Testun llawn:
I strongly object to the proposed increased housing in the revised development plan for the following reasons.
1. Failure of "Active Travel" and Pedestrian Safety
I strongly object to the increased density on the grounds that the site fails to meet the requirements of the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 and Planning Policy Wales (PPW) Edition 12.
Outdated Data: The traffic counts were baseline-tested for 450 homes, and a 15.5% increase in housing density was added without new physical monitoring of the Fontygary junction.
Physical Bottlenecks: The route between the proposed site and key amenities (the local pub, leisure facilities, and the rail station and shops) contains "critical bottlenecks" where the road narrows to a single carriage with no footway/pavement.
Unresolvable Danger: Increased vehicle movements from 520 homes - combined with existing traffic from the B4265 via Fonmon - and B4265 by pass road creates an unacceptable risk of pedestrian-vehicle conflict in areas where there is no physical space to retro-fit a pavement.The "offline" paths do not solve the danger for existing residents or those who still need to navigate the "pavement-free" sections of the main road toward the B4265.
Leisure Flow: The junction at Fontygary Road is a primary access point for both residents and visitors to the coast: Increased residential traffic will lead to "junction starvation," where turning movements into the leisure park block the main arterial road.
2. Inadequate Evidence Base: Seasonal & Leisure
The Transport Assessment (TA) supporting the increase to 520 homes is fundamentally flawed as it fails to account for the unique local context of the impact of the Fontygary Leisure Park and local pub that share this crossroad
The current monitoring uses 'neutral month' data which does not reflect the significant surge in both vehicle and pedestrian traffic during the summer months. With the increase to 520 dwellings, the junction at the Fontygary traffic lights which even now at peak capacity are pushed beyond capacity when leisure park traffic is at its peak.
Furthermore, the safety of pedestrians navigating the 'pavement-free' zones is severely compromised when seasonal visitors are added to the residential uplift.
The Leisure Park operates at high occupancy for 10 months of the year, not just holiday periods when there is also added traffic from touring caravans. The TA must be based on this "extended peak" rather than neutral-month averages.
3. Impact of "Rat-Running" via Fonmon
The proposal fails to mitigate the impact of traffic diverting from the B4265 through Fonmon into Rhoose.
Technical Constraint: This route consists of narrow, winding lanes poorly suited for the increased volume.
Cumulative Impact: The move from 450 to 520 houses is a "tipping point" that will push these minor roads beyond their safe design capacity, specifically at the narrowest points where residential dwellings front directly onto the road without a buffer.
The modeling doesn't sufficiently account for the combined impact of this site and other nearby developments (like St Athan or Airport expansion traffic) on the Fonmon bottleneck.
The council could alleviate significantly these highlighted road and pedestrian safety issues with a new road linking the B4265 to this development through Nurston utilising part of the Old Port Road.
4. Conclusion: "Unsound" Allocation
Unless appropriate Grampian, Section 106 and Section 104 conditions are included to ensure essential local infrastructure requirements are met and delivered before the Readers Way development can begin, this proposal must not go ahead.
The plan is Unsound because it is not "Effective" or "Deliverable." The infrastructure at the Fontygary junction and the surrounding pedestrian bottlenecks cannot safely accommodate a 15% increase in housing density without significant, yet currently unplanned and unfunded, topographical changes.
