1000 Houses anyone?

It was only a matter of time before planning applications started to pop up again in the ward - not the householder extensions or the conservatories, nor even the odd house in a large back garden, but full blown in your face planning applications.
So Allen's West starts to move again.  An outline permission for up to 500 dwellings and various other bits and pieces was approved some time ago, conditional on some improvements to the road system in order to cope.  But now it seems 500 isn't enough and so an application will be made for more, the only question being how many more.  A scoping opinion has been sought on up to 1000 dwellings - what would be needed to convince the council that it was possible.  At a meeting today there was much talk of improvements to roads, looking after Great Crested Newts, leisure facilities, retail outlets, bus routes, schools etc.  Whether it goes any further remains to be seen but there's a lot of money tied up in that site and the developers aren't going to be able to leave it sitting there for ever.
The afternoon was much more positive - a pre-agenda meeting for the Area Transport Strategy meeting later in the month.  Discussing what extra information people will need in order to make informed decisions and choose between such things as traffic calming round schools and Speed Indicator devices on main roads was a well spent hour.  I look forward to the meeting when all the information can be considered and decisions made.