R.A.I.D.

Residents against Inappropriate Development

R.A.I.D. was formed by concerned residents in the Town Close area of Norwich. Our concern is proposals that adversely affect residents in this area and the adjoining area of Lakenham, particularly in the Cecil Road area. 

Hewett School

There are new proposals (spring 2009) in connection with the Hewett School playing fields. These involve leasing part of the site to Goals Soccer Centres, who would build 10 new five a side football pitches..

Although a sporting use for the area initially seems appropriate, we have serious concerns.

The proposals include

* A car park for 95 cars.

We do not believe that this is justified. It would add to traffic congestion in the area and to carbon emissions. It appears that pitches would be available for several bookings per evening, and this could generate hundreds of extra car movements in the area. Hall Road is already prone to traffic jams and Cecil Road is often used as a rat run. The proposals would make this worse.

It has been suggested that not having a car park would mean that people just parked in the roads nearby. However, if 100 people are using the pitches, the car park is already likely to be full when the next groups intending to use the pitch start to arrive. They might well be likely to park in surrounding roads (particularly Cecil Road, from which they can gain access to the site) anyway.

* Late opening hours.

The site would be open until at least 10pm, and the Goals site shows their usual opening hours are until 11pm. This is not appropriate for a primarily residential area.

* A pavilion, including a licensed bar.

All Goals sites have a bar, which is used, not just by people using the sports facilities, but also for hosting corporate events. The GOALS website shows that it is an intrinsic part of Goals Soccer Centres that they are open, with associated car movements until 11pm. We do not believe that these late opening hours are suitable for a residential area, particularly if cars were to be exiting into residential roads.

* Floodlighting.

This could be unpleasant for people living opposite on Lakenham Road, and contribute to light pollution. It could also cause problems, disruption and distress to our local nocturnal wildlife, which include foxes, hedgehogs, bats and owls. We are told that the floodlights used by Goals are low level ones, but we believe that it is unlikely that the effect of the light would be limited to the pitches.

Link to the Goals Soccer Centres website

http://www.goalsfootball.co.uk/

Link to a Norwich Evening News report

http://tinyurl.com/corwbg

At the moment, these are simply proposals and no planning decisions have been made. We welcome the Hewett School's discussion of the plans with the local community and we will be watching developments.

City College

We are also currently very concerned about the proposals to redevelop City College. These pictures show how some of the new buildings would look as seen from 7 Cecil Road. It is clear that the change in visual impact in the area would be enormous. The pictures are thumbnails. Please click on them to see the full-sized versions.

More details

The proposals involve

* Pulling down most of the existing buildings and replacing them - generally with much larger ones, including ones almost twice as high as those they will be replacing. These would tower over houses in the area, and be completely out of proportion and scale in a residential area.

We wholly oppose any proposals to replace existing buildings with ones that are taller. When we attended a planning meeting, we were told that the new buildings would be no higher than the existing ones. The actual planning application shows that this assertion was untrue.

* Building a new 2-storey car park.

* Constructing a small ring road within the site.

The plans refer to a future increase of 25% in expected staff and student numbers and it appears that City College is making provision for a huge increase of traffic in the area. We wholly oppose any proposals that would bring more traffic into an area already prone to heavy traffic at peak hours and rat-running at all times. In view of current environmental concerns, any traffic increase is unacceptable. We would prefer to see park and ride schemes.

Other concerns

*  Ground water and flood risk

This area has underground streams and is already prone to flooding. We oppose any proposals that would increase this.

* Subsidence

We fear that the scale of the proposed building programme could cause subsidence in the area.

Comment

We have no objections, in principle, to City College replacing its outdated buildings. However, the plans as submitted are completely wrong and ludicrously out of scale for a residential area.

Previous campaign

For links to our previous campaign in connection with the Hewett School playing fields, please click here, here and here.