Cyngor Bro Morgannwg
Vale of Glamorgan Council

Dear responsible officer,
I am objecting to the inclusion of grounds Site ID 4069 Land East of Colwinston for the following reasons:

1. The land just below the proposed development is already subject to flooding and this development would add to the run off whilst removing land that can currently absorb water during periods of sustained rainfall. Building here will increase the risk of flooding to other houses. Flooding has been an issue in the Village and remains of concern to current homeowners. Evidence suggests that concern around flooding can impact negatively on people's health. Has a health impact assessment been undertaken? Furthermore, I believe that there have already been capacity issues with the local sewerage system.

2. This will negatively impact nature. The fields are designated farming/agricultural land. Farming land is vital for sustainable food. Brown field sites would surely be more appropriate for re-development, rather than developing current countryside. In addition to farming livestock (sheep are currently grazing on that site) there are woodpeckers living nearby (probably in the older trees located in the adjacent field), hedgehogs and bats are frequently seen, and Kites hunt on the fields, especially after harvest. The site is part of the rural setting of the Conservation Area. Extending the current boundary fundamentally alters the settlement envelope and, as outlined above, this also conflicts with the statutory duty to preserve or enhance. The proposal also lacks the required sufficient specific justification (see 3 below).

3. There is no public transport infrastructure, meaning that all house owners will be required to use cars, potentially increasing small village traffic by around an additional 50 cars (assuming 2 per house). There are already traffic bottlenecks at school drop off and pick up. The roads out of this development would exit via Heol Cae Pwll into the existing bottleneck area. Furthermore, the planning for affordable housing is counter intuitive given the lack of public transport infrastructure and the realistic need for car ownership to access shops etc. This has been previously noted when families without cars are housed in rural villages, they seek alternative housing because they simply cannot access shops or services. Therefore, this is likely to result in overdevelopment and its negative impacts on current villagers, without realistic prospect of providing true affordable housing to those in need. A number of houses are currently for sale in Heol Cae Pwll, with some having been on the market for many months. In other words this development seems to be at odds with the evidence of housing need, and also at odds with the evidence of housing demand.

4. It is at odds with government policy to increase active sustainable transport. Noting that walking along the A-48 towards Bridgend or Cowbridge is dangerous as there are no pavements, and there are no cycle paths until nearer to Bridgend (I'm assuming that the nearest cycle path is actually in Bridgend LA region rather than the Vale of Glam). Integrated Site Appraisal Inclusion of this site is not supported by the Integrated Site Impact Assessment contravening almost all of the stated Sustainability Objectives within the LDP itself.

5. The digital approach adopted in this consultation is likely to have excluded many people in the local community from participating and responding, thus providing an inadequate consultation. Indeed, completion of pdf forms and subsequently hunting down the correct e-mail address to return the form was a laborious process. I was unable to access the online form method.

6. Previous site assessments had deemed this site unsuitable for development following impact assessment. The change in decision now appears illogical. This further undermines the principle that the site development is consistent with evidence of housing need.

Yours sincerely,