Dear Editor,
I am pleased you published the ‘Bad and Good Development’ letter in your last issue,  keeping this subject alive.
It was my intention to make comment on the ‘Development at Cobblers Hall’ letter from Mr Clare in the 11 April issue of Newton News but I first read up on the Council’s website he quoted, which shed a new light on things.
The Moor has always been a bog, shedding it’s influence on the surrounding area. While the Environment Agency may have no record of flooding;  local regular users would disagree. It may be a matter of degree but it was frequently impassible on foot;  now it’s impossible naturally. However the creation of the SUDS project was clearly the absolute priority for the building of the 174 new houses.  The much talked of Nature Reserve seems to be  merely a byproduct of that essential.  What I find most disconcerting is that the self contained Surface Water Storage Pond with an overflow pipe to the main drain, considered so necessary to protect the surrounding lower land, now seems to be of reduced effectiveness.
The pipe diameter was shown on plan, without reference to it’s small size and  the implications of it’s restricted capacity have never previously been made clear, anywhere. While the area has always been a wetland I have known no permanent pool – of even 100sm – in the last two years. Now, the new deep excavation allows for the 8000sm Storage Pond to an as yet unknown – but deep – depth with only a restricted capacity outlet to the mains. That is a huge pool founded in a wetland locality We are not told, so I am curious to learn what capacity the Pond has in gallons. Certainly the very highest level of maintenance must be constantly exercised, as the very minimum. The application, web site and the 11 April letter seem to indicate that the main drains capacity is so limited in this part of Newton Aycliffe that they could not cope during heavy rain conditions without the SUDS system on the Moor
Perhaps the houses should not have been built in such a location ?
The much mentioned Nature  Reserve  which has aroused such interest is altogether missing. Quite reasonable really as the application specifically states that there are  ‘no protected and priority species on the development site or on the land adjacent to or near the the proposed development’   The Natterjack Toad receives no mention but the ecological assessment in this application specifically names other species and under para 3.3 confirms that despite surveys in recent years there are no Badgers, Red Squirrels, Bats and Reptiles and specifically the Great Crested Newt to be found within the area. The common frog, toad and smooth newt were found to be present before the diggers moved in.  The report includes reference to earlier aerial photography as showing a pond of approx 100 sqm but concedes the area dries out during the summer. I have only known it as a regular wetland with no permanent pond, until the huge one now being constructed.
Thinking of maintenance, there is a salutary lesson to be viewed just across Burnham Road into Woodham Glade where a draining ditch, known to have been in existence for over three generations has been neglected. It runs, or used to run, the length of the Glade carrying away accumulated surface water unable to permeate the layers of clay a few inches down. It has been long neglected, allowed to infill over it’s entire length so becoming incapable of fulfilling its function which has had effect in a number of places.
Some welcome clearing work has recently been done in the Glade, also the ditch has received some intermittent clearing. Unfortunately the roughly excavated soil is already falling back in, the unblocking work remains disconnected, without a beginning or an end, so the system remains incomplete, therefore unworkable. Perhaps not a good example of maintenance ?
J D Whittaker, The Bridle