Plans for 133 new homes in Westoning approved despite traffic concerns

Plans to build 133 new homes have been approved despite traffic concerns from a parish council and ward councillors.

Central Bedfordshire Council has given the plans for land off Flitwick Road, Westoning, the green light.

The hybrid planning application for 133 dwellings, including affordable homes, and 15 plots for self-build or custom-build homes, was debated at a Development Management Committee on Wednesday (April 13).

Speaking on behalf of Westoning Parish Council, Joyce Nethersole, said the proposed access to the site through two junctions onto Flitwick Road either side of the mini roundabout is “unacceptable” to the parish council.

“The existing mini roundabout should be enlarged and should be the single point of access to and egress from the development,” she said.

“Having two junctions on such a short stretch of road, and so close to a mini roundabout, will result in unnecessary delay and congestion when traffic enters and leaves the site.

“It just doesn’t make any sense to create two new access points,” she said.

Principal highways officer, Rob Page, said: “The access points are roughly 50 metres and 45 metres away from the existing mini roundabout.

“The minimum distance within our highway design guide is 40 metres.

“Therefore that does go slightly just beyond what is actually required.

“The parish council also said that it would introduce traffic delays, all new developments, to a certain degree, will introduce additional traffic delays anyway.

“What’s not in the report is there’s said to be 56 outward movements in the morning, 15 of those are looking to go in towards Flitwick, which works at one every four minutes.

“I’m happy that there’s not going to be a safety issue with this,” he said.

The executive member for planning and regeneration, councillor Kevin Collins (Conservative, Caddington Ward) asked: “Are we confident that everyone that wants to come out the estate and heads toward Flitwick will turn right?

“The obvious alternative is you turn left and you loop right the way around that mini roundabout.

“Being familiar with that mini roundabout it feels horrendously inappropriate to me because it’s quite tight.”

Mr Porter said: “I’m afraid I can’t dictate to people how they come out the estate.

“As I’ve said, movements are roughly going to be about one every four minutes.

“So whether people want to nip up the road for an easier, quicker solution, unfortunately, if they did decide to do that there would be nothing that would we would be able to do to restrict it,” he said.

Councillor Mary Walsh (Independent, Toddington Ward) said she knows the area quite well as she lives in the neighbouring ward.

“I am concerned about the backup traffic that we get whenever there’s a problem on the motorway.

“It can go right up towards Flitwick and the attempts to get in and out of a site while that’s happening could be quite difficult.

“[In this case] it’s easiest to go around that roundabout and back up again if you want to go the other way.

“So I think there’s still some concerns there,” she said.

The committee voted in favour of the application.