East Hants District Council have just received an application for 60 NEW HOUSES IN A BACKLAND DEVELOPMENT in land behind 46 Lymington Bottom (near the school).

Sadly, due to East Hants no longer being able to demonstrate a 5 year land supply, Four Marks is again without protection from voracious developers intent upon putting in speculative applications in unsustainable locations. 

CURRENT BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

An application for 45 houses off Boyneswood Road has been recently approved and there is another imminent application for 120 houses to be built on land adjacent to Barn Lane. This Lymington bottom site will add another 60 houses to the village, creating a potential total of 225 in a very short space of time, putting pressure on local services, drainage and roads. In addition, 225 houses will mean that, in line with the LEA’s own calculations, provision will need to be found for at least another 75 children, and that is just infant and junior school school places!

Four Marks is still labouring under the inadequacy of its existing infrastructure due to the last round of major developments and is certainly not able to absorb even more, now unplanned development.

This latest application at Lymington Bottom is for 60 houses on a field that:

• Rises steeply away from the road, which already floods in wet weather making pedestrian and cycle routes impassable outside the school. (see above image taken on 9 May 2023 after just a modest downpour!)
• Is a development at urban density, out of keeping for this area of the village. If you want to know what urban density looks like in reality, here it is. Roads remain unadopted by the Local Authority because they are too narrow, emergency vehicles cannot get through the cars that will be parked up on the pavement on both sides of the road, as seen in this photograph taken recently in one of Four Marks new estates off Winchester Road. Building at urban density is appropriate in urban areas i.e. in the middle of towns and cities that have infrastructure that makes everyday life functional without a private transport  Four Marks is NOT that sort of place – we are spread out, infrastructure poor and no one can juggle work and school runs, leisure and family visits without a car. It is a rural existence and any new housing has to be in the right location and at an appropriate density.

• The long distance away from jobs, shops and surgeries etc mean any new residents will, as we all know, use their cars to manage daily life.