'We must say no': Petition against over-development of Eccleshall presented to cabinet members
Senior Stafford borough councillors have spoken in support of a campaign against over-development of Eccleshall.
Residents fear the historic market town could almost double in size over the coming years due to the level of proposed housebuilding across 10 separate sites.
Ward councillor Jeremy Pert presented a petition to Stafford Borough Council’s cabinet at its meeting on Thursday (October 16). Around 50 residents packed into the meeting at Stafford’s Civic Centre, many wearing T-shirts or holding signs that said “Save Eccleshall”.
Council leader Aidan Godfrey welcomed the group to the meeting. “We don’t often have an attendance like this for cabinet," he told them.
“It shows how much you care about over-development. Nobody wants over-development – I think we are all on the same page on that.”
Councillor Pert, who also presented the petition to this month’s full Staffordshire County Council meeting, said it had now reached 5,000 signatures. “It’s the largest petition since the petition for Stafford Hospital back in 2012”, he added.
“Eccleshall isn’t against development – it’s against over-development. It needs to be proportionate to the size of the town.
“It has a number of different problems: parking on the High Street, it floods when it rains heavily, and now the secondary school and back-up secondary school are full. That’s before we look at the potential of 1,500 new homes.
“Developers should not be taking advantage and we must say no. Our residents expect that and that is why they have come out this evening en masse.”
Development proposals include more than 500 new homes earmarked for land on the eastern edge of Eccleshall, to the west of Blurtons Lane. And two further applications – one for up to 55 homes on land to the south of Shaws Lane and the other for up to 48 homes on land south of Campion Close – are currently under consultation after being submitted to Stafford Borough Council on the same day in August.
The consultations run until October 27 for the Shaws Lane development and October 31 for the Campion Close plans. The Save Eccleshall community group is calling on residents to voice their concerns to Stafford Borough Council before the end of the month.
Councillor Ant Reid, cabinet member for economic development and planning, said: “I’m really glad to see so many people in our community and I’m really happy to receive this petition. I am 100 per cent in support of the campaign against over-development in any community, and I welcome the community support.
“I’d like to call out three specific aspects of this petition that especially match the current administration’s activities. Firstly, proportionate development: this administration is fully committed to using all our decision-making powers to ensure no one community receives more than is fair.
“This is a key reason for restarting the process of updating our Local Plan – the one we inherited simply could not continue and we are committed to getting it right. This matches the second area of agreement from the petition: it is heartening to see that our community also wants a second chance to set appropriate policies and guidelines and I look forward to a robust and useful dialogue in the Local Plan consultations next year.
“Thirdly I am glad to see the call for national government attention; I have been assisting the MP for Stafford to raise this at the highest levels. We want the ability to choose between competing applications in the situation where over development would occur and we want to avoid first-come first-served, as often a later application is preferable.
“We want to avoid over-development and the wrong type of development. We want the right houses and the right development of infrastructure first.”
