Ironbridge Power Station site, housing plans.

Shropshire Star

Coalbrookdale Community Centre saw plans on show for proposed housing at the former Ironbridge Power Station site. We went to see what locals think.

Transcript

00:00 How you doing guys? You've just come out of looking at the plans at Coalbrook Dyer Community Centre

00:04 and who've we got? Go on sir, what's your name?

00:06 My name's Nicholas Bellizia, I'm a resident of Ironbridge, I live over on Bentle.

00:11 So, looking at those plans, the reason I've come down here is I feel that this is going to affect us,

00:17 not only us, but I think the community at large.

00:20 And just having a cursory glance round and looking at a bit of information or background information about the site,

00:29 I really do think we could have done a lot better for the community, for Ironbridge.

00:34 As we know, global warming is causing a problem now, river levels are going to keep on rising.

00:40 We had an opportunity there to build an attenuation lake just to temporarily store water while water levels subside,

00:48 or we can balance them. What are we doing? We're putting a housing estate, which I don't really think personally is needed.

00:54 I don't know where the business plan is, I don't know who's buying these houses,

00:58 but I really think there's enough going on up in Shrewsbury, up in Telford.

01:02 I think Ironbridge, really, I think they should be looking at returning some of this back to nature,

01:06 help with some flood alleviation, because we don't seem to be getting any help from the government.

01:11 And I think we, as a community, need to help ourselves by telling these people,

01:16 "No, no, no, we don't develop here. Let's put Ironbridge first, let's build an attenuation lake, let's sort our flooding problems out."

01:23 So if on the plans there'd have been an attenuation lake and next to the houses,

01:29 would that alleviate most of your fears and concerns?

01:32 It would, it would, but you need the lake large enough to do the job.

01:38 So you would really have to develop around those houses, but I feel if you're going to do that,

01:43 let's return it all to nature and let's have some natural drainage,

01:46 because the time we've built on those areas, we've got no drainage, there's concrete over them,

01:51 the residents who buy these houses, they want another car, they'll take the grass lawns off and they'll put concrete on there,

02:00 and that again will cause a problem.

02:02 I don't know where all the surface water is going to go, I don't know where all the sewage is going to go,

02:08 I think it's an ill-thought-out plan and I don't know where this is going,

02:13 but I certainly would not, would not recommend this at all.

02:17 And ladies, you were just saying you were concerned about issues getting a doctor's appointment even now,

02:23 was that kind of where you were coming from on it?

02:25 Yeah, we're with the doctors down at Coalbrookdale, the Ironbridge Medical Centre there,

02:29 and if you want to see a doctor there, I mean they do their best, they have a booking system,

02:34 but if you want to see a particular doctor, I was told the other day that I would have to wait between six and eight weeks

02:40 to see that doctor, she's got a waiting list, so unless you've got an emergency,

02:44 in which case you go off to the A&E, you know, then you've got to be prepared to wait a long time,

02:50 and that will only get worse with more people moving into the area.

02:54 Yeah, definitely. I'm Viv Moore and I'm Chair of the Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale Civic Society,

03:00 and we have some other concerns. One is that, I don't know if you've heard about the Ickham Moss report,

03:06 Ickham Moss report to UNESCO, and they have said that they think Ironbridge's World Heritage Site status

03:16 is at risk because of this development, but others as well, such as the Argo site,

03:21 and it is a real worry that these houses will make the doctors a very difficult place to get an appointment,

03:32 they've got to have the children in the schools, and the roads. I know that our councillors suggested that

03:39 they don't call it Ironbridge in any way, shape or form, because then all the cars will come into Ironbridge,

03:46 and we just haven't got the infrastructure to do it. And the other thing that worries me, or has upset me,

03:54 is it talks about putting wildlife on the site, but first of all, if you've got hundreds of houses,

04:00 wildlife aren't going to be very keen, and when the power station came down, and they were supposed to

04:07 move the Crested Newts to a new safe place, they all died. So we don't have any confidence in it, really.

04:15 We have deer come off Bentley Edge into our garden at the moment, we've got as many as four.

04:22 Now some people consider that they're a pest, but they're also a danger on the roads, because they,

04:28 you know, road sense, they go out, you know, with the traffic. There's been a lot of accidents involving deer,

04:35 so they would be displaced by any development in the area.

04:40 We were talking about the flooding, and when they've got tarmac drives and tarmac roads,

04:46 the run-off into the river is going to be so much greater.

04:49 We've got to go somewhere.

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