UPGRADES to roads in Cam should be carefully considered, the parish council’s planning and highways committee was told last week.

A county councillor has warned the parish council not to ask for too much for fears of encouraging further development in the village.

Plans for the development along the eastern end of Box Road and Draycott, a site earmarked in Stroud District Council's newly-adopted local plan, were discussed by Cam Parish Council at its meeting last Thursday where it raised a number of concerns to do with the planning application submitted by Bathurst Ltd.

Although the council did not object to the proposals it did formally submit a series of comments about aspects of the plans which were deemed “totally inadequate”.

Roads were the topic most discussed during the three hour discussion with nearby residents raising concerns about the ability of the Box Road/A4135 junction to cope with the additional traffic that would be created.

However, Cllr Brian Tipper warned that improving road infrastructure too significantly could “open up Cam for further development”.

The county councillor for the Cam Valley ward said: “We have to decide whether we’re satisfied with what we’re getting or if we build more infrastructure for the future but that could open Cam up for further development.

“This is one of the most important decisions in this parish that will have to be made in the near future.”

Dennis Andrewartha, chairman of the planning and highways committee where the proposal was discussed, added: “We are terrified that if we give an inch we’ll be in real trouble.”

The committee criticised the ‘totally inadequate’ traffic and pedestrian management study submitted with the application which they say is based on traffic created by the 74-home Taylor Wimpey development in Box Road – not the 450 homes planned for the other side of the road.

The study, which looked at the main junctions in Cam, has marked the Sandpits roundabout, the roundabouts at the top of Cam Pitch and near to Tesco as well as the junction at the Yew Tree pub as operating beyond their capacity, however the junction at Box Road and the A4135 has been marked as being within its capacity.

Cllr Andrewartha told the committee that highways officers at Gloucestershire County Council were “not happy at all with the plans”.

Philip Staddon, of Bathurst Ltd, said that they had been working closely with the county council’s highways department and that their plans took into account all of the existing traffic and the projected traffic from planned developments.

He said: “The application is supported by a full transport assessment that has been scoped with the highways authority at Gloucestershire County Council and the full development (residential and commercial) has been taken into account.

“What we agreed was based on those two elements – the volume of traffic created by the homes and employment land.

“All of this has been assessed and we have worked very closely with the county council.”

Stroud District councillor Paul Denney urged the council to take “a very robust position on affordable housing” to ensure that the level of affordable housing wasn’t reduced from the 30 per cent benchmark, as was the case for the Littlecombe development in Dursley.

At the end of a three hour discussion on the application, Cam Parish Council did not object, instead offering ‘intermediate comments’ asking for:

  • Commercial development to be integrated with the construction of residential areas, 
  • That employment areas be restricted to a mix of B1 (small business) and B8 (storage and distribution) uses,
  • Reviews of the environmental and traffic and pedestrian management surveys,
  • Residential designs to match current homes in Box Road,
  • That the planned cycleway be installed at the end of the first phase of developments,
  • Three storey buildings to be limited,
  • Clarification that current floodplains maps are up-to-date.