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