Reasons To Be Objectionable, Part 2...

Chicane on Bush Road, bottom of Wood Street...

In my last post I explained how the Vineyard Farm planning application to build a country club-style winery in Bush Valley is effectively based on smoke and mirrors.

My objection on that point is really one of principle: plonking new buildings in green belt land is simply not permitted under existing planning regulations.

It looks like most people in the area don’t really care about that, however. Most local people don’t take walks in our wonderful countryside in Bush Valley, it seems. Vineyard Farm’s plans for Upper Bush don’t directly affect them, so they’re not bothered. Oh, it might even be a nice place to go for a meal, they’re thinking. It will even create jobs (how many local, I wonder? Enough to offset the local job losses that occurred when Vineyard Farms bought out Court and Brookers Farm and then Bush Farm?).  

But this post is going to concentrate on how the winery development will directly and adversely affect all residents of Cuxton.

Everyone who lives in the village knows how congested Bush Road can get, especially at school run time. It is effectively a single track road, with three chicanes and lots of on-road parking that makes HGV and delivery driver’s lives pretty difficult – especially at school run time when Cuxton Primary empties out.

Parking on the main road by the Co-Op.  Note the bus stop parking - so much for public transport...

The proposals put in by Vineyard Farms (see the Framework Travel Plan on the council’s planning web page) freely admit that around 70,000 visitors a year will be going to the winery. The site will also employ around 150 winery and estate workers.

We all know how poor public transport to and from Cuxton is. We all know most of these visitors and staff will be driving to the winery.

The Outline Deliveries and Servicing Management Plan tells us that around 850 HGVs a year will be going to and from the site. There will also be waste collections and deliveries of goods via non-HGV vehicles.

It all adds up. It’s all additional traffic trying to negotiate the three chicanes (where the road has been narrowed at the bottom of Wood Street, by the social club, and just up from the bottom of Charles Drive) and the resident’s cars parked by the shops and further along the road.  And that's without the cars parked up during school run time.

Bush Road is already heavily congested. Anyone who walks along it, pretty much any time, can see that.

Parking outside school, non-peak...

And yet the Transport Assessment concludes in Section 2.23 that “that traffic flows on Bush Road are low”…

This defies all common sense and even the most casual of observations. How on earth does it come to that conclusion? 

Simple…

Section 2.21.states that vehicle count data was gathered from an area adjacent to the Dean Farm access road. This is a completely inappropriate place to conduct a traffic survey if the true extent of congestion in Bush Road is to be assessed. Congestion in Bush Road occurs primarily between the school and the A228 junction and this is where interactions of new facility traffic with existing traffic are likely to occur.  The data in the survey is skewed because it effectively excludes much of the existing traffic.

Section 2.22:  Peak times for traffic are given as 8-9 a.m and 5-6 p.m. This is also wrong, as the traffic congestion in Bush Road is primarily driven by the “school run” times, which are 8.15-9.15 a.m. and 2.30 – 5.00 p.m.

The conclusion in 2.23 that “that traffic flows on Bush Road are low” is therefore based on completely unrepresentative data.   

2.24. Given the above poor choice of the traffic survey data collection point, HGV movements have also been severely underestimated as many HGVs are deliveries to Cuxton village that will run up James Road, or to the Co-Op, well before the data collection point.

Given that the traffic survey data is derived from the wrong place and the wrong times, any conclusions drawn are effectively meaningless. This survey has to be repeated in a proper manner before any compliance with consent conditions can be assessed.

Social club chicane...

There is another omission in Meyer Brown’s Transport Assessment.

Section 4 of the Transport Document attempts to justify the development in terms of manufacturing process logistics. It claims that the grape processing, fermentation and bottling process has to be conducted local to the vineyard for quality considerations, and that therefore the wine factory has to be built at Upper Bush.

It ignores the obvious logistical solution. Crushing the grapes on site (to reduce possible bruising and oxidation damage to the fruit if otherwise transported) could take place in very modest facilities, possibly even existing ones at Court and Brookers Farm in Luddesdown. Based on 900 acres with a 3 ton per acre yield, it would subsequently need only approximately 90 tanker movements to transport an entire annual juice harvest to a local business park that had a fermentation and bottling plant built there, with access that allows easy delivery of bottles and process consumables, and distribution of finished product.

As stated earlier, the Meyer Brown documents suggest 850 HGV movements a year in the proposed facility. The alternative, completely unaddressed by any of the submission documents, reduces this enormously.

It must be emphasised that were this activity to be primarily focussed upon the production of bottled wine, the fermentation and bottling operations would take place at a facility with better transport access than that offered by Upper Bush – and one that would not cost £30m.

This option has not been discussed at all in the proposal.

Charles Road chicane...

And so it goes on…

In terms of access to the proposed development site post-construction, it is worth noting that section 3.25 of the Mayer Brown Transport Assessment admits that the site accessibility index is zero, due to its rural location away from major roads and its poor access to public transport.

The document then attempts to describe Cuxton’s accessibility by means other than a car as meeting national and local planning criteria for accessibility. This is not supportable. Bus and train services do not directly connect with any major transport hub, with drop-off points located well away from the proposed facility.

The Outline Delivery and Services Management plan is also flawed.  It states (1.11) that 3 HGV deliveries will be made per day for import and export.  This does not allow for the seasonal nature of the business.  If we assume this means “3 per working day” then this means approximately 750 HGV vehicles to site per annum (or 1500 HGV transits), with the majority arriving in 3 months over harvest time.  If we assume that 75% of HGV deliveries are seasonal, this means that around 10 HGVs per day will be arrived at peak season.

HGV deliveries will supposedly be restricted to 6-7 pm and 4-5pm. The latter times clearly clash with school run times. This also indicates that morning deliveries will be made at anti-social times (defined as operation outside of normal business hours by both trade unions and mental health professionals).

Sections 1.15-1.21 rely entirely on the goodwill of delivery drivers to minimise site nuisance noise arising from deliveries and do not say what action will taken to enforce compliance.

So, villagers of Cuxton, if you ignore this one, then you really can’t complain in the event that the tourist and vineyard maintenance traffic clogs Bush Road and turns any journey to or from your home into a logistical nightmare.

You were warned.