Cookham Parish Council has resolved to take its ‘last chance’ to fight back against an influx of 200 new homes in the village.

At a meeting on Tuesday evening, the parish council and a score of Cookham residents discussed their disquiet about two applications totalling 200 homes on Cannondown Road.

The application by Bellway Homes, are sketched in for an open field north of Lower Mount Farm (known under the site name AL37 in the Borough Local Plan).

Cookham Parish Council has been against this from the beginning – fighting the housing allocation at the Local Plan level and later criticising the developer’s masterplan for the site.

Interesting that in the master plan document, to make this appalling development look better, they've shaded out all the housing to a pale white so you can't see just how awful and built up the area will look.

Have a look at page 23 -

https://www.rbwm.gov.uk/home/planning-and-building-control/planning-policy/planning-guidance/approved-stakeholder-masterplan-documents-smds/land-west-cannondown-road

It won't look like that at all so the plan is deliberately misleading.

All that extra traffic onto busy roads used by our secondary school children where the village has already suffered a terrible fatality. Extra traffic onto Whyteladyes Lane near a corner that already has problems is just going to increase the probability of more accidents. Extra traffic trying to squeeze through the pinch point under the railway bridge.

Increased pressure on the drainage system at a point in time where climate change is causing more frequent and more severe flooding.

They will say that the plans will include help for local services (schools, medical centre, dentist etc) but those services are already at breaking point.

The environmental impact of once again building on countyside rather than looking for conversion of brown field sites into smaller developments.

How can we help the parish council?

The access looks horrific, particularly via Arthur Close onto that nasty corner on Whyteladyes. I thought our Borough Councillors were against the idea but I am not sure if they know how to stop it.