The Save Wellington campaign group took to the streets at the weekend to gather more support for their ongoing protest against the proposed Jurston Farm housing development. By midday the group’s members had gathered more than 200 signatures to add to their petition already signed by more than 700 local residents. A protest meeting at Wellesley Park School in October was attended by more than 100 people.
Spokesman for the group, Russell Loarridge, said, “We’re very pleased with the number of people who have added their names to our petition today. They are rightly concerned about the consequences of further housing development in the town. 650 houses are planned for the Jurston site – and that’s after the huge developments at Cades and Longforth Farms which have added to the size of Wellington in the last few years. These developments will mean an increase of 1800 homes in the town.”
The group points out that by 2020 the town will have doubled in size in 20 years as a result of the new houses already under construction. It has identified the consequences of even more development on roads, schools, health services and the town’s infrastructure as well as the loss of green belt land – which the group points out is ‘first-class arable land”.
Taunton Deane’s prospective Conservative MP Rebecca Pow is supporting the Save Wellington campaign. She has recently been taken on a fact-finding tour of the site and where new link roads would have to be built.
More action is planned: a protest march through the town is provisionally arranged for Saturday 6 December subject to police and statutory bodies’ approval and on Tuesday, December 9 members are calling for a mass turnout at Deane House in Taunton when Deane council members are expected to hold a full debate and then vote on the development.