Local plan scoping consultation

Why I am writing, and my interest
[Personal information redacted]. I am writing about the road, because it is the thing I have most direct experience of and because it is the part of this that will still matter after the plan is adopted.
I support new housing in Haughton, and particularly homes that younger people can afford. What I would ask is that new housing leave the village safer than it found it, rather than adding to a problem that already exists.
What the walking route is actually like
There is no continuous footway along Long Lane. Pedestrians walk in the carriageway or on the verge. The verge is soft for much of the year and disappears entirely at the narrow points.
The lane is unlit. It carries a 40mph limit. It is not routinely gritted. It has bends where a driver cannot see a pedestrian, and a pedestrian cannot see a vehicle, until both are very close. It carries agricultural vehicles wide enough to occupy the full width of the carriageway.
Children walk along it, and wait beside it, for the school bus. There is no marked or protected waiting place. In winter that happens in the dark.
None of this is caused by the sites under consideration. It is the existing condition, and I would ask that it be recorded honestly in the evidence base as such, because a road with these characteristics is a different starting point from a road with a pavement.
What an assessment should actually cover
If the Council assesses Long Lane, I would ask that the assessment be based on the routes people use rather than on a theoretical capacity calculation. In practice that means:
● Where pedestrians actually walk, and where they cross.
● Where school bus pick-up and set-down happens now, and whether a protected waiting area is achievable.
● Whether a continuous footway is deliverable — which is a question about highway land, verge ownership, drainage ditches, hedge lines and visibility, not just about cost.
● The narrow and blind sections specifically, rather than an average taken along the whole lane.
● The combined effect of all the parcels under consideration, rather than each one assessed as if it were the only one.
Everyone who uses the lane on foot
I would ask that the assessment cover older residents and people with mobility difficulties as well as children. Haughton has no bus service, so people who cannot drive depend either on someone else driving them or on walking a lane that has nowhere safe to walk. That is a real constraint on daily life here, and it is invisible in a vehicle-based assessment.
Works should be secured before occupation
Where development creates the need for footways, crossings, drainage or visibility improvements, those works should be secured through planning obligations or highway agreements and tied to an enforceable trigger before homes are occupied.
I recognise that any obligation must be necessary, directly related to the development and fairly related in scale and kind. My point is that those tests should be applied to genuine evidence of the safety consequences, and that the evidence needs to exist before allocation for that to be possible.
What I am asking for
● An honest record in the evidence base of the current absence of a continuous footway on Long Lane.
● A pedestrian route audit based on actual walking and school-bus behaviour.
● A deliverability assessment for a footway, including land and drainage constraints.
● Cumulative rather than site-by-site assessment of pedestrian impact.
● Necessary works funded and delivered before occupation.