HUNDREDS of residents packed into Bushmead Community Centre to discuss how to fight Barnfield College’s expansion plans last night (August 2).
They are determined to stop Barnfield College’s proposals to build a new primary school, an 88-bed care home, a high dependency unit and 30 new houses on the New Bedford Road playing fields.
Councillor Martin Pantling said if the plans go ahead, residents will lose valuable green open space, and suffer from increased traffic congestion.
He said: “In over nine years as a Barnfield councillor I cannot think of any other application that has caused this level of concern across the whole area. Claims from the College that traffic will not increase from such a variety of new build don’t stand up to any form of examination, the mix of uses proposed on the site with dependency units sitting next to primary school facilities give cause for huge concern, and the loss of amenity by closing off all of the green land would have very significant impacts. The Council’s Parks department have acknowledged that the whole area is lacking in amenity space.”
Other councillors attended the meeting to offer advice but there were no representatives from Barnfield College.
Blandford Avenue resident Cliff Robertson said: “There’s obviously a lot of passion in this room. We need this passion to continue.
“If we don’t act, that green space will go. It’s a big amenity being taken away from us.
“There’s a big feeling that this consultation in the development committee’s eyes have already gone through, so we really have to be robust about what we do from now on in.”
A committee was organised from the meeting to decide how best to proceed with residents’ objections.
The application is currently out to public consultation, the deadline for which has now been extended to the end of August.