We are against any development in and around the area of Capstone Valley. Medway is already severely overpopulated and cannot sustain any more major development in the area. Any development of Capstone Valley and the surrounding area will be unsustainable and very damaging to the local area due to the lack of infrastructure, loss of open space and amenity land. It will intrude on the local character of the area and cause an infill between Lordswood and Hempstead. There is already enough misery on Walderslade Woods and the local roads, particularly at peak times when the traffic at M2 J3 is virtually at a standstill, which has a knock-on effect everywhere else. Traffic is also a big problem on North Dane Way and Ash Tree Lane at peak times. Notwithstanding any new roads within any development, all traffic will still be pushed out onto existing roads that cannot cope with the existing volumes. Medway Hospital is overcrowded; it was not designed to, nor can it cope with, the volume of patients that flow through its doors. It has only just come out of special measures. It is virtually impossible to get appointments at local doctors' surgeries and most now operate a "phone on the day" appointment system. This is not just because of the volume of patients but because there is a shortage of GPs which will not be resolved by further development. Building on the area will have a severe impact upon local flooding (the storms back in June 2018 serve to remind us of the impact that Mother Nature can have, with the extreme flooding that happened in Luton and other local areas) and concreting over more of this area will only exacerbate the situation as the water will have nowhere else to go. There has been shown to be a plethora of wildlife that would be affected by any development, including buzzards and other birds of prey, skylarks, lizards, dormice and some rare bats. The Capstone Valley is the "green lung" of Medway and should be protected at all costs. Once we have lost our green spaces, we are never getting them back again. We beg Medway Council to ensure that life is not made even more intolerable for the existing residents of Lordswood, Walderslade, Luton and Hempstead (and all surrounding areas).
This ePetition ran from 11/11/2018 to 23/12/2018 and has now finished.
1619 people signed this ePetition.