The Moorfield Road Action Group has campaigned for over 5 years for greater road safety on Moorfield Road and to block any attempts by Halton Borough Council to allow housing to be built on the Moorfield Road Sports and social club site. Our local community has known for years that the owners Route had deliberately let the facilities run down in order to sell the site for a huge profit to a housing developer. Halton Borough council has consistently denied any suggestion of housing being allowed to be built on this land and refuted claims that planning permission had previously been sought, but now we have the truth! This is yet another example of Halton Borough Council hiding the truth from the local community.
This year Halton Borough Council removed protected farm land from the green belt allowing for a number of proposed new housing developments at the top of Moorfield Road. This latest development is in addition to Miller Homes building 317 properties on Lunts Heath Road, Redrow building 442 properties on Mill Green Lane with a further 52 planned for land to the south of South Lane and Prospect GB building 99 properties on Abbey Farm also on South Lane. When seeking permission to build their massive new housing estate, Redrow cited in their planning application that the Moorfield Road Sports and social club was a local amenity with recreational land which could be accessed by all and could be used by potential house buyers.
Moorfield Road is designated a Police Enforcement Area by Cheshire Police and for a good reason! School children attending Moorfield Road Primary school are at serious risk from traffic illegally using this road. Moorfield road is a busy and dangerous road, which is well known to all who live around here, without the added pressure of a further housing development bringing a big increase in traffic using this road. The proposed development for the Moorfield Road Sports and social club site will have an entrance right opposite School Way which is the main access to Moorfield Primary School. This area is already a danger zone and is badly congested at school times with little to no parking space. This development will make matters worse as the car park belonging to the social club is currently used by the parents of schoolchildren will also be taken away.
Despite 273 Local residents signing this petition Halton Borough Council, has consistently tried to discredit our group and contradict any evidence of a serious road safety issue. They have refused to take any action to reduce the danger to our community, especially to our children walking to/from Moorfield Primary school. We have been met by dismissive and unhelpful attitudes from most of our Local Councillors (both Halton View and Farnworth Wards) including the former Council Leader Mr Rob Polhill. It is unbelievable to members of our group to hear that Mr Rob Polhill and Tom McInerney are now campaigning to stop this development has they have shown no interest in helping this community up until now! Still a U turn in politics is not unusual these days!
Our local community continues to experience excessively high speeding vehicles (100+mph in a 30 mph zone)using Moorfield Road, witnessing dangerous driving taking place and still getting too many over-sized HGV's using Moorfield Road as a cut through to the local industrial estates. The roads in North Widnes at peak times are very congested, large queues of traffic on the local road network are a regular occurrence. We all witness on a daily basis the high speed of the traffic, dangerous driving and near misses that occur near Moorfield Road Primary school, Moorfield Sports and Social Club, the railway bridge and the junction to Camberwell Park Road. With the undisputed evidence contained within the Traffic Evaluation Reports and the daily observations of the local residents, there is no disputing the fact that at some point in the near future, a serious accident or fatality will take place on Moorfield Road. Only then will either Halton Borough Council and Cheshire Police take action, our real concern is the likelihood an innocent child will be the victim.
Apart from the loss of valued green and social land by this latest new development, our community is extremely worried about the further increase to traffic levels that all of these proposed new developments will bring onto an already busy and dangerous Moorfield Road. Our Community has seen things get progressively worse over the last few years and have complained to Halton Borough Council and Cheshire Police many times to try and get something done. Unfortunately, they are just not interested and choose to ignore our requests for help. Will it really take a death of an adult or child before either of these organisations take our situation seriously and act on our behalf?
In closing, if you too have the same genuine road safety concerns as the Moorfield Road Action Group, we would ask that you join us in objecting to this latest Bellway housing development. Today on the planning section of the Halton Borough Councils website Bellway have submitted an application to demolish the club buildings ready for the proposed development to go ahead. The demolition planning application number is 22/00528/DEM and you can object by emailing dev.control@halton.gov.uk
Thank you for your continued support.
In the meantime everyone take care yourselves and each other!
Contact: moorfieldroadactiongroup@gmail.com