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26 December 2024

Take a Careful Look - The Core Strategy for Wincanton

Wednesday 15 December 2010, 17:13

By John Baxter

Don't be a grumbling couch potato. The Window makes it easy to comment. Here you see South Somerset District Council is just gagging to hear what you really think. Make sure you tell them.

SSDC's Core Strategy poster

And here you have this beautiful map - showing you what the Draft Core Strategy for Wincanton looks like. If anything on this is unclear, comment and ask. Make sure your home is not on a flood plain. Do you think we are what the document calls "a market town" or are we becoming a "dormitory suburb?" It seems to me according to this map the proposed Hopkins development in Dancing Lane by the hospital is outside the development area or have I got that wrong?

SSDC's Core Strategy map of Wincanton

Comments

Don
Posts: 1

Building is out of control
Reply #1 on : Fri December 17, 2010, 17:33:00

I hope there is some method to this madness. Contractors have purchased every spare piece of land and seem to be building at a phenomenal rate unchecked. We are squeezing housing into every available plot. There needs to be a balance between housing, employment and social infrastructure. There is a lot of money being made by contractors riding on the wave of central government pressure on local government to build housing with little though for the local community. Wincanton has already become a dormitory town that cannot cope with the pressure placed upon its infrastructure by its increasing population. What happened to the local community being engaged in its future. The local population is only invited well in to the process with little opportunity to influence the process. The options are always in favour of the contractors who always bid high in terms of property per square foot, knowing they will achieve their targets. if they don't they commence groundwork's, make the site an eye sore and wait it out with the planners.

Nick Colbert
Posts: 1

The Core Strategy for Wincanton
Reply #2 on : Sat December 18, 2010, 14:52:54

Don is quite right to say:
"There needs to be a balance between housing, employment and social infrastructure."
Having been an estate agent in Wincanton for 25 years I know of certain land that will be built on in and around Wincanton, but I was staggered to see the land to the left of Dancing Lane, stretching down to Verrington, included in "Option 1 (preferred option)." This land has always been considered out of bounds for development and would be on the skyline, making it visible from the racecourse and Bratton Seymour. South Somerset District Council seems to have a massive growth agenda for Wincanton with regard to housing, SSDC are currently Lib/dem controlled with their power base in Yeovil, they show little regard for the peoples in rural areas like Wincanton.
We need to replace some of the many jobs we have lost in the area over the last few decades, major employers like firstly Unigate went, then their transport division Wincanton transport relocated to Devizes together with their head office, formerly Cale House. Plessey used to employ 2,500 on two sites, one site is now housing and the other employs hundreds not thousands. Many smaller employers have also gone. To correct the current imbalance we need expansion of the Wincanton Business Park with its direct link to the A303 to encourage new employment opportunities in the area.

James Phillips
Posts: 1

Re: Take a Careful Look - The Core Strategy for Wincanton
Reply #3 on : Sun December 19, 2010, 15:46:23

A lot of the talk coming from the council seems to be along the lines of "Ok, we realise we need to make jobs too". I think the objection of those in Wincanton who know about these plans (Most people seem to not know, its been woefully publicised until very, very recently) is that they simply think the Town is fine the size that it is and it does not need to be any bigger.

Its not that we need to grow business and population together, its that people don't want the town to grow. Yeovil is a bigger town than Wincanton, does that make it a better place to live? Of course not. Bigger is not better when it comes to beautiful rural areas.

Take a Careful Look - The Core Strategy for Wincanton

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