FOLLOWING the report regarding the second crossing over the River Weaver at Winnington and the now 800 strong signed petition.

Well the horse has bolted, won the national and is now out to stud and it has only just dawned on the local councillors that a second bridge at Winnington is required.

If these people are supposed to represent the people of Northwich then they have failed miserably.

When the planning application for all the houses in Winnington was presented to the parish and town councils and the planning committee, the application should have been refused and a second bridge simply been made part of an S106 agreement.

If the housing developers had tried to fight it, then they should have been told “no bridge, no houses”.

The developers would have simply added the cost of the bridge to the price of each house and built the bridge.

The model layout for a new crossing is the Weaver crossing in Winsford.

This was built in 1976 and works very well due to its size and layout, allowing cars to travel and flow around the two bridge layout and I have never seen a traffic jam there.

The second bridge needs to be located opposite the pub/antique shop and designed as a roundabout with a new two lane bridge built where the old one is now located.

My other point is one of schools.

If some 2,000 houses are being built around Northwich, where are the school places? Local schools cannot take this amount of additional pupils and the course should be that again the planners use the S106 agreement to force developers to fund and build, free of charge, new school facilities. Ninety houses in Davenham could generate between one and three years intake, swamping the popular and oversubscribed primary school. After some years of planning the school has been granted approval and funding to have two new classrooms plus some additional space.

But this extension should have been funded in part or full by the developers of the new housing development in the village.

The developers of this estate haven’t even been forced to resurface Green Lane, which is pot hole ridden.

It’s time that local councillors and planning committees started to request the use of the S106 agreement in planning approvals more rigorously pushing for developers to benefit the community as well as lining their pockets and share holders bank accounts when building houses.

Richard Cawley Wade Street Northwich