IT HAS been some weeks since the Basingstoke Gazette first reported the proposal by Great Wolf Resorts (GWR) to develop a water park on the site of the golf course off Worting Road. The only reported response was from Gavin James, co-leader of the borough council giving his full support.

Is this really the best site for such a development? An expected 500,000 visitors a year or over 40,000 a month, most probably coming by car thereby providing even more congestion around the West Ham and Worting Road roundabouts and on the road between the two. The west side of Basingstoke has yet to experience what the traffic from the proposed Manydown development will do for traffic flows along Worting Road and especially under the railway bridge which is already a single carriageway for tall vehicles. The county council as highway authority is warning of its serious financial situation and has already advised it has no money to improve the M27/A32 junction near Fareham to service a new town being built there so what hope does Basingstoke have of any highway improvements funded by the county around Worting Road?

Time and again we are told not to concrete over green space so that the ground can absorb the rainfall naturally yet here is a proposal to do just that and in an areas that suffered severe flooding a few years ago. I recall a document from the erstwhile Basingstoke Development Corporation back in the 1960s promoting a green swathe through the centre of this expanding town, extending from Worting to Basing. Very little of that intention has survived the test of time but the golf course site has, so far, managed to. If the GWR proposal goes ahead, together with Manydown and the possibility of a football ground near Milestones, I fear trying to get into Basingstoke from those communities west of the town will become very difficult and force people to seek entertainment and shopping elsewhere.

Brian Langer

Poyntz Road

Overton

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