Comments on potential traffic issues caused by new 200 home Porch Farm development in Kingsclere

A highways consultant has lodged concerns about a proposed 200-home development on the west side of Kingsclere, backing up views held by local residents and councillors.

The development, called Porch Farm, would be situated just south of the A339, opposite the Shell petrol station, with a new entrance road being placed on a one-mile stretch of road that has seen more than 16 accidents in the last five years.

Objectors have listed traffic dangers as a key reason as to why the proposed development should not be built, and now a highways consultant from Hampshire County Council has voiced their views on the issue.

The council’s transport team leader Gemma McCart said: “From the information available it cannot be shown that the development can be accommodated in a manner that would not cause increased danger and inconvenience to highway users.”

She also said that “current pedestrian and cycle access to the development site is inadequate for the scale of development proposed with few destinations available to access safely or comfortably” and that “minimal improvements to footways are proposed” in the Porch Farm plans.

Ms McCart also commented on the lack of infrastructure in the village that would be able to cope with the influx of new residents.

“The quantum of development at this site location is not currently supported by appropriate levels of sustainable access to services and amenities,” she said.

At the end of her letter, she recommended a holding objection be put in place until further information was supplied.

Councillor Stuart Frost (Con, Tadley North, Kingsclere and Baughurst) agreed with the findings.

He said: “I am not sure we should be building in Porch Farm. It is dangerous enough by the Shell garage already.”

He believed that children would be crossing the A339 from Porch Farm to the petrol station. “I think someone will be killed,” he said.

Mr Frost also said that there was a “severe lack of infrastructure” to support such a large-scale expansion of Kingsclere.

However, he said he would be studying the plans “very carefully” and that he would be “open minded” if the plans go to committee.

A Kingsclere resident who objected to the plans, Danielle Auld, said: “Villagers fear that failure to improve the material safety of this road, combined with the additional traffic that such a development would generate, would put all users of the Kingsclere bypass at risk.

“With further traffic generated by the Manydown and Sandleford developments, between which the Porch Farm site is sandwiched, the A339 would be likely to become a traffic choke point for drivers travelling between Basingstoke, Newbury and the villages in between.”