The draft of the local plan review has been released. Three new areas in the parish have been included, a new 100 home estate to the north end of Eye Green adjacent to Grade II* Listed Northolm Farmhouse, a large commercial development (LP 62.29) in the protected ‘Green Wedge’ and a smaller 10 home housing development where the chip shop formerly resided. This in addition to the 265 home development already approved on Eyebury Road.
As part of the current Local Plan, a number areas across the city are designated protected ‘Green Wedges’ where planning permission will not be granted for any development that would reduce the degree of physical separation between settlements and yet officers at Peterborough City Council are already breaking that policy and hacking away at the Green Wedge. Part of the Green Wedge which encompasses the former Dogsthorpe landfill site already has planning permission for a 14MW photovoltaic solar array, with a battery energy storage system. Part of the wedge is Star Pit Nature Reserve which is unlikely to be built on anyway, the most important part is the section to the south of the village. It is a vitally important area that prevents Eye from just becoming a suburb of Peterborough. Already to the north west of the village is the 2000 home Norwood development and to the south in Fengate is the 50 acre Flagship Park industrial park.
The edge of the city/Parnwell is only around 800m or half a mile away as it is, if LP 62.31 is approved it will reduce it to just 400m or 0.2miles. And if that goes ahead it’s almost guaranteed the remaining space will be infilled in the future, despite the zoning. Centuries of village life will be gone and we’ll be swallowed up by the expanding city.
That council says it wants to create a ‘walkable, liveable city, with a shift in travel behaviour towards more people walking and cycling’ as mentioned in this BBC article. If this is the case one of their starting points can be the upgrading of the unsuitable cycleway/footpath along the A1139 before any further developments are approved! The A1139 (pictured below) is already busy throughout most of the day, further development is only going to make it worse. The only lit footpath between the village and the city also needs upgrading to a proper segregated footpath and cycle path, despite the growth in the village and the increasing traffic along that road nothing has been improved in years.
Not only is the level of traffic and access to the village by vehicles an issue but you can often smell the petrol and diesel fumes as you walk along the footpath. Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) that petrol and diesel vehicles expel is among the most hazardous form of air pollution. Diesel cars, trucks and buses emit particularly high concentrations of fine soot and large numbers of very toxic substances coat these particles, with stationary traffic making it much worse. There is a strong evidence of a link between traffic-related pollution and a worsening of conditions such as asthma, especially in children; chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD); heart disease and cancer. In fact some studies have shown that walking alongside a busy road can be a bad as passive smoking, the levels of pollution can vary hugely depending on wind strength and direction.
Eye has already been used by the City Council so it could reach it’s housing targets with a growth of 43% between 2001 and 2021. This unprecedented growth which is the highest in any rural village across the city has led to an oversubscribed primary school; pressures on the GP practice and roads; and a loss of green space and village character. Added to a lack of infrastructure improvements to cope with the growth it has only been detrimental to the village.
This excellent Facebook post was written by someone in response to another development around the city and explains how the planning system can work:
“Initially, the developers submit a planning application with all the attractive community infrastructure – GP surgeries, primary schools, community centres, local shops and green spaces. It looks brilliant on paper and gets the planning committee’s approval. Six months down the line, they submit a ‘minor amendment’ citing government housing targets and ‘viability assessments’. Suddenly they claim they need to reduce the community facilities to squeeze in more houses to make the development “commercially viable. Another few months pass and they submit another amendment removing most or all of the promised infrastructure entirely. They’ll claim things like ‘we’ve conducted further studies showing insufficient demand’ or ‘the NHS/education authority can’t commit to staffing a new facility.’
The bitter reality is they never had any genuine intention to build these facilities in the first place. It’s smoke and mirrors – they know from the start they’ll gradually whittle away the community infrastructure through incremental changes after securing initial approval. By the time locals realise what’s happened, it’s too late. This pattern repeats across the country. Developers promise the earth to get permission, then systematically strip back all the community benefits through subsequent amendments, leaving just the profitable housing units. The initial attractive plans with schools, surgeries and shops are essentially a Trojan Horse – they know they’ll never build them but they need them to get that crucial first approval.
The bitter reality is they never had any genuine intention to build these facilities in the first place.
This cynical strategy exploits the planning system’s weakness around amendments and has become standard practice for major developers nationwide. Local authorities often feel powerless to resist once the principle of development is established.”
Eye resident Dale McKean has responded to the local plan. As Dale said in Cambridge News: “We’ve got this horrendous situation with the traffic coming down Eyebury Road to avoid the A1139, people trying to drop their kids off at the primary school, and there’s all this extra traffic trying to get down there.” Eyebury Road has become a rat run for vehicles looking to avoid the traffic jams on the A1139 and A47, especially during rush hour.
A few points in Dale’s response:
- There should be no further growth added in the Local Plan until Eye Primary School is permanently extended to increase its cohort from 2 to 3 (90 pupils) for all years including for the capacity of the school facilities such as sports assembly areas , dinning, play grounds, school fields, staff parking, safe drop of areas and temporary parking slots for special needs/disabilities.
- New infrastructure, including schools, health facilities and open space provision, will be planned and provided at the same time as the new homes.
- There is no reference to any analysis of health provision and availability in each village.
- In 2001 the population in the Parish of Eye Village was 3,779. By 2011 that had grown to 4,340, an increase of 561 (14%). By 2021 the population of Eye Village was 5,400 a further increase of 1,060 (28%).
- In the last 22 years it has had no improvement to its key infrastructure and service.
- Yes, there needs to be enough parking at least one parking space per room and plus visitor parking 25% extra.
- Eye Village Green Wedge should be maintained to protect the village from encroachment from Peterborough City Housing and Employment sites.
You can also view Dale’s comments at the Planning and Environmental Protection Committee which was held Tuesday 18 March, 2025. Martin Chillcott was also there on behalf of Protect Rural Peterborough. He said ” The other aspect is in terms of the fact that the super fast growth that Peterborough has seen for the past 20 years has not served the people of Peterborough, well. We are bottom of the league in terms of health, we are bottom of the league in terms of real increased in household income, we are bottom of the league in aspects of education…”
Do you want Eye to end up like Dogsthorpe, the Orton’s or Werrington or do you want it to remain a village? You can have your say on the draft local plan from the 11 April to 29 May 2025.
As they said on the former TV programme Yes minister…
Media
- Thousands of homes planned for Peterborough and surrounding area (BBC)
- Resident fear village cannot cope with proposed growth plans (Cambridge News)