A district councillor has hit back at developer Larkfleet Homes after the company criticised the district council’s response to its plans to build more than 1,000 home at Manthorpe.
Coun Ray Wootten is the district councillor who represents the Manthorpe area, as well as being a county councillor representing Grantham North.
In a letter to the Journal Coun Wootten has described Larkfleet’s Manthorpe plans as “flawed from the beginning”, taking particular issue with the impact the development would have on Grantham’s traffic system.
He also vows to “fight them tooth and nail” should Larkfleet seek to resubmit their plans for a major development at Manthorpe.
Here is the councillor’s letter in full:
Dear Sir,
I was surprised to read comments from Karl Hick, managing director of Larkfleet Homes, regarding Lincolnshire County Council’s forward funding the relief road for the Southern Quadrant housing development. This was right and proper to enable the scheme to move forward which ultimately would benefit the traffic flow in the town centre. Funding would then be repaid by the developer.
Larkfleet’s plan to build 1,000 homes on the edge of the Manthorpe Estate was not in SKDC’s Core Strategy and if granted would have added greatly to the congestion and delays on Longcliffe, Sandcliffe and Manthorpe Road in the morning and evening. Traffic flow figures quoted in Larkfleet’s own Transport Assessment Report stated that traffic movements out of the new build would add 568 extra vehicle journeys in the morning between 8am and 9am and 617 in the evening between 5pm and 6pm. Further to this they admitted that traffic delays at these locations were above average. When the new Priory Ruskin Academy is completed 1,300 children could be attending the school yet again adding to the traffic in Sandcliffe Road and surrounding areas making residents prisoners in their own homes twice a day. Larkfleet’s solution was to install traffic signals at these junctures; can you imagine what this would do to traffic flow?
This development was flawed from the beginning. Larkfleet failed to listen to the objections of residents from the Manthorpe Estate, Manthorpe Village, surrounding villages, local Parish Councils and local councillors.
Other developers have learned to their cost to ignore public opinion and should further applications be submitted, and if the community objects, I as their Councillor, will not roll over, but fight them tooth and nail.
Cllr Ray Wootten,
County Councillor,
Grantham North