RESIDENTS have acted with incredulity to claims from the council that improved bus services, additional traffic lights and road humps on side roads will counter the impact of extra traffic generated by building 650 new homes off Cock Lane and Hammersley Lane, Tylers Green.
Last month Buckinghamshire Council approved Taylor Wimpey’s plan for 544 houses, a new school and employment buildings in the Gomm Valley, provided certain conditions were met.
In October the council approved plans for another developer to build 106 houses off Ashwells at the top end of the valley.
Last year a Government planning inspector threw out Taylor Wimpey’s Gomm Valley scheme because he said the computer model used to predict future traffic flows showed that junctions on the A40 London Road would be overwhelmed by the additional traffic, bringing the already congested road to a standstill.
In response Taylor Wimpey commissioned another type of traffic modelling exercise, saying it was more accurate and covered a wider area. That model, it said, showed that traffic jams would be nothing like as bad as first predicted.
The council’s highways department commissioned its own traffic modelling and more or less came to the same conclusion, although the department is insisting that more traffic lights on the A40, moves to stop vehicles taking short cuts on side roads and an improved bus service are also needed.
Buckinghamshire Council refuses to publish comments submitted by the public on the issue, claiming they could breach privacy laws.
However redacted copies of the letters, viewed following a Freedom of Information request, shows that hundreds of people complained that the traffic situation in the area is already dire and common sense dictates the addition of a vast new development would only make it worse.
But most councillors, developers and planners preferred to believe the computer predictions.
*In the 1990s Heathrow Airport produced an elaborate traffic prediction model that convinced the Government that by adding an extra lane to the M25 by the airport plus increasing bus services would ensure traffic jams would ease if Terminal 5 was built. Time proved that prediction wrong.
How the Gomm Valley will be developed…
TAYLOR WIMPEY has received full planning permission to build what’s termed Parcel 1 in the illustration below. It hopes to begin building work in May and complete it by September next year.
It has obtained outline planning permission for the rest of the valley so more detailed plans will need to be submitted. It hopes to complete building work in the entire valley by 2033.
Here’s how Taylor Wimpey envisages its development (above), looking north towards Penn and Tylers Green. Hammersley Lane is on the right. Gomm Road is in the centre, alongside the area marked Parcel 2, with an extended spine road twisting through the development and ending at the Tylers Green end of Cock Lane. Cock Lane itself is on the left of the image.
Here’s Taylor Wimpey’s overview, with Parcels 7 and 8 at the top of the image running alongside Cock Lane in Tylers Green. The land north of Parcel 8, at the top, is where the new Ashwells development in Tylers Green will be.
And here’s Taylor Wimpey’s illustration of how the development will look from Hammersley Lane, retaining ancient woodland and the Site of Scientific Significance (SSSI), albeit abutting housing.
Bowing to the inevitable: the final chapter of the Gomm Valley saga. See special report at the end of this blog
Council to decide if Penn shop can sell alcohol for 16 hours a day
UPDATE, 8 JANUARY – The licence has been approved.
COUNCILLORS will meet this month to decide if the former village shop in School Road, Tylers Green can be granted a licence to sell alcohol following a number of representations. It’s assumed the “representations” mean that some people have complained.
The shop, formerly called The Village Shop on the Green, closed last March and has now been taken over by a new company, KAS Retail Connect Penn.
Satsoroopan Kandasamy, the director of the company, plans to open the shop as a general store from 6am to 10pm Monday to Saturday and from 7am to 9.30pm on Sundays. He also wants to sell alcohol during those hours.
In his application Mr Kandasamy says CCTV will be installed covering key areas, including the alcohol section and entrance and exit points. A strict policy will be enforced to prevent underage sales of alcohol and no super-strength lagers or ciders will be sold “if deemed necessary to prevent alcohol-related disorder.”
He adds: “Signage will be displayed asking customers to respect neighbours and leave quietly. Litter bins will be provided near the entrance to prevent littering. A policy will be in place to refuse alcohol sales to intoxicated or disorderly individuals.”
The previous owners had a licence to sell alcohol and did not encounter any apparent problems. The Co-op in Rose Avenue is allowed to sell alcohol seven days a week from 7am to 10pm while Kings Ride supermarket in Tylers Green has a licence to sell alcohol from 7am to 8pm Monday to Saturday and 7.30am to 6pm on Sundays.
Local news
Farewell Andreas – The death occurred last month of Andreas Latta, of Cock Lane, Tylers Green, who contributed so much to the sporting and social life of the village for over 30 years. Andreas, a German national, was a passionate and knowledgeable football supporter who was vice-president and secretary of Penn and Tylers Green Football Club and particularly keen on coaching youngsters and developing women’s football at the club. He also loved cricket and was a former treasurer of Penn and Tylers Green Cricket Club.
Andreas, who was 70 when he died shortly after Christmas, played an active role in a number of village activities over the years as a former member of the residents’ association committee and chairman of the trustees of the Penn and Tylers Green War Memorial charity, a charity established after the First World War when what is now the cricket ground was donated to the village for the recreational use of people in Penn and Tylers Green. He leaves his wife Geraldine and two sons Kieran and Connor.
Pub hit by power cut – A small area of Penn Street was without electricity for much of Christmas Day following a power cut. Victims included the Squirrel pub which had to cancel Christmas dinner for people who had pre-booked. Landlords Nathan Kinsey and Jo Kemp were praised by locals for the way they coped. They offered a full refund for the £100 meal and gave away the food they had bought in for their customers to cook at home if they wished.
Village pond progress – Parish councillors from both Penn and Tylers Green have agreed to work on a management plan for Widmer Pond on the common following a report by a specialist saying that in order to prevent the fish deaths that occurred during last year’s hot weather a permanent water aerator would be needed. That, however, would require power being fed to the side of the pond. The boundary between Penn and Tylers Green runs through the middle of the pond.
Flooding dilemma – The regular flooding outside the Rose Avenue shops (pictured above), which swamps the footpaths and the road, is to be investigated by specialist engineers. The council says the drains have been cleared several times but the problem recurs so it seems there is a bigger issue. Local councillor Catherine Oliver warned however that the probe is unlikely to be a top priority as the flooding does not affect homes.
Driving test delays – In a House of Commons debate about lack of driving test slots, Penn’s MP Sarah Green (Lib Dem Chesham and Amersham) said one of her constituents travelled 200 miles to Rochdale in Lancashire in order to take a test because none were available locally.
Mega scouts camp – Up to 5,000 Buckinghamshire scouts are expected to converge on the Penn House estate in May for their annual spring camp.
New gong – Penn resident Gabby Logan was awarded an OBE in the New Year Honours to add to her MBE for services to sport broadcasting and charity.
SEND soccer – Penn and Tylers Green Football Club has launched a free hour long football session on Saturday mornings for children with special educational needs. The emphasis is on fun for five to 11 year olds and takes place at Tylers Green Middle School. For details see this link: https://ptgfc.co.uk/comets-inclusive-fc
Former pub plan – A plan to demolish Sportsman’s Cottage in Beacon Hill, Penn – on the site of the former Sportsman and Dog pub – has been submitted. The plan envisages building a slightly larger modern looking property incorporating a basement.
Infilling approved – A second attempt to build a house in the grounds of 34 Coppice Farm Road, Tylers Green, has been approved by planners despite objections from the parish council that it would amount to over-development.
Tidying up – Winter work in the village being undertaken by council maintenance teams include the dredging of Widmer Pond on the common and Wash Pond in Beacon Hill; the replacement of posts throughout the common; the opening up of glades in King’s Wood and the creation of a new allotment off Ashley Drive.
Memorial revived – Lettering on the Tylers Green war memorial in St Margaret’s churchyard is to be repainted in the spring following its recent renovation.
Successful fund-raisers – Actor Charlie Quirke, pictured above, raised an amazing £273,000 (including Gift Aid) for Alzheimer’s Research UK in a sponsored walk which ended at Bourne End marina before he returned to his mum Pauline’s Penn home last month.
Elsewhere, a Christmas tree festival at Penn’s Holy Trinity Church last month raised at least £450 for Guts UK, a charity helping people with digestive problems. The children’s charity Emmett’s Genies has so far received £436 from people in the village who wanted to thank the scouts for their free Christmas card delivery service, while Penn and Tylers Green Football Club’s darts team raised £1,400 for Macmillan Cancer Support at a marathon darts session.
Penn patient group wins national award
THE PATIENT participation group for the Simpson Centre and Penn Surgery has been named as one of the best in the country.
The group won an award presented by the National Association for Patient Participation, sharing top spot with a group in Balham in south London.
The volunteers were congratulated for their contribution to the improvement in the quality of care and patient experience in the past year.
They organise health events, provide regular newsletters and work with surgery staff and others to ensure patients hear about the latest health-related issues and developments at the surgery.
The award rounded off a satisfying year for the Simpson Centre in Beaconsfield and its attendant surgery in Penn. They were judged outstanding following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission and the surgery’s James Perrin won the Practice Manager of the Year award.
Earlier, in a patients survey conducted by the NHS, both Simpson Centre/Penn Surgery and the village’s other main surgery, Highfield, were voted in the top five in Buckinghamshire for patient satisfaction.
Made in Penn. Made to last.
SITTING inconspicuously below the orange and black stones at the top of the picture lies a remarkable survivor.
It’s part of a floor tile, designed and produced here in Penn nearly 650 years ago, probably for one of London’s finest buildings.
It’s thought it is one of thousands of Penn tiles laid on the floor of Baynard’s Castle when the castle was being transformed into a grand riverside palace by Edward III. In Tudor times Henry VIII used it as the official London home for his wives, so it may well have been danced on by any of those illustrious women.
It met its end, along with the rest of the palace, in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and was dumped into the Thames by the demolition men at the time.
But it re-emerged just a little worse for wear a few weeks ago after spending 350 years in the river. A sharp-eyed mudlarker – those with a licence to scavenge the foreshore of the Thames for relics – saw it laying just as it is in the picture above on the foreshore by St Paul’s.
It is now being cleaned up and studied by experts to see if they can discover exactly where it was laid. But from the design they know for certain that it’s a Penn tile.
Penn, of course, made its name and its fortune from the high quality tiles it produced in the 14th century. And Tylers Green owes its very name to the potters and kilns scattered around this area at the time.
A Chep of the old block
OFFICIALLY, High Wycombe celebrates its 80th birthday this year.
The town had been known as High Wycombe for many years but until 1946 its council was called Chepping Wycombe Borough Council. It took an Act of Parliament passed in August 1946 for it to officially become High Wycombe Borough Council.
The name change wasn’t universally welcomed. The borough had been known as Chepping Wycombe for hundreds of years – Chepping being an Anglo-Saxon term for market – and many thought the ancient name should be kept.
However all was not lost. Chepping Wycombe remains today in the form of Chepping Wycombe Parish Council, which covers Tylers Green, Flackwell Heath and Loudwater.
*Talking of anniversaries it was 300 years ago this year that a chap called Daniel Baker, who lived in a mansion in Penn in what was then an unnamed road, decided the approach to his home needed to be a little grander. So he planted a series of elms alongside the rough road leading to his house which then became known – and is still known today, alas without elms – as Elm Road.
Year long disruption as HS2 ploughs on and on and on…
THERE WILL be more disruption from the building of HS2 in Buckinghamshire this year as the company resets the construction schedule.
New HS2 boss Mark Wild, who injected realism and efficiency into London’s Elizabeth Line project when it fell behind schedule and overspent its budget, unsurprisingly discovered similar chaos when he looked at HS2.
He realised some parts of the Birmingham to London high speed rail project were ahead of schedule, while other parts – including in Buckinghamshire – were behind.
So, in a dramatic rescheduling of the work, HS2 is prioritising a 50 mile section of the line from Wendover to near Birmingham. The company aims to complete that section quickly so it can test run trains and other systems while they then work on completing the rest.
It means that when they do open the entire London to Birmingham Line in around eight years time they can begin running trains straight away rather than spend months testing various systems.
Meanwhile, this month a fleet of bulldozers will begin carving out a deep mile-long cutting and diverting access roads in the Chilterns Natural Landscape near Great Missenden, which will take all year to complete. It means three public rights of way across the Chilterns will be closed and a long diversion created via South Heath.
Regional news
Royal rock – The King has given permission for an inaugural music festival to be held in Windsor’s Long Walk this summer with Windsor Castle as a backdrop. Keith Duffy and Brian McFadden, from Boyzone and Westlife, have already been booked along with Chesney Hawkes. The event will benefit local charities.
Big brother – Thames Valley Police has acquired its first vehicles equipped with cameras that can identify people by scanning crowds. The force says it will help quickly identify suspects, locate “people of interest” and help find missing people. The Live Facial Recognition vans have been criticised by some civil liberties groups.
Wildlife alert – Wildlife conservationists are on high alert after 10 geese died from bird flu in neighbouring Hertfordshire last month. If you spot dead wild birds please contact Defra, the Department for Rural Affairs, on 03459 335577 or online.
Just the ticket – Chiltern Railways extended contactless card pay-as-you-go technology to nine stations last month, including Aylesbury, Princes Risborough, Great Missenden, Wendover and Stoke Mandeville.
Airport improvements – Heathrow begins a five year refurbishment of Terminal 4 this month which includes a new check-in area and an additional multi-storey car park. In Terminal 2 a new dedicated baggage-handling system is being installed, while on the airfield a new AI assisted system should be operational by the end of the year which it is hoped will speed up turnaround times between flights.
Fido’s finds – A swoop by trading standards officers using a dog trained to sniff out tobacco discovered that two shops – one in High Wycombe and another in Chesham – were selling illegal tobacco and vapes. Prosecutions are pending.
Spade work – Buckinghamshire is falling behind in its mission to plant over half a million trees in the county by 2030. By the half-way stage of the project 216,000 have been planted on council land including 14,700 at Grange Farm Wood in Hazlemere. In addition, private landowners are also engaged in mass tree planting exercises.
On your marks – Buckinghamshire Council has acquired 25 new gritting lorries to work on the area’s roads this winter.They will cover 870 miles of primary roads in the county.
Spring bursts into winter – Snowdrops in full flower on 6 December at the National Trust’s water garden at Cliveden and daffodils in full flower at the Trust’s Hughenden Manor estate on 8 December. Surely a record?
By the way…
*Maestro musician Chris Rea, who died last month, lived in Cookham for many years and was fondly remembered on the village’s social media. Every year his income was boosted by his hit Driving Home for Christmas and one villager recalled him joking that Christmas was coming “and the summer holiday money was coming in.” Car-mad Chris is pictured 20 years ago with his two racing Ferrari replicas outside the Mill recording studio by the Thames in Cookham, which he also owned for a time.
**Book of the Dead, the episode of Midsomer Murders filmed extensively in Penn and Penn Street in April 2023, was shown on ITV for the first time on 30 December. If you missed it, it’s on catch-up and ITV X.
***In trying to justify her credentials as the new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Wycombe (and Tylers Green) MP Emma Reynolds told MPs she represented a “semi-rural seat which included 89 farms”. Of course she didn’t mention she’s about to lose a great chunk of farmland in the Gomm Valley and other areas to housing…but that’s another story.
SPECIAL REPORT
Bowing to the inevitable: the 50 year saga of the Gomm Valley reaches its final chapter
LOCAL residents have been battling for over 50 years to save the beautiful Gomm Valley from development.
But a planning policy determined in the 1970s and now woefully unfit for purpose meant their efforts were in vain.
In the end those pulling together to preserve the semi-rural identity of Penn and Tylers Green simply ran out of rope.
Going…going…gone
Even half a century ago there were gasps of indignation when the former Wycombe Council said it was earmarking the Gomm Valley for development.
The 1,500 hectare valley contains ancient woodland, a site of special scientific interest and is home to comparatively rare wildlife and grasses. Importantly it was the last “green lung” separating Penn and Tylers Green from High Wycombe’s urban sprawl.
Now open space between the last house in Tylers Green and the first house in High Wycombe will be about the length of a couple of football pitches once the development is complete in seven or eight years time. And the chances of that surviving are slim.
Times have changed
As hundreds of people and scores of organisations pointed out to the council last year and a Government planning inspector the year before, the world has changed since the valley was first earmarked for development.
While the future of the valley was pondered, hundreds if not thousands of new homes have been built in less controversial areas nearby and hundreds more are in the pipeline.
That’s brought congestion to the roads and put services such as health and education under stress. Hundreds of residents are understandably seriously concerned about the impact of this new development.
In letters and emails withheld from public view by Buckinghamshire Council – and still only partly revealed following a Freedom of Information request – members of the public told how regular accidents already occur on the roads about to be further affected. They told how their journey to work and back is often a nightmare.
They fret over the safety of pedestrians walking under the footpathless Hammersley Lane railway bridge when even more traffic uses the road. And they mock council assumptions that more people will walk and cycle in future because the site is so steep.
Some residents even say they will now leave the area because the development will only make a bad situation worse.
Hands were tied
Although planners and councillors and even the Government planning inspector sent to adjudge the issue recognised the validity of the arguments they could only offer sympathy.
The fact was their hands were tied. They could only reach their judgement based on rules made in the 20th century and which are now out of date and inappropriate in the 21st.
Despite all the objections, most councillors, the council officers and, in the main, the Government planning inspector (who only objected on traffic calculations) all felt the advantages of this development outweighed the disadvantages.
Here’s why:
- The development makes a “substantial contribution” to High Wycombe’s housing shortfall.
- Nearly half of it will be categorised as ‘affordable’ housing – much needed in the area.
- The new school, with early years provision, will contribute to the needs of the community
- The community building, the open space left for play; and the provision of orchards all provide recreation enhancements
- New public footpaths and cycle ways plus bus service improvements provide sustainable modes of transport
- The developer says there will be a 30 per cent biodiversity net gain because of improvements to existing habitats (this is disputed).
- The provision of employment areas will create jobs and bring local economic benefit.
So now the council officials will work with the developers to add some sticking plasters in an attempt to mitigate the impact. For many locals however, they are on a hiding to nothing.
What happens now?
Negotiations between Buckinghamshire planners and developers Taylor Wimpey begin this month. Here’s what the council wants from Taylor Wimpey:
- Over £3m to provide changes to the A40. This includes the addition of traffic lights at the junctions with Station Road, Loudwater and Gordon Road, High Wycombe. Improvements also to the junctions with Gomm Road and Micklefield Road.
- Traffic calming measures designed to reduce speeds in Bank Street/Orchard Road, between Cock Lane and Gomm Road.
- A third of a million pounds to improve existing footpaths and cycle paths in the area in addition to providing new ones linking Ashwells in Tylers Green with the Gomm Valley.The council also wants to see improved footpaths and cycle paths in King’s Wood, Tylers Green.
- More than half a million pounds to provide a bus service to the development site.
Other matters, including the possibility of making Bank Street/Orchard Road one-way and introducing digital speed restriction signs will also be discussed.
In the village talks are already underway about introducing traffic calming in New Road and Church Road, Tylers Green and placing a pedestrian crossing outside the middle school in Cock Lane to the car park opposite as a result of the new Ashwells development
Discussions will also be held with the NHS and Thames Water, both of whom objected to the development unless money was made available to to cope with its impact, and with the police who expressed concern over security arrangements (see October blog).
You can contact this blog at peter@pennandtylersgreen.com. It will be updated as necessary during January but the next full update will be on 1 February.