ADD UPDATE: 24 September 2025: Further to our last article on 3 September, many ADD supporters have kindly submitted their views to house builders Croudace and Highwood on their plan for a major new development of up to 3,400 north east of Fair Oak (see map above).
However, as has become clear to everyone, the structure of the house builders’ consultation form not only makes it hard for people to convey the true extent of their feelings towards the scheme, but also difficult to copy their views to ADD for the record.
As such, if you have not yet submitted your views, we are now suggesting you email them to [email protected], copying [email protected]. This will enable you to express your views how you wish, and easily copy them to us for saving.
Since our last post, we have also had confirmation from Eastleigh Borough Council that the Local Plan review will not, after all, be on the agenda for the Full Council on 25 September (tomorrow). We will obviously let everyone know when it is on the agenda.
In the meantime, for the public record, we are sharing below the message that ADD has sent the house builders. Thank you, as always, to everyone for your support.
STARTS
Dear Croudace and Highwood,
Your vision document notes that you are ‘committed to working with the community every step of the way’. So why, when Eastleigh Borough Council (EBC) are currently at the very early stages of assessing ALL their options for meeting their need for new homes, are you starting a consultation into just one of the options a year earlier than they have firmly said will be the appropriate time?
The answer has to be, because you know that your proposals will not stand up to proper scrutiny. You are simply trying to recycle your already failed proposals for what was ‘Option C’ in the 2015 version of the Local Plan. Those proposals were rejected because, amongst other things, the Examination in Public found they would cause traffic chaos in the South Downs National Park and in all the communities surrounding the then Options B and C.
So what has changed? At least the 2015 proposals included the fig-leaf of the so-called ‘relief road’. No evidence was provided as to how this would help, and no account was taken of the devastating impact it would have on one of the world’s finest chalk streams, but everyone accepted that it would have provided some marginal relief. Your fresh proposals include NO relief to the already choked roads of Bishopstoke, Fair Oak, Colden Common and Twyford, and the rural lanes and villages of the National Park.
Your proposed development in what is now termed Option A (formerly Option C) is the worst option for public transport opportunities of any of those that EBC will be looking at. With bus services in the area poor and, even last week, getting worse, your proposed development will be highly dependent on the private car. This would not only have severe impacts on communities around it, but also be bad for the planet as a whole. Your proposed ‘bypass road’ acknowledges the problem, but demonstrates the limits of what you can do about it. This might help those houses along Winchester Road between Fair Oak Centre and the Fox and Hounds, but would do absolutely nothing to relieve the crippling traffic impact of your 3,400 homes on communities neighbouring Fair Oak. With the previous ‘relief road’ now no longer possible, there is indeed little that new roads (or road improvements) can do to mitigate these impacts.
The storm of objectors that we can see you have already received are pointing out that doctors’ surgeries and schools in Fair Oak are already desperately overloaded. We can accept that a major development such as yours is an opportunity to put that right, but the same can be said of any of the major development options that EBC will be looking at. The supposedly attractive array of ‘key features’ you set out are simply the standard any new development in the borough will have to meet.
To reduce car dependency and avoid increasing traffic chaos, EBC will need to ensure a frequent and reliable public transport system for its new developments, combined with good opportunities for active travel (walking and cycling).
Your proposed development, remote as it is from the town centre or any easy access to major transport infrastructure, cannot provide that. By having to depend on urging residents to use buses operating on already clogged roads, which they will be reluctant to do given poor and worsening bus services, your development is doomed to cause long-term disappointment, disruption and delay – in other words to be a failed development and a disaster for Fair Oak and the communities around it.
ADD and its supporters will be working to ensure that, such a disaster is, once again, avoided.
ENDS
