Lemon Land discloses plans to tackle congestion

9:30am Tuesday 7th October 2008

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THE developer wanting to create a £300million new quarter for Basingstoke has revealed how it plans to cope with traffic generated by 499 new homes.

Opponents have been concerned about potential congestion caused by Lemon Land’s scheme to transform Eli Lilly’s former manufacturing site and the neighbouring Victoria lot in Kingsclere Road, Houndmills, into homes, commercial space and a new base for Basingstoke College of Technology.

Lemon Land has now revealed it plans to ease traffic problems under the railway viaduct over Chapel Hill by a series of measures.

These include reducing the frequency with which the pedestrian crossing near the viaduct can be activated from 80 times an hour to 60, creating a dedicated right-turn lane for vehicles wanting access to Vyne Road and building a protective wall for pedestrians.

In a newsletter to residents that went out with last Wednesday’s Basingstoke Extra, Lemon Land also confirmed it wants to increase the amount of commercial space in the development by 25 per cent to 250,000 square feet and reduce the number of homes from 650 to 499.

These would be split into 229 four-bedroomed houses, 33 three-bedroomed flats, 181 two-bedroomed flats and 56 one-bedroomed flats.

Proposals for a 12-storey block of flats have also been dropped and all the apartments would be in buildings of no more than six storeys high.

Mathew Mainwaring, a director of Lemon Land’s consultants Indigo Planning, said: “We are looking to put the application in relatively soon.”

Councillors who have opposed the plan have responded by saying Lemon Land’s traffic analysis has played down the problems with Chapel Hill viaduct. They question whether alterations to the pedestrian crossing would compromise pedestrian safety.

The councillors claimed the scheme still proposed more flats than houses.

One of the group, Cllr Laura James, told The Gazette: “My biggest concern is that it doesn’t make it clear in that leaflet that they will be submitting in October, so the public are being misled and that worries me.”

The group, which includes Basingstoke and Deane borough councillors George Hood, Paul Harvey and Hampshire county councillor Jane Frankum, also claim an independent study demonstrated Lemon Land’s proposal to turn Lilly’s landmark white building into a hotel was not viable, a claim Mr Mainwaring rejected, saying the proposal was “very different” to other hotel sites in Basingstoke.

Lemon Land’s newsletter states it will obtain responses on how the changes have been received locally before conducting a review of whether the scheme will meet Government tests.