PLANS for a second new housing estate that would send more traffic on to Abingdon’s Drayton Road have been described as “horrifying.”

Glasgow-based Miller Homes has applied to Vale of White Horse District Counci for planning permission for 73 homes west of Abingdon Road.

Town and district councillor Alice Badcock said: “This sounds absolutely horrific. There is no way Drayton Road has the capacity for any more cars, it can’t take the cars it has already.

“You can’t widen it, the only thing you could do it add a second bridge across the Thames and a new road, and the funding for that isn’t there.”

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She said she hoped the district council would refuse the plans.

As reported in the Oxford Mail, Taylor Wimpey have also submitted plans for a development in the area.

The company hopes to build 158 homes on Drayton Road, which has exacerbated traffic fears.

Abingdon councillor Alison Rooke said: “The traffic situation on Drayton Road is absolutely terrible. If the Taylor Wimpey estate goes ahead that would worsen it so that is certainly something that would need to be seriously considered.”

Miller’s traffic experts, MJA Consulting, estimated its proposed estate would add more than 200 “traffic movements” on to the road each day.

The company estimated half of those would go north into Abingdon.

But, in the planning application, it wrote: “The proposals will generate minimal traffic during the peak periods and throughout the day. Regular bus services are available via a short walk.

“The traffic impact of the proposals is considered to be insignificant.

“For these reasons it is considered that there should be no objections to the proposals on highway grounds.”

It was traffic concerns that led the Vale’s planning committee to refuse a plan for 160 homes on Drayton Road, Abingdon, in 2013.

Taylor Wimpey applied for permission to build 158 homes on the same site in May. It then amended the application, increasing the number of four-bedroom homes from 33 to 57.

Abingdon Town Council wrote to the Vale regarding the increase.

It said: “This will result in more people living in these dwellings, resulting in an increase in traffic and pressure on services such as water and sewerage.

“Overall the council believes that there are so many differences between the original scheme and the current application that it should be withdrawn and resubmitted as a whole new application.”

The Vale has said it will make a final decision on that plan by January 31, and on the Miller Homes plan for Drayton by Tuesday, March 17.

A Miller Homes representative was unavailable for comment, but the firm wrote in its application: “The proposals will deliver an attractive scheme which integrates well socially and physically with the settlement of Drayton, whilst also creating a distinctive sense of place.”

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