Residents in Ravenshead fear increased traffic and flooding if farmland near their homes is used to build hundreds of homes.
Gedling Borough Council’s Local Development plans show it could grow by nearly 1,000 homes, with land at Silverland Farm on the north side of Main Road provisionally allocated for up to 750 homes.
Proposed developments off Nottingham Road and Kighill Lane could add another 50 and 120 homes.
Now, housebuilder Bloor Homes has lodged its interest in potentially building 560 homes on the Silverland Farm land by asking the council for an Environmental Impact Assessment screening opinion – essentially asking the council whether it believes a development would have an impact on the environment.
Developers usually request these before formally submitting an official ‘outline’ planning application for a development.
Ravenshead resident Shaun Joyce says his business, New Farm Fuels, off Main Road, will be left “in a bit of a pickle” if the nearby fields are built on, adding, “I know we’re going to get complaints about noise”, referring to the machinery used on site.
Mr Joyce’s work yard and land, including his home, have flooded terribly on two occasions in the past, when run-off from the farm fields caused by rain once left him clearing “30 tonnes” of soil from the yard.
He and his family were also previously left with raw sewage, including toilet roll and sanitary products, outside their homes before Severn Trent improved the system underground.
He said: “[Development] would completely wreck us to be honest… It’s not an exaggeration; it’s going to cause us a lot of problems.
“One of the main problems will be the main sewers that run straight down the middle of the main road – they can’t cope now.
“The soil and the silt off next door’s field – it came probably about 20 feet from our main gate, and we took about 30 tonnes of soil off the whole yard. Every time it rains, we just don’t know what to do; we just keep everything crossed.
“I don’t see how, when we’ve got fields at the minute which naturally soak [rainwater], when you start putting driveways and roadways in, it’s going to be even worse for us.”
With the company acting as a coal merchant and as a firewood supplier for more than 20 years, flooding has meant they have had to restart their processes at times.
His partner, Dawn Joyce, said: “As we dry the wood out, the wood goes into the barns, but when the water gets in, that means they’re getting wet again, so you’re having to start the process again.”
The couple say developers have previously offered to buy their land, but they say they want “nothing to do with it”.
David Mason, 77, who has lived nearby for 45 years, said the village is getting “miles too big now”.
He says that at around 5pm, it can take people about 25 minutes to travel from the Larch Farm junction to Summercourt Drive, a distance of about half a mile.
He said: “I can’t get to see a doctor now. I contacted to see a doctor six weeks ago now – I haven’t heard anything.”
Mr Mason’s daughter, Dawn Mason, 45, said: “I get why they want to build houses, but it needs to be social houses, they’re the people who are missing a home – Ravenshead isn’t for social housing.
“When I was growing up here, I had friends up and down the road, I’d go across the road and to a friend’s house, we were all brought up together in a real nice community – the community is still there but times have changed.”
Some residents said that Ravenshead feels that the village is starting to feel more like a town.
One person, who asked not to be named, but has lived in the area for 40 years, said: “When I moved here, it was a small village.
“It’s had a lot of building, it’s grown as a village – it’s a very large village, but we’ve still got the same infrastructure.
“There’s a bottleneck at the Larch Farm traffic lights… I’m for the housing targets, but in terms of proportion.”
Councillor Stuart Bestwick (Con), who represents the Newstead Abbey ward on the borough council and the Newstead division on Nottinghamshire County Council, says a barrister is being employed to prepare a case against development in the village.
He said: “We’re opposed to this particular development, it’s on greenbelt, it’s on high-grade farmland, it’s got massive connotations on the impact on traffic – not just to the Larch Farm junction, but a lot of traffic will be tempted to divert through Ravenshead and that will cause problems in other areas as well.
“With flooding on Main Road… I’ve had all the ditches dug out along Main Road and all the grips reinstated, but we’re still getting flooding.
“We do accept Ravenshead has to have some homes, we know it’s likely we’ll get some homes on the corner of Kig Hill and the A60 because we haven’t got so much of a case against those sites.
“We’ll keep fighting it until the bulldozers turn up.”
Initial planning documents say the Silverland Farm site is “wholly” located in flood zone 1 – a low flood-risk ranking – and that any surface water run-off during potential construction of a housing estate would be managed, and a flood risk assessment would be submitted to the council to support any formal plans.
It is not guaranteed at this stage that homes will be built on the site and the council’s emerging Local Development Plan, along with its housing allocations, has not been approved yet.
