A30-A327-Blackbushes Road Junction Improvements
It has been reported that the estimated costs of the second phase of improvements to the A30/A327/Blackbushes Road junction near Hartley Wintney have increased three-fold from £0.5m to £1.5m. This does not bode well for the infrastructure cost estimates and plans for the new town at Winchfield being tested by Hart District Council.
We have already reported that Hart Council have done no work to evaluate the costs of alternative development strategies for the District and have no idea how much funding might be raised from developers for each development strategy.
We Heart Hart’s back of the envelope calculations (based on published figures for the costs of similar types of improvements to roads, rail, power, sewage etc.) show that the infrastructure costs of a new town could be around £150m. 4,000 houses might be expected to deliver around £40m of funding from developers, so this would leave a gap of £110m over and above the existing £78m funding gap in Hart’s Infrastructure Delivery Schedule.
£78m Funding Gap
We Heart Hart called for a proper infrastructure plan to be included in the Local Plan as part of our 5-point plan for change. Surely the experience with a relatively simple road junction improvement make this more important than ever.
If you would like to join the campaign to improve our Local Plan, please sign and share our petition: