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Millennium Communities
The Millennium Communities site covers the
old Broomgrove Power Station site, the railway goods yards down to
Parker Road and Mount Pleasant Road, up to the old St. Helen's
Hospital site on Frederick Road. It's being redeveloped by Seaspace (the local
regeneration agency) to provide a new 'village centre' around the
old Ore Station, shops and business premises and around 450 new
homes, with a 'greenspace' area to be retained from the undeveloped,
green parts of the site.
The project is however way overdue -
originally, the first homes were scheduled to be handed over to
their new owners in 2003, but complications with land assembly put
paid to that. Since then, the economic downturn hasn't helped,
but Seaspace are confident that their developer, Bellway Homes, is
now prepared to sign up and begin building. The Tressell Ward
part of the site is on Frederick Road, with its infamous 'road
to nowhere'. This will now be the last part of the site to
be developed, with the commercial area around Ore Station now being
developed first. The site missed out on the first round of the Government's £400m
'Kickstart' scheme (providing extra funding to get stalled development projects
moving). The Planning Permission was granted for the
application for the site, but the scheme wasn't approved for the second round of Kickstart
funding either. So new sources of funding will have to be
identified - somehow ... |
Broomgrove
Allotments Development Site
In spite of local opposition, and opposition
from Tressell councillors, a planning application to develop this
site (on the steep slope between Mount Pleasant Road and Broomgrove
Road) was agreed in 2008. One of the conditions of the
planning application was that Broomgrove Road, from Mount Pleasant
Road to the site access, should be improved - in effect, built to an
'adoptable' standard, apart from the surface layer, which would have
to be added after the development was finished. Earlier in 2009, excavation work began on the site,
and work began on improving the road. Then, in the Summer, everything
stopped - and it hasn't restarted. The site is now in a
dangerous condition, with a risk of collapse if the excavated areas
are left as they are. The site is also insecure, with children
often seen playing on it. And the road is still not up to the
required standard to allow the building work to begin. Added
to all that, the temporarily footpath across the site is also (at
the time of writing) blocked and unusable. However, it now seems that work has begun on the
site, and on the road. There have been a few complaints about
the attitude of some of the people working there, but at least they
seems to be doing something. We'll be keeping a careful eye on
it. |
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Upper Ore Valley
The Upper Ore
Valley (know locally as 'the 'Oller') is an area of undeveloped
wooded land extending from Frederick Road up to Victoria Avenue,
between Church Street and Old London Road. This wonderful,
unspoilt area of land is (in part) earmarked for housing
development, but many local people (and your Tressell councillors) believe
it should be retained as open space, and opened up for public
access. A local organisation called Ore Valley Action is
setting up a Community Land Trust to take over stewardship of
unregistered in the valley, and hopefully take over other land by
public agencies and others, gradually opening it up for public
access.
The Ore Community Land Trust
has been set up to oversee the work
in the valley, and management of the unregistered land.
Prince's Trust volunteers have been helping to clear the valley, and
various conservation days are being organised.
If you'd like to
join or would like more information, the trust can be contacted at:
ore.clt@hotmail.com
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Sussex Arms
Junction
After years of
waiting and delays, work commenced on the Sussex Arms
junction traffic light scheme. This will make a dangerous
junction very much safer for both vehicles and pedestrians ...
eventually! The works were completed by
the beginning of May, and the traffic lights were switched on.
However, they caused so much chaos that they switched them off
again. Further work was done on the junction markings, lights and
timing and the lights are now working. Monitoring took place
until mid-September, with no significant traffic problems
occurring. And finally, the 'bleepers' have been fitted to the
crossing pedestrian controls. Finally, it looks like this
scheme is actually complete!! |