Gypsy, Traveller and Travelling Showpeople Development Plan Document

Strongly disagree

I am writing, I'm sure like many other Bearsted and Thurnham residents, to strongly object to the site proposal. I live at XXXXX and for the past 5 -7 years I've seen first hand how the road infrastructure around water lane and the broader Bearsted village, just cannot cope with any further developments and is at breaking point. It is getting very dangerous. With the heavy increase in traffic around this area, my wife and two of my neighbours have all been hit by cars and vans, as so many are using the road with the heavy increase in traffic in and around the village. I also seen horses nearly get hit by drivers on water lane. Many aspects of water lane are single lane traffic and when two or more cars try to pass it can often create complete chaos and gridlock. It doesn't feel a month goes by without an accident/incident on the water lane/cold blow lane stretch of road. The traffic can often get so bad on coldblow lane and water lane that I've considered moving myself. As it can be so bad sometimes that you cannot get back up water lane and the hill to get back to my actual house! We've had Barty Farm, we've had Cross Keys in recent years, relatively large developments, putting at least 150+ more houses in the area with zero changes to road infrastructure or local services. Bearsted and Thurnham cannot cope with more development. School spaces, doctor appointments are more and more impossible to come by as no further provisions or growth in infrastructure has been developed in parallel. In addition to this our utility infrastructure already seems like it needs huge upgrades. We suffer from power and water outages constantly and consistently. The last 10 days we've had 2x 14 hour power outages; my fear is that adding more and more houses without significant improvements to infrastructure will just contribute to more problems and issues. What's more, this site proposal is on the edge of the downs that is designated as an AONB space; where the ecology needs preserving and protecting, so am surprised this is even being considered. There must be so many more suitable areas. It seems illogical to just build and allow more and more cars and houses to ruin and pollute our village any further.