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.

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

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!!