Revised plans for the proposed £ multi-million development of a 64-bed care and dementia home and 28 assisted living spaces on the former Wiltshire Council depot site in Salisbury Road, Marlborough, are still facing opposition.
This follows fears that sewage flooding may occur because of the lack of an adequate sewer system to cope with the scheme, as well as inadequate parking provision.
Members of Marlborough Town Council’s planning committee last night (Monday) rejected the project for a second time after being told that Thames Water had reported that the existing sewer system was unable to cope with waste water from the proposed development.
Thames Water has demanded that any planning consent must be conditional to a drainage strategy for the site being submitted and approved and has insisted that no work goes ahead until new drainage works have been actually completed.
“The reason is that the development may lead to sewage flooding,” revealed Councillor Richard Allen, and committee chairman Councillor Mervyn Hall pointed out that there was no mention of potential contamination within the planning proposals either.
“It is a major issue,” he said. “We can object on the grounds of inadequate infrastructure.”
And Councillor Allen added that there was over-development due to the inadequate parking arrangements for more than 120 members of staff needed to service the site.
The developers have pointed out that the shift pattern being imposed for staff meant that they would arrive and leave at non-peak times and would not add to further congestion on Salisbury Road. They believe too that some staff will live locally and not need to use their cars.
But Councillor Allen still called for more parking to be made available. He said that Wiltshire Council’s parking policy had not been altered since 2011 and was “disappointingly based on a maximum, not minimum policy.”
“The figures look generous but when you explore the reality of the situation they are woefully inadequate when you look at that location and the other people vying for parking in the area,” he protested.
The committee was also concerned that the plans failed to show how a promised cycle path through the site “entered the public highway”.
“It just looks like it comes to a dead stop,” said Councillor Hall. “The other end of it has to have some means of taking it through what is currently the council’s old waste dump.
“And there is no mention of how that might happen either. So if this cycle way is to become feasible in any form it needs to have those two issues addressed at the two ends.”
Some concern has also been expressed about protecting bats on the site, but Councillor Hall told committee members: “No bats have actually been observed entering or leaving the site by the way,” amid laughter.
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