Representation by Sarah Lodge
- Date submitted
- 14 June 2024
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
As a local resident, I'm so enraged that I don't really know where to start with feeding back my views on this scheme, so let's start with this....if this proposal from Five Estuaries goes ahead, it will permanently destroy the lovely village we live in and the local area, and essentially ruin the quality of life and in some cases, the livelihoods, of so many people. It's not an understatement to say that the overall impact on the village and it's residents will be devastating. We moved here 14 years ago to live in the peace and quiet and beautiful surroundings of a small village, and this will abruptly come to an end with the arrival of huge upheaval caused by road widening works, compounds, scars on the landscape from huge trenches, access roads, hundreds of HGVs a day passing by, and a huge new substation within a short distance of our home. We will be blighted by noise pollution, dust, light pollution, plummeting house values, and disruption to our everyday lives. Some works are planned for directly opposite our house and will be in full view from our lounge window. People in the village wanting to move are already finding it difficult to sell their homes with this project looming over us, and if it hasn't already, it will undoubtedly cause the value of our property to plummet. The proposed widening of Bentley Road will cause us noise pollution, air pollution, be a horrible visual eyesore and be an absolute nightmare to navigate to and from the A120 whilst trying to go about our daily lives. Not only that, Five Estuaries say they'll try and retain trees where necessary, I doubt very much that they'll actually give two hoots about felling anything that gets in their way when they're busy destroying our village with access roads, and massive trenches. I also have no doubt that they'll grub up all the hedgerows, some of which have only recently been planted, thereby destroying the natural beauty of the area and damaging the local ecosystems. In winter our village has often been cut off by drifting snow when it falls heavily, and all the new hedges were in part planted to help ease this problem in future by protecting the road from drifting snow being blown from across the fields. Wildlife clearly means nothing to big companies like Five Estuaries either. The animals, birds and insects who use the hedgerows for shelter and food can't defend themselves, so they'll just trample over and destroy their environment too, just like they're proposing to do to ours. Traffic visibility splays will also diminish what little greenery is left, depsite the fact that most lorry cabs will be much higher than the current hedge levels. The storage compounds proposed will be an ugly, noisy eyesore for all residents and with lorries constantly travelling along the local roads, the many older homes without proper foundations, which include our local pub, and Grade I listed church will suffer from vibration damage. The lorries will be an unwelcome danger whether the roads are widened or not. We see it all too frequently with the few lorries that travel along the road through the village now....often speeding, not familiar with the local area, and unconcerned with the safely of pedestrians walking their dogs, cyclists, or other road users. Their attitude is that 'I'm bigger than you so you should give way'. This will be 10000% times worse with the quantity of traffic that's being proposed using Bentley Road and the access roads. And if all this isn't enough Five Estuaries, along with North Falls and Tarchon now want more land to massively increase the size of the substation. The bigger this gets, the more it's going to visually impact the countryside and the view from the homes that have the misfortune to be in the vicinity. What about the impact on the local farmers, whose grade I agricultural land will be compulsory purchased? Their livelihoods are already in limbo, their land has already been scarred by test trenches, and its value has already dropped. If the scheme goes ahead, land will be forcibly taken from them thereby reducing their yield, and where underground cables have been buried and where construction traffic has been constantly compacting it, the ground will never recover to the quality it was before. This will reduce the yields from the fields even more, thereby reducing the farmers income even further. Where is this going to end? The mental torment and stress of having this project hanging over us is already starting to take its toll. It will only get worse. Where is the consideration for our human rights? All I see in the consultation packs we receive is 'this is why we came to this conclusion about where we're going to put these cables/compounds/access roads/pylons' and it's generally all about the cost. There's nothing relating to how this is all going to negatively affect the lives of actual human beings and why they thought it was a good idea to destroy our village, our environment and our lives. To whoever you are reading this....how would you feel if this was happening near your home? I suspect you'd have similar feelings to me and the rest of the residents of Little Bromley. Basically they say money is the reason that they won't take this project offshore where it belongs. Have they actually asked the end consumers if they'd mind paying more long term to make the offshore option viable? I certainly haven't seen anything to this effect, and would gladly pay more if it meant our village and the local area stayed exactly as it is now! Rest assured we will continue to fight the battle to stop this scheme to the very end, so please do the right thing...refuse planning for this awful scheme and encourage Five Estuaries to reconsider the offshore option without delay.