Save Eccleshall

INSTRUCTIONS For OBJECTION LETTERS to STAFFORD BOROUGH COUNCIL

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by

Christopher Wilkins
in ,

Help us save Eccleshall from unsustainable development.

If you want to SAVE ECCLESHALL, please read the directions below.
We’ve highlighted some trigger points and suggested language for you to weave into your personal letter to the planning officer. The strongest letters are those that combine personal experience with clear risks and concerns — these are the ones most likely to make an impact.
We know how busy everyone is and how difficult it can be to find time to put together an objection letter — especially when other things interrupt and you have to stop and start again.
But if we don’t object now, the changes will go ahead, and they will be impossible to undo.

Please take the following steps to make your objection count:
Write your own personal letter based on the attached letter, or email to: planning@staffordbc.gov.uk
Make sure you add your own thoughts and objections

Post or email, or drop off at Chokbox or The Ecclian. In Eccleshall High Street

Visit the Save Eccleshall website, to read our simple guide on “How to object to a planning application”- this explains what to include and how to reference the application number correctly.
Print your name, address, site location and planning application number clearly.
Letters and emails must reach the planning officer within three weeks— otherwise they won’t be considered.
This could be one of the most important letters you write. Please help to SAVE ECCLESHALL for everyone and for future generations. Once our beautiful countryside is gone, it is gone forever.

  1. Find the application:
    • Go to the Stafford Borough Council Planning website
    • Search for the Application using a key word like ‘Eccleshall’
    • Note the Planning Application number
  2. You can Submit your objection in one of three Ways
  3. You must include
    • your name and address.
    • the Planning Application number
    • the reasons for your objection
  4. Your Application must be within the time frame given by SBC, normally up to 3 weeks after the Validated Application appears on the SBC Planning Portal.
  5. Key stages:
    • Validation of application by SBC Planning Department: up to 13 weeks
    • Consultation with the public: up to 3 weeks (to get in your objection letter)
    • Assessment and recommendation by SBC planners
    • Decision: up to 13 weeks (will be published on website)

Suggested Personal Wording (please don’t copy):


I am a resident of Eccleshall, deeply concerned about the foreseeable harm and unsafe conditions which will be the inevitable outcome of the above proposed housing development.
In addition to the material considerations set out below, I wish to highlight the firsthand impacts and foreseeable risks that must weigh heavily in your decision.
Our community already faces significant infrastructure pressures. Roads are congested, GP surgeries are overstretched, and schools are under strain. To add hundreds of new houses without proportionate investment creates conditions where accidents, delays to emergency services, and deteriorating public services become not just possible, but predictable. These are foreseeable risks which, if ignored, could expose the planning authority to serious liability.
A519 (Newport ↔ Newcastle-under-Lyme), A5013 (to Stafford/M6 J14), B5026 (Stone/Loggerheads/MarketDrayton) are single-carriageway links with limited overtaking and few alternative routes. Cumulatively, 1000 extra houses will push peak-hour demand across all three, not one—raising queuing, right-turn conflicts, and collision exposure at junctions and accesses. The Eccleshall Neighbourhood Plan itself identifies these as the strategic connectors.
Flooding is already a well-documented issue in Eccleshall, and sewage overflows have been a repeated, distressing problem for residents. I have personally witnessed raw sewage discharging into local areas. To approve new development against this backdrop is to disregard clear evidence of infrastructure failure. Should future sewage incidents cause harm to health, property damage, or environmental breaches, it will be difficult to defend the decision as anything other than a failure of duty of care.
These incidents are not isolated — they are evidence that the existing system is at or beyond capacity.
Approving major new developments without first securing robust investment in sewage infrastructure will almost certainly worsen the problem.
The planning authority cannot ignore the public health implications. Continued overflows expose residents to disease risk, degrade local water quality, and breach environmental obligations. They also create a clear line of liability for approving growth where infrastructure is demonstrably inadequate.
The absence of youth facilities in the proposals is another major concern. Evidence shows that unchecked expansion without youth provision strongly correlates with antisocial behaviour. If these schemes are approved without mitigation, the planning authority will have knowingly created conditions likely to increase disorder — again leaving decisions vulnerable to challenge and criticism when negative outcomes emerge.
These issues are not abstract. They affect daily life now, and they will worsen if growth is allowed to proceed on this scale without adequate infrastructure. The risks are visible, predictable, and preventable.
Eccleshall is not against growth. But growth must be smart, sustainable, and infrastructure-first. Doubling the town without guaranteed schools, healthcare, fire cover, flood resilience, and highway capacity is reckless. To avoid serious safety risks and liabilities Eccelshall requires require proper, phased provision before approving further housing.
I urge you to recognise that planning decisions are judged not only by policy compliance, but also by whether foreseeable risks were acted upon responsibly. To press ahead in the face of such evidence would carry serious reputational, legal, and public accountability consequences.



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