'Can this be allowed?' Petition opposing planned housing developments in Eccleshall passes 600 signatures

Those proposals include more than 500 new homes earmarked for land on the eastern edge of Eccleshall, to the west of Blurtons Lane. Earlier this year representatives from Bloor Homes, Sulis Public Affairs and Pegasus Planning attended a meeting of Eccleshall Parish Council’s planning committee to give a presentation.

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The petition reads: "The town of Eccleshall has grown by 350 homes in the last ten years and now has just over 1,500 homes, with a primary school, secondary feeder school and doctors surgery at capacity, and a high street that lacks car parking and navigating the high street can be difficult.

"Eccleshall is still seen as one of the best market towns in Staffordshire on a regular basis for its charm, individual house design and High Street, amongst other things.

"However with the prospect of four major housebuilders putting in planning applications for over 1,000 new homes across six different sites, this threatens over-development by destroying many of the elements that make Eccleshall one of the best places to live in Staffordshire, providing little new infrastructure to counter-act the potential growth in population and changing permanently the way the town has developed over centuries.

"If massive-scale development goes on unchecked it will ruin the historic settlement of Eccleshall."

The petition calls on Stafford Borough Council, Staffordshire County Council, Stafford and Eccleshall's MPs and statutory planning consultees to 'think again' regarding their proposals to ensure they do not "undermine the very fabric of the communities".

Eccleshall resident and local business owner Martin Peet said: “In Eccleshall we had approximately 950 houses six years ago and now we have over 1,500. This amount of building in Eccleshall would or could make Eccleshall three times its size in almost 10 years. Can this be allowed?

“It takes three weeks to get a doctor’s appointment, there are no spaces at the school to cater for growth, we have perpetual flooding in the town, congestion at peak times is getting worse with tailbacks at each entry road and there is very little parking in Eccleshall to accommodate the current population.

"As an owner of three businesses in the town, most would say that I welcome this amount of mass development in Eccleshall; this is not true, I actually deplore the thought and ruination of the pure fabric of our town that currently sits in one of the top places to live as stated by a couple of national tabloids.

“This will no longer be should we see the cannibalisation of our quaint town by trebling its size in 10 years. Promises of health centres, schools remembrance gardens and alike just don’t wash when you consider the extra pressures that this will put on our small ‘village-like’ town.

“How can it even be legal to increase a town’s population and housing by three times in 10 years? It’s just not sustainable and grossly unfair.

“Some of the proposed developments will be that far away from the centre of the town that the residents would have to drive into town to shop. With 1,500 extra houses this could add another 2,000 cars that could descend into the town everyday, when we currently have so little parking and the High Street is regularly snarled up – imagine the devastation this will bring to Eccleshall.”