Tower and Town, October 2017 (view the full edition)The Tesco View DevelopmentAlexander Kirk Wilson investigates
The planning process grinds slowly, but it does grind. This development of 167 homes on what was Crown Estate agricultural land to the west of the Salisbury Road is steadily inching towards construction. The Crown Estate, after getting outline planning permission, sold the site to Redrow, whose board stands by the Tesco roundabout. The Crown Estate do not build houses themselves, though they always keep an eye on progress to ensure their standards are not compromised by the housebuilders they choose.
Redrow's initial planning application was welcomed in principle by the Town Council, but with serious reservations. These have been addressed by Redrow and revised plans are with Wiltshire Council as I write, having been welcomed by Marlborough Town Council; they will probably have been approved as you read this. The layout is somewhat modified and comprises more three-bedroom houses and fewer big five-bedroom ones. Also the social housing is more integrated into the whole. The hotel by the roundabout, which the Town Council regards as an essential part of the scheme and was omitted from the first application, is now close to agreement between Redrow and a national hotel chain. So when will construction begin? Who knows, but maybe next spring.
Many people - and especially the elderly like me - deplore such developments, particularly on agricultural land. But it is inevitable and has been so ever since the Black Death. And not only is the population continually growing, but we live more and more in smaller and smaller units; every divorce requires one more home, children leaving home to work expect to find a flat rather than a room with a landlady. Furthermore we have a skewed notion of how full the country is because maps grossly exaggerate the area taken by roads, railways and individual buildings at the expense of the agricultural backcloth. Flying my hang glider across country, roads - unless they were motorways - were almost indistinguishable from hedgelines. Because we drive along the roads, which is where the buildings are, we underestimate the area behind which is not built up.Alexander Kirk Wilson |