Fears over homes plan for ‘accident hotspot’

Fears have been raised about plans for more homes near an East Devon town’s ‘accident hotspot’

The plans are only for up to six homes, but their proposed location on Honiton’s Beggars Lane has prompted serious concerns from locals, including councillors.
Although the proposal is in the centre of the town, and near to shops and an industrial estate, there are concerns that the construction traffic could cause issues, as well as the longer term traffic from the new homes.
“This is a notorious hotspot for accidents on A375 Sidmouth Road with Rosemount Lane and Beggars Lane,” Councillor Jenny Brown (Conservative, Honiton St Michael’s) said.
“Further traffic movements could worsen the situation. I also feel this could be an overdevelopment of the site.”
She said that even though Devon County Council’s highways team had no objections to the proposal, she had witnessed “a number of shunts take place that are unrecorded”, and still held the view that adding extra traffic onto the road would not be sensible.
County highways officers said between January 2018 and December 2022, and there had been two slight and one severe recorded collisions on the mini roundabout at Beggars Lane, and one slight collision on the Sidmouth Road roundabout.
“Whilst I do not believe that all of these collisions are directly influenced from Beggars Lane, I do believe some minor works in context with additional dwellings would help highlight the Beggars Lane arm on the mini roundabouts, including additional signage and some ghost white lining/buildout to help improve the visibility of this junction arm upon the roundabout,” the highway officer report stated. 
Cllr Brown added that if her comments differed from the views of the planning officer, then she wanted the proposal to go to the planning committee for debate, where she would “keep an open mind” before reaching a conclusion.
Honiton Town Council’s planning committee had three votes for the scheme and two against following some amendments to the plans that satisfied previous queries.
Letters from residents highlight several other objections, although some made reference to eight homes on the site being too many, but the application has now been amended to request up to six.
And others felt the potential introduction of a two-storey building on Beggar’s Lane would be “out of character with existing development”, as well as concerns for cyclists and pedestrians who use Beggars Lane, and the fears about potential road accidents were also echoed.
East Devon District Council’s planning committee will discuss the scheme next week (Tuesday 19 August).