Testun llawn:
I formally object to the potential development of Site ID 355 Wick, identified during the RLDP candidate site process. Although this site has not been taken forward for allocation in the Deposit Plan, I wish to register this objection for the record should the site be reconsidered at any stage during the examination or future revisions to the Plan. For avoidance of doubt, I have recorded this as a ‘Comment’ rather than an ‘Objection’, as I do not object to the current decision not to take this site forward for further consideration.
Wick is a small rural settlement that has already experienced notable housing growth in recent years. While the provision of housing is recognised as important, development within smaller settlements must remain proportionate to the scale, function, and infrastructure capacity of the community. Wick has a limited service base and relies heavily on nearby towns for employment, healthcare, secondary education and many everyday services. Continued housing growth in such circumstances risks reinforcing unsustainable travel patterns and increasing reliance on private car journeys.
In this context, further development on additional greenfield sites around the village would represent incremental outward expansion of the settlement. Such expansion has the potential to erode the rural character of Wick and alter its historic form and relationship with the surrounding countryside. Development pressures on multiple edge-of-settlement sites, outside of the strategic growth area, would cumulatively change the scale and character of the village in a way that is disproportionate to its role within the settlement hierarchy.
Evidence prepared for the RLDP has already identified a range of sustainability and infrastructure considerations affecting development within the village. Where candidate sites have been assessed in detail, a number of environmental and infrastructure constraints have been identified. It is therefore reasonable to expect that similar issues would arise for other sites around the settlement unless robust evidence demonstrates otherwise.
For these reasons, further expansion of Wick through development on additional candidate sites would not represent proportionate or sustainable growth. Any reconsideration of Site ID 355 should therefore be resisted unless clear and robust evidence demonstrates that development would be consistent with the Plan’s spatial strategy, infrastructure capacity, and national sustainability objectives.
