Birmingham City Council

Re: Banner Homes proposals for the Manor House site, Northfield B31

Banner Homes propose over 125 new homes including flats for the Manor House parkland at the top of New House Farm Drive. Although they say they have been developing these plans with the city council for many months and have been working on the scheme for three years, they have only told residents in Manor Park about this scheme on the same day as a so-called public exhibition, and other local residents a week earlier. They plan to submit a planning application very soon. This is very underhand and residents deserve better.

This development means:
> 43% more homes than currently use the exit onto Bristol Road
> Much more traffic using the estate roads and junction on to Bristol Road
> Potentially 500 new car movements per day using New House Farm Drive
> Over 2 years of dirty, heavy and noisy cUonstruction traffic using New House Drive
(* There are currently approx. 100 houses and 189 apartments on the estate)

This will:
> Totally ruin the tranquility and character of our estate
> Make it less safe for our children to play or walk to the park
> Drive down the value of your our special homes
> Overload the estate junction on Bristol Road
> Overload local schools (without proposals to increase places)

We are not against better use of the Manor House site. But there needs to be limitations that respect it's unique quality and historic value as the former home of the Cadbury family. As well as converting the derelict Manor into good quality apartments, why not just a limited number of individually designed large family homes, reflecting the existing qualities of the estate? Large numbers of 'off the peg' houses and new apartment blocks are totally inappropriate. We urge the city council planning committee to reject this scheme and ask for something of much lower scale, of higher quality and with better car access that doesn't negatively affect our estate (for instance with car access shared with the Abdon Avenue estate without linking it to Bristol Road).