SO, here we go again! Our trusted planners in their wisdom, having consulted the folks of Crediton, spent a lot of time and money researching the options for a link road, making it clear that whilst there were two options we had better agree to the short route or else, have come up with a third option!
They have decided that all new houses in Crediton will be built on the Downes site and Pedlars Pool and that it would be a much better idea to run the link road round the proposed Downes housing estate.
Exactly in whose interest is this third option? The planners give the excuse that it will be cheaper and that English Heritage support it because it will have less impact on the Grade 1 listed Downes House.
I do not recall that there was any complaint from English Heritage at the construction of a floodlit Tesco superstore, filling station and family pub and associated industrial estate, almost in full view of the house.
So why this new concern about a link road hidden in a cutting, out of view of Downes House? I suggest that it has nothing to do with cost or English Heritage; it has everything to do with providing access to the 180 proposed houses and in whose interest is that?
The only people who will benefit will be the Downes Estate, because the value of the development site will rocket if there is a pre-paid road serving it!
Do the planners really think that we are that stupid? They omit to mention that having moved the lorries away from the lower town, they will effectively route them all along the back of the Bullers Square, a distance of about 150metres.
Not only will the traffic fumes descend on the inhabitants of the area, the noise of lorries grinding up and down the hill will echo right across the lower town. This third route is possibly the daftest idea they have yet come up with.
Where is our council and where are our local politicians? Are you all going to lie on your backs and wait for your collective tummies to be tickled whilst crooning that any link road is better than none? The silence is deafening.
Downes Estate have already sold land to Tesco; they will sell land for the link road, and if permission is given for a housing estate their fortune will be increased.
It reminds me of banking, a licence to print money at the expense of the ordinary person. I think it is about time that the people of Credition were shown a little bit more respect by the planners and others.
It is your town, stand up and defend it from landowners and unimaginative planners.
Steve Colombé
Dean Street
Crediton