COUNCILLORS have said that they will put the pressure on Somerset Council to ensure that Wellington has all the services required to cope with an ever-increasing population.
There are concerns that Wellington could be left with real headaches if housing developments go-ahead without the town having the necessary facilities to cater for thousands of extra people living in the area.
Members of Wellington Town Council’s policy and finance committee met on January 13 where they looked at how best to ensure a strategic approach is taken in order to get additional services and other infrastructure in place to support thousands of extra people.
Cllr Steve Mercer said Wellington could find itself in all sorts of problems in years to come if a strategic plan was not in place to safeguard its future and that the town might “hit a tipping point.”
“We’ve seven housing developments at the moment which are either already happening or likely to happen and that could be up to around 1,500 houses and could see a 33 per cent increase in the town’s population in a decade,” he said.
He questioned whether the current provision of doctors, schools, roads and other services and infrastructure would be able to cope?
“Is Wellington in danger of hitting a tipping point?” he asked. “GPs could close their books, for example, so where would all these extra people go?
“If we had 5,000 more people from the new developments that would mean hundreds of children so what do we do about schools?
“Our town would go from having a 15,000 population to 20,000 – that’s huge for Wellington, but is Wellington ready for that?
“We, as a town council, need to look at this. I do think we need a brand new GP surgery in Wellington for starters.”
Town clerk Dave Farrow said the council had had a presentation about school places in Wellington and, to slightly amend a well known quip from legendary comedian Eric Morecambe, he said: “We have got the right number of school places, but they are not necessarily in the right places.”
Mr Farrow, who added that they were already looking at health provision in the town, added: “As a council our job is to make sure that we’ve got the right services here.”
Cllr Andy Govier said: “Whether we like it or not, housing developments will go-ahead.”
Cllr Justin Cole, however, looking at things more positively from a glass half full rather than half empty point of view, said: “It could be seen that having more houses built in Wellington is actually a good thing because more houses will bring more people into the town and produce more money for the town. So perhaps it’s not all bad.”
Councillors agreed that although responsibility for ensuring the appropriate infrastructure was in place fell within Somerset Council’s remit, it was vital that the town council made the county authority accountable.
It was agreed that a further “visioning session” be held to discuss the issues in more detail.