Representation by Steven Blower
- Date submitted
- 28 October 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Our caravan is close to the northern border of the holiday park and as such will be close to the service road which is proposed as part of the Rampion 2 wind farm. We agree with the need for more renewable energy sources and accept that infrastructure is needed to support this but object to the current location of the proposed service road for the reasons below: The access road is shown as positioned close to the boundary and operation times are listed as 7.00am - 7.00pm Monday-Friday and 8.00am-1.00pm on Saturdays. There is going to be significant noise disturbance from vehicles accessing the site and as well as sitting with engines running while they try and enter or exit the site. The construction vehicles are noisy and I am sure will not be concerned about people staying on the holiday park. The caravans, by their very nature, are not constructed with the same soundproofing as a domestic property and as such will be significantly noisy given the proximity of the service road. There is no indication that any sound proofing measures will be installed to help alleviate this. As well as the noise issue there will also be vibration. The construction vehicles are heavy and as well as weight vibration there is also engine vibration again as the holiday park is situated close to the proposed entry/exit on to the A284 and vehicles will be waiting to exit onto a busy road. We bought our caravan as a place to go and recharge and relax. We accept that we are close to a busy road but the Lyminster bypass was already underway when we purchased and when completed this will help to reduce the traffic on the road. The road will still be busy but with local traffic rather than through traffic. Now this is shortly going to complete we are now faced with heavy plant noise, pollution and vibration. Significant investment has been made to bypass Lyminster village and clearly there was justification to do this because many road schemes are not being constructed at present. The bypass is designed to divert traffic from the village and the dangerous sections of the road only for Rampion 2 to bring heavy plant vehicles back into the village. The A284 (which may be reclassified when the bypass is built and hopefully have traffic calming measures installed) at the proposed entrance/exit narrows and will make turning in and out for large plant difficult. There is no public footpath on the opposite side of the road and making an access point here hinders your ability to walk to the village. There is no indication if vehicles will be restricted to turning left and to village and the hairpin bends and on towards Arundel or the bypass or if they will be required to turn right and travel past the holiday park again continuing the noise and vibration. There are no firm commitments about how long the service road will take to construct, how long it will be in use for and long term use when works have been completed. This road will need to be built to withstand and be wide enough for heavy plant so will have to be the same grade as the highway far from preventing future development (as per Mr Abbott) once built effectively opens up the green space along its route for development because a highway grade road has already been created that can be connected to and subsequently sold to a developer with whoever is responsible for the Rampion plant simply having access rights without associated upkeep costs. It seems an ill thought out scheme and looking at it from above seems that a more logical route would be to follow the railway line towards Arundel and exit directly on to the A27 and there would be no requirement to cross the railway. If, despite objections, the route is still considered for it’s current location consideration should be given to move the service road away from the holiday park so that the noise, vibration and pollution is reduced. It is disappointing that to become carbon neutral we have to endure pollution, noise and disturbance right on the border of our holiday home and long term see development of the green spaces when other options could be considered.