Sherford new town proposals and possible rail links to Plymouth

[whole diary]

[Lee]

Sherford new town will create traffic chaos on the roads into Plymouth, it was claimed yesterday (link below.)
http://thisisplymouth.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=133464&command=displayContent&sourceNode=133158&contentPK=20465659&folderPk=78031&pNodeId=133174

Members of South Hams District Council said they feared the development just outside Plymouth would cause serious traffic problems on the A379 into the city.

The new "market town" proposed by developers Red Tree includes a park and ride based at Deep Lane junction, on the A38 at Plympton.

Buses will carry commuters through Sherford and along the A379 Kingsbridge road into Plymouth.

Plymouth City Council officer Philip Heseltine said the city's eastern corridor transport plan included widening Laira Bridge and improvements to roads on the approaches into Plymouth.

Sherford, south of Plympton, is expected to be a town of 8,500 people by 2016. By 2022 it is predicted to reach 12,000 - the size of Ivybridge.

Plymouth's planners gave outline planning approval last week for the small section of the town that falls within the city's boundary. This included 320 houses and a sports hub with swimming pool.

Sherford will be administered by Plymouth City Council if the Government accepts the city's submission to the Boundary Committee as part of a review of local government in Devon.

The centre of town will have shops, a town hall and a "health and wellbeing" centre. The High Street at this point will have bus-only lanes.

The development breaks with recent town development tradition by having a network of streets instead of the feeder road/cul de sac pattern. This allows pedestrians and cyclists to get where they're going by the shortest possible route.

But Steve Melia, Friends of the Earth spokesman, said the High Street would be eight lanes wide including parking and bus lanes.

[Lee]

A tiny South Devon community today launched a battle to save its name - and avoid a satnav nightmare. The campaign comes after it emerged a major new town less than 20 miles away will have exactly the same name (link below.)
http://thisisplymouth.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=181429&command=displayContent&sourceNode=229968&home=yes&more_nodeId1=133174&contentPK=20472192

The village of Sherford, between Kingsbridge and Slapton, is already taking a battering from large lorries which turn up in the village by accident and then find they cannot make it though the narrow village lanes.

But the villagers fear it will become a hundred times worse when work starts on the 5,500-home new town, which is also currently being called Sherford, planned for the outskirts of Plymouth.

They are also worried their village, which dates back to before the Domesday Book, will be left fighting for its very identity.

Now Sherford parish councillors are calling for someone to come up with a new name for the new town before their homes are swamped by unwanted lorries and their village name is lost.

Fewer than 1,000 people live in the village.

It has no village shop or pub although it does have a 14th Century church and a village hall and some of the farms around the village are named in the Domesday Book.

The Sherford new town is named after a valley between the A38 and the A379 near Brixton and when it is built will have a population of more than 15,000 with shops, schools and pubs.

Recently one large lorry got jammed in the centre of the village and demolished ^1,000 worth of village hall car park walls as it tried to turn around.

Mr Raeburn said even people not using satnav will end up being directed to the village if they come asking for directions to Sherford, even though they mean the new town.

South Hams Council strategic director Alan Robinson warned changing the new town name now would cost taxpayers cash and cause 'massive confusion'.

But he did say in due course there were bound to be discussions on new town road names and probably the town itself.

He said the district council had taken Sherford village's concerns seriously and already raised the name issue with organisations including Plymouth City Council, the Regional Development Agency, Devon County Council, Government Office South West.

He explained the name of Sherford for the new town was already being used on all manner of strategic plans and documents.

Mr Robinson said he did not know just who is responsible for naming a new town because the matter had never come up before. However, he said, the district council is responsible for naming roads and it may well have the final say in naming new communities as well.

[stofstg]

Is it just myself who can see the forthcoming disaster that will be sherford and the estimated 5,000 homes, this is in addition to the proposed development of plymstock quarry aswell. The easterrn route into plymouth is already struggling with traffic at rush hour times and the planners expect it will be fine to have a couple of park and ride bus services to take this extra congestion. They are actually talking about flexi-buses to use the route of the old railway. Also there is talk about the existing disused railway to the former friary site being turned into a trunk road linking to exeter street.

Why can't they just use the former yealmpton brachline which has the majority of it bed in tact. If they can get the developer at Tavistock to invest in such a re-opening of a railway then why can't the sherford developer be forced to finance such a scheme. What they could then have is a metro service from tavistock to plymouth along the tamar valley line/stations and put stations at mutley, lipson, friary (serving the new office dev's on the barbican and drakes circus shopping centre), lucas terrace, plymstock, elburton and sherford, possibly re-opening the track right back to yealmpton. The majority of the infrastucture is already in place including the old laira railway bridge. Such a metro service works well in exeter and will ease congestion on both the northern and eastern arteries into plymouth. What makes me laugh is that this sherford new town is suppose to be a 'eco-town' but will be fully reliant upon road transportation and will destroy the existing trackbed of the former yealmpton line. This scheme would probably cost something in a similar region to that of the proposed tavistock re-opening (^15m) but if the developer is made to fork out for that there can be no excuse for the dept of transport to turn there noses at such a scheme as they normally do with proposed schemes outside the hub of london and the south east.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Hello, stofstg, and welcome to the Coffee Shop forum!

You've made a very interesting post, there, from my point of view: I used to live in Plymstock, then in Elburton - and I do agree with your suggestions about the restoration of the Yealmpton branch line!

There's a similar problem with the Portishead branch line, where the developers should have been required to fund the restoration of that rail link as part of their deal for the mega-multi-million pound development of the old docks area.

With Portishead, they missed that opportunity - but with Sherford, hopefully they can get it right??

[Lee]

People have until August 29 to give their views on transport options for Sherford new town and the 1,600-home Morley Park at the Blue Circle Cement site in Plymstock (link below.)
http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/say-transport-crisis/article-275492-detail/article.html

Anyone who wants to have a say should visit the council's website at www.plymouth.gov.uk or contact the council's transport strategy team on 01752 307704 for an information brochure.

[plymothian]

Reintroducing trains to the Yealmpton line would be near impossible now without major expenditure - there are several bridges missing, demolished to allow high vehicles access (like over the Ride for buses and Tip access), some of the route has been built over and another part is access to a quarry.

The current plan is to develop part of the route as a cycle/pedestrian route, and another as a bus exclusive roadway.

[eightf48544]

The current plan is to develop part of the route as a cycle/pedestrian route, and another as a bus exclusive roadway.

Not another "busway" when will the Dft learn that if you can't re-instate heavy rail then light rail or trams is better bet than buses. If you need it you can have the best of both worlds with tram/trains either running heavy rail on outskirts and then street running in centre or serving main station on heavy rail with street running in suburbs or both options as in Kassel.

[plymothian]

The irony is that they narrowed the road to reduce accidents, hatching out a lane and are now planning on road widening to accommodate bus lanes (including 1 tidal over Laira Bridge), all this extra room would, along with the disused railway to Turnchapel and Cattedown, easily accommodate a light rail system.  The Courts building next to Friary Station is being demolished at the moment would be able to be made into a terminus and is just a few yards from Drake Circus. 

[Andy]

Reintroducing trains to the Yealmpton line would be near impossible now without major expenditure - there are several bridges missing, demolished to allow high vehicles access (like over the Ride for buses and Tip access), some of the route has been built over and another part is access to a quarry.

The current plan is to develop part of the route as a cycle/pedestrian route, and another as a bus exclusive roadway.

I don't know that bit of Plymouth very well. Realistically, how far would it be able to reinstate the line from Laira out to Yealmpton without prohibitive expenditure replacing the bridges you mention? Plymouth seems to me to be an ideal place for a 'metro' system, incorporating Tavistock/Gunnislake, Friary and using bits of the Yealmpton/Launceston line.

 



 

[plymothian]

Realistically you'd not even get over the Plym.

The Yealmpton branch from where it left the Cattedown line is now a cycle route, and the bridge over the Plym would need a major upgrade.  Even if that happened the roadbridge over the access to the tip on the Plymstock side was demolished and the embankments cut back.  This could never be reinstated because as well as the tip, First have their bus and coach depot there.

However that said, if PCC^▸ (Police and Crime Commissioner) were to adapt their road and busway plans, a light rapid transport line could feasabley leave the Cattedown branch, run on/alongside the new planned link road, over Laira Bridge to Pomphlett [this would have to be single tracked], the line could take over the hatched out lanes on the A379 (planned to be bus lanes) or run via the planned 'off road' busway. 
The Turnchapel branch has been curtailed by housing at Oreston, though it would involve a steep climb up to the old trackbed.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Thanks for that reality check, plymothian!

Things have obviously changed a fair bit since I moved away from Plymouth! 

In my school days, our cross country course included a section of the old trackbed.  I remember stumbling over old sleepers and all sorts - apart from the rails, most of the structure was still intact then!

Chris from Plymstock
 

[stofstg]

though i accept reinstating as far as yealmpton maybe unrealistic but even though some preparation work may be needed, why can't the developer's pay for it out of their huge profits? the single developement co for the tavistock housing project are funding the reinstatement of the line from bere alston to tavistock single hand, so surely the the two developers for the plymstock quarry and the sherford developments can club together. the whole transport plan for the two huge developments seems to be a 'do as little as required' approach and will have disaterous results when theres an extra 10000 cars travelling across the already busy laria bridge eastern corridor into the city. sure its not necessarily plain sailing to reinstate the line but access problems to the park can be overcome with the lowering of the road, etc. also if the current plan is to run a bus lane over the laira bridge and the former trackbed then surely the structures are in good enough condition to be improved for rail use. 

[Andy]

Thanks for all the information. I agree that developers should be funding rail links as well as building roads in these new developments but given the current state of the housing market I am worried that the order of the day will be "as cheap as possibile" and schemes such as Tavistock may be shelved.

 

[plymothian]

also if the current plan is to run a bus lane over the laira bridge and the former trackbed then surely the structures are in good enough condition to be improved for rail use. 

They're only using the sections where infrastructure is still (largely) in place. 
The whole route is not possible

[Chris from Nailsea]

Well, to be fair, the whole route was not particularly easy to develop originally: see http://www.plymouthdata.info/Railways-Yealmpton%20Branch.htm

History repeating itself, perhaps?