THE Bromsgrove Society continues to monitor planning applications for the town and to make objections, suggestions and recommendations where appropriate, and has expressed concern about the extent of existing services and their capability of accepting any development proposals.

These proposals include the Sainsbury store and extensive housing at Norton Farm, Aston Fields and now Whitford Road, which will stretch the existing facilities to breaking-point.

There are also plans for extensive housing in the Perryfields Road area, together with commercial units in that area and within the town centre at either end of High Street.

In the future the relocation of the police and fire stations and council offices will offer further development opportunities.

On the question of traffic, it is very difficult to get the authorities to hear our call for a proper plan, and none of the developments proposed appear to take any account of the difficulties that the works will make during construction and afterwards.

The Whitford Road proposal amounting to 490 houses will discharge traffic into Kidderminster Road and Rock Hill without any suggestion of improvement to the roads, which are already extremely busy and congested.

It is proposed that Whitford Road be blocked off and a diversion made via the proposed new housing estate.

The existing short cut from Kidderminster Road to Rock Hill will thus be unattractive and traffic will be routed via the town using Hanover Street, Worcester Road and Rock Hill.

These roads are already overloaded at busy times and will be made much worse if these proposals are accepted.

Worcester Road is already suffering from a considerable air pollution problem which will be further adversely affected by additional traffic.

The Whitford Vale Action Group has produced a very good news sheet which states its case very well.

As already mentioned the Norton Farm housing and the Sainsbury store will have similar problems to be dealt with in that just the construction work will bring a vast amount of traffic to an already busy area.

For example, the Norton Farm traffic will discharge into Birmingham Road, and as there is no right turn at the A38 The Mount trafficlights those wishing to go south will choose the only alternative route and pass through the town centre.

All the other developments that I have mentioned will only add to the problems outlined.

The Bromsgrove Society has always looked at the big picture and that is what we need to do now. We must encourage all those who can make decisions to look at proper solutions to the problems and not each proposal in isolation.

The town and district need to have in place as a matter of urgency a general plan to deal with the future difficulties which are apparent now and not leave matters to be sorted out when the problems occur.

Des Clarke On behalf of the Bromsgrove Society