10:52am Thursday 5th April 2012
By Andy Carswell
RESIDENTS fear a planned housing development on a former college site in Chesham is too big and will create traffic problems.
Proposals to redevelop the Chesham campus of Amersham and Wycombe College were unveiled to residents by property developer Cala Homes at an event at the college.
A total of 60 new houses could be built if the plans are ultimately approved by Chiltern District Council once an official application is made.
But residents say that is too many - and it will create traffic problems at what is already a busy junction between Lycrome Road and Ashley Green Road.
Neighbour Richard Biddle said: "It's a very busy road on that corner. Once every few months there are accidents and now they want to push more traffic along there.
"Cars travel down there at 60mph plus - will they put traffic calming in there now or will they wait for accidents to occur before they decide to do something?"
Mr Biddle added representatives from Cala focused more on the retention of recreational fields - used by Chesham Athletic sports club - than the density of the housing when he spoke to them at last week's exhibition.
He said: "It's surrounded by open space - it's not as if they are going to give us something we don't have. The focus was on that rather than the actual development.
"Nobody there was able to say how many bedrooms were being built and they were talking about 50 extra vehicles, which I didn't think was realistic. It's going to be more like 100."
Resident Chris Mansbridge, who questioned why so many new houses were planned for the site, added: "It's a very busy road coming in and out of Chesham. You struggle to go down to Ashley Green - it's a nightmare crossing that road."
Around 150 people attended the event at the college to give Cala Homes their views on the plans.
Cala Homes spokesperson Jonathan Reay said: "We would like to thank everyone who attended and we are grateful for their input on our early stage, sketch proposals. The feedback from the event will be used to inform the plans for the public open space and the design and layout of the proposed new homes, to ensure that the development is locally relevant."
He added Cala Homes plans to hold another public exhibition in the summer.
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