WHILE most attention was focussed on the stadium debate at Wycombe District Council’s July Cabinet meeting, fewer people noticed that the council appeared to be giving its blessing at the same meeting to the construction of over 500 new houses in one of the most peaceful and rural parts of our town.

RAF Daws Hill is currently being offered for sale to developers by the Ministry of Defence, and a new residents’ association, Daws Hill Residents, has been formed to protect the interests of the local community.

Access to the huge new development – likened by one local councillor to a new village – would be obtained via Daws Hill Lane, a charming tree-lined country lane for most of the time, but one which turns itself into a nightmare of traffic at peak periods and school delivery and collection times.

Anyone who has experienced the local roads at such times will know that they cannot take any more traffic, let alone a development more than twice the size of the existing local community.

Daws Hill Residents will therefore be very active in the coming months, holding district and county council representatives to account and seeking early meetings with any prospective developers to let them know what will, and what will not, be acceptable locally.

We will keep the BFP appraised of developments and we urge not only local residents, whose peaceful existence is at stake, but also anyone who has been caught up in the dangerous daily traffic chaos in this area, to support us.

Angus Laidlaw, Chairman, Daws Hill Residents Association