Letter: Bartley homes plan needs more than just letters

SIR – I’m writing in regard to the proposed major affordable housing development on land off New Inn Road in Bartley (A&T, 2nd September).

I believe that with something as important as this, that has major ramifications for the New Forest, it should not be left to sending a few letters of advisement to neighbouring houses.

Just a few of the reasons are that this urban development in a rural area is removing valuable grazing land at a time when we need this more than ever.

Doing so presents great difficulties for the current tenant to continue farming as so much land has been taken already.

It is compromising the wildlife and also fully mature oak trees which have taken hundreds of years to grow.

It has access issues in which the rules have been ignored as merely guidelines.

This field floods regularly and it will lead to surface water flooding for this and the surrounding area.

If allowed to go ahead, it will not stop with the one field, it will infill towards Netley Marsh.

We need affordable housing and to this end there are other housing developments going ahead in the surrounding areas.

Not only will it have an impact on the New Forest National Park, it will have an detrimental impact on the whole of the national parks in the UK, as it will set a precedent.

I believe the next stage should be to have an open public meeting. This is to enable local residents to express their views and to ask questions of the NPA and the English Rural Housing Association, the developer.

Jo Chillcott,
Bartley