to compile three hours worth of notes…..

Things continue to drag on and no date has yet been set for the planning hearing.  There are however a few interesting developments.

Meadow Lane traffic queues

On closer inspection of Barratt Homes traffic assessment, it appears that there are certain anomalies with the number of vehicles they say queue at the end of Meadow Lane to turn out into Longton Road during peak hours.  I’ve mentioned previously that Barratt Homes claim that the maximum length of the queues on the day they did their illegitimate survey was no more than 3 vehicles.  Honestly…  thats what they claim.   As the results of the critical Transport Assessment depend on the depth of the queues and we all know that 3 can’t possibly be correct, we took a look at our evidence from the day of their survey.   It will be no surprise to readers that we found no evidence that they actually counted the traffic queues at Meadow Lane, whereas in fact we have gathered substantial evidence that they didn’t actually count the queues at Meadow Lane.

With this in mind, on behalf of residents we have commissioned a professional company to queue count over a number of days next week.  This will give us a representative count of the reality of peak hour queues at the junction.  It will be interesting to see if the maximum length of the queues comes out at 3 won’t it?

Meeting with Barratt Homes

Residents will I’m sure be ‘delighted’ to know that after almost a year Barratt Homes have asked to meet representatives of our residents committee.  The suspicious side of me thinks that this is a box ticking exercise to strengthen Barratt Homes position, however this does present the first opportunity to actually communicate with Barratt Homes officially in 12 months, so we’ve agreed to their request to meet.

Given Barratt Homes unfathomable behaviour to date and their reliance on the Council not having a 5 year supply of housing land to bulldoze their application through, we want a focussed meeting and have mutually agreed to send Barratt homes a number of questions for them to fully prepare for.   The meeting takes place on the afternoon of Friday 2nd October.

Our questions are evidence based and focus on areas where Barratt Homes position is incomprehensible.  the first few questions are reproduced below and we’ll report Barratt Homes responses back via this web site

QUESTIONS

Q1. We believe that Barratt Homes agree that the effective lane width of Longton Road East is 3.6m and West is 3.6m, this being the actual roadway available to traffic between the central ghost island and the cycle lanes.

• Why have the effective lane widths of Longton Road been mis-represented in the two versions of the TA traffic capacity assessments? (the same road shown as having effective lane widths of 7.5m and 8.5m?)
• Do Barratt Homes support your own data confirming that the effective lane widths of East and West Longton Road lanes are 3.6m in each direction.
• Do Barratt Homes propose to submit a TA consistent with your own measurements of effective lane width?

Q2. Barratt Homes misrepresent your own data in the site sections document showing incorrect land heights.

• Why?
• Will you guarantee a new version is correct?

Q3. The Meadow Lane estate is effectively an island isolated on all sides. There is only one possible access route to the Meadow Lane estate by foot and vehicle. This is the first 200m of Meadow Lane and Barratt Homes do not propose to provide any other emergency access route by foot or vehicles.

• What precedents or guidance are Barratt Homes relying on to demonstrate that it is acceptable for such a design with a single access for journeys on foot, residential and construction traffic with no separate construction traffic access?
• What precedents or guidance are Barratt Homes using to demonstrate that it is SAFE to have a such a single 200m access to an estate of 371 + 245 (total 616) houses plus construction traffic with no possibility of emergency access or evacuation to/from the estate by vehicle or foot by any other route.

Q4. Barratt Homes model of a truck passing safely through the estate is unrealistic and takes no account of parked vehicles in the normal scenario, particularly at the end of meadow lane.

• Do Barratt Homes propose to re-run the model with a realistic scenario with parked vehicles at the beginning and end of Meadow Lane and Chessington Crescent?

Q5. Regarding the traffic queue counts used in your recent TA: As there were no Traffic Sense people positioned at the Meadow Lane junction to observe and count the traffic queues, we assume the queues were calculated from video footage taken by the two cameras positioned on Longton Road either side of the Meadow lane junction.

• is our understanding correct?
• if not correct, how were the queues observed?
• if not correct, where were the queues observed from?
• if not correct, by what means were the queues observed and recorded?
• if video was used to count the queues, please provide a copy of the footage so that we may validate the queue counts. Or arrange for us to view the footage.

Q6. We are delighted to hear that you have secured an agreement to provision an hourly bus service to the new development, which will also be of benefit to existing residents.

• Please confirm that our understanding is correct
• If correct, please provide copies of the formal correspondence, including confirmation that the bus company have agreed

If correct, please supply the plan for delivery of the service including:-
a) Agreed timescales; Start of subsidised service; End of subsidised service.
b) Cost of providing the service and forecast of when the service will be economically viable to ensure it is sustained beyond the subsidised period.

Q7. The Consultee Comment for Education dated 4th February 2015 clearly shows that there is no capacity at the four primary schools in the area to absorb additional children from this development.

• Do you agree?
• If not please provide your analysis as to why the Consultee is incorrect.
• If not, please share the evidence you base your assertion on.

This week, members of the KOMG committee, met Councillors Jellyman and Follows, and planning officer Tom Coates at the Civic Offices to discuss the status of Barratt Homes planning application.

Planning Committee delayed until October

Due to the attempted deception in Barratt Homes documents highlighted by the KOMG committee, the Council have now commissioned their own Transport Assessment to get an independent view of the extent of the deceit.  We are confident that if the new report uses the actual topography of the junction and discards the influence of the Barratt Homes ‘magical road widening and queue shortening fairies’, then the true extent of transport problems will be revealed, leaving only one option… to reject the application.

Unfortunately this now causes another delay, and the application won’t go before the Planning Committee for determination until mid October at the earliest.  However, due to the complexity of the application we believe that we will get a special session to enable sufficient time for the case to be properly considered and for us to highlight in public, those inconvenient little facts, the cause of so much embarrassment for Barratt Homes!

We’re all looking forward to reading the new independent Traffic Assessment which will be ready in about three weeks.

Local residents highlight the unreliability of information and data, omissions and  misrepresentation contained in Barratt Homes reports critical to the planning application and call for these discredited documents to be dismissed from the planning application process.

Read the committee’s official amended objections, submitted to the Council on August 21st.  KOMG Amended Objection August15-2 Web

note: There are a number of parties working for Barratt Homes, so for ease of reading I refer to all of them as Barratt Homes, as Barratt have commissioned/endorsed their work in support of the application.

When Barratt Homes submitted their latest amendments, we were looking forward to a new design for the application site and for Barratt Homes to take the opportunity to come clean with an honest representation to enable a fair and sensible debate.

Although they’ve come up with a much better site layout, disappointingly Barratt Homes and their co-conspiritors have stayed true to form.

It is my perception that Barratt Homes may have gone through the process of gathering the facts, doing the various calculations and projections needed to support their application, then when they found this caused substantial problems for them ( using the real facts ), they chose to simply make it up!

In Barratt Homes latest proposals for 245 houses, they have inadvertently supplied evidence themselves that it simply won’t work!  Adding insult to injury, they are even arrogant and dismissive enough of due process that they’ve put a disclaimer in their latest submission stating that they “do not take any responsibility for its accuracy”!   Unbelievable I hear you say!!!…. Continue reading →

Fantastic turnout

The Meadow Lane community, galvanised by the underhand misrepresentations of Barratt Homes, turn out in force to meet the Sentinel on Sunday morning.

Click here for the Sentinel Article

Orignal post:

Support the campaign to stop Barratt Homes with The Sentinel outside 140 Chessington Crescent at 10:00 on Sunday 9th August.  The Sentinel have asked to meet residents and take a group photo of campaigners by the meadow. Please come along to support the action against Barratt Homes and their decietful planning application.

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 Continue reading →

To keep everyone informed and to take further suggestions from local residents, your Keep Our Meadow Green Residents Committee have booked the canteen area of Trentham High School for an open meeting.

Please do come along to learn more of whats going on and to show your support for the fight against this ridiculous planning application from Barratt Homes.

 Canteen area

Trentham High School

Wednesday 12th August at 7pm. 

See you there….

Barratt Homes have submitted what we understand will be their final attempt to get the application granted.

They have made the minimum of concessions on various aspects but have failed to address any of the key points.  Having been unable to find any sensible way to make the Meadow Lane / Longton Road junction work they’ve simply given up on the need for a signalised junction. They are proposing to add an additional short lane to allow two lanes of traffic into the junction from Meadow Lane.   With no traffic signals this means that cars turning right into Meadow Lane will block the path of anyone trying to turn right out of Meadow Lane, and with the additional volume of traffic, this would make the junction significantly worse and less safe than it is right now.

Another really interesting point is that even with the amount of spin, misrepresentation and dubious data we know Barratts are famed for, they have had to admit that even with their proposed amendments the junction will be overcapacity if their proposal goes through!

Pretty much everything else other than the number of houses, which they’ve reduced, is still as wrong as it was in the original application.  I’m afraid, the facts, no matter how inconvenient for Barratt Homes, are still the facts.

There is now a period of 21 days for consultation, during which time we need to put in any more objections regarding the amendments.  I wouldn’t like to think that they’d deliberately timed this to co-incide with summer holidays, thereby making it difficult for everyone to properly assess their new documents!

However this means the most likely date the application will go before the planning committee is now September 16th.

Amendments can be found on the councils site here.