Publication

We submit that Hainford should therefore remain as a stand-alone village with the proposal to cluster Hainford with Stratton Strawless being dropped. There is no evidence to prove that Hainford should be clustered with any other village, being wholly self-sufficient on the points being considered and unrelated to any nearby villages.

Response from Hainford Parish Council
The proposed policy states that some smaller settlements are being clustered with those higher in the settlement hierarchy where the larger settlement provides the local primary school and where there is a safe route to school.
We consider the proposal to cluster Hainford with Stratton Strawless to be unsound for the following reasons
An assumption is being made by the planners that pupils from Stratton Strawless attend the school in Hainford which is incorrect. Catchment area is not relevant in these circumstances because :-
Out of 70 pupils currently attending Hainford School only 2 pupils are from Stratton Strawless the others preferring to attend other nearby local schools for example Horsford and Hevingham which lie on the western side of the A140 . There is no safe route for pupils to access Hainford School as this involves crossing the busy A140 and there are no footpaths to the school in Hainford from any part of Stratton Strawless. We have been informed that the larger proportion of residents living on the eastern side of the A140 are in the 55+ age group and therefore are unlikely to require access to the school..
Therefore the proposal to cluster these 2 villages based upon school catchment is unsound.
2.The statement that Hainford school has capacity to expand and is not landlocked is incorrect.
The land to the south side of the school is a private road leading to Farm dwellings and a Farming business.
The land to the north side is in private ownership and has already been discounted by the Planners as a site allocation due to long standing flooding issues.
The land immediately to the rear of the school is occupied by farm dwellings and agricultural buildings.
Therefore the judgement that the school has capacity to expand is unsound
3. Hainford does not provide services for Stratton Strawless. Both villages have their own separate village Hall and access to public transport Services, their own parish councils and function totally independently.
Therefore the proposal to cluster Hainford with Stratton Strawless for reasons of shared services is unsound.
4.The policy document states that the proposed cluster can accommodate 50 to 60 homes based upon Hainford Primary School’s capacity. There is no explanation given for the relationship between number of dwellings and school places and how that calculation is made. The current extra capacity is only 17 places and there is no potential to expand the school premises.
We submit that the calculation that justifies the development of 50 to 60 homes is unsound.
5.The poor road infrastructure ,wide spread flooding and inadequate sewerage system throughout Hainford (as evidenced by the current major sewer collapse in Waterloo Rd and round the clock tankers pumping out the pumping station on Stratton Rd) would not support a significant increase in the number of dwellings in the future and therefore the suggestion that the school could be expanded to accommodate pupils from an additional 50 to 60 homes is ill considered.
Therefore we submit that this policy proposal is unsound.
6. We submit that Hainford should therefore remain as a stand-alone village with the proposal to cluster Hainford with Stratton Strawless being dropped. There is no evidence to prove that Hainford should be clustered with any other village, being wholly self-sufficient on the points being considered and unrelated to any nearby villages.
We accordingly submit that the reasoning for proposing the clustering of Hainford with Stratton Strawless is ill-considered and unsound.