mark young, of coombeshead road, highweek, newton abbot, writes:Linden Homes is currently presenting plans for a major housing development on the northern side of Newton Abbot. At the same time there is new housing appearing to the west and a larger development is planned there, after the sale of a golf course to developers.Sandwiched between these two areas is the village of Highweek which is already being used more and more as a commuter rat-run. The roads through Highweek are barely single track due to residential parking and will simply not cope with more traffic.The two main roads to the west and north west of Newton Abbot, the A383 and the A382 are narrow, twisty and barely able to meet current traffic demand.In particular the A382 has to cope with commuter traffic from Newton Abbot to the industrial estates at Heathfield, traffic to a superstore, school, golf club and caravan park. There are blind spots on this road, it is narrow and is barely fit for purpose.Before any further housing development is considered it is essential thatl The A382 from Drumbridges roundabout (junction with the A38) is widenedl That the crossroads at Forches Cross is lowered to allow safe visionl That a link road is taken from Forches Cross south westerly to the A383 to allow residents and business access to the A38, Plymouth and Exeter without using the only current route, through Highweek.l That a new northbound access is put in place where the current A383/A38 junction is currently only southbound.The plans presented by Linden Homes are not satisfactory as they stand: there are inaccuracies regarding access and the ownership of land. There will need to be considerable debate before any approvals are made.But, fundamentally, these plans are currently irrelevant as the road infrastructure is incapable of dealing with this level of expansion. Roads and improving roads is a very expensive business – if the improvements needed cannot be afforded at this time, we need to shelve these developments until they can be.

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