School places and road networks: Residents raise concerns over impact of housing target
Residents were given 90 minutes to ask questions to cabinet this week
North East Lincolnshire Council says it is not planning to build a "significant" number of secondary schools.
Locals shared concerns over the existing places potentially soon not being enough at a Live Cabinet Q&A on Facebook earlier this week.
It comes after the Government announced in September that the authority will have to build more than 622 homes annually to meet housing targets.
Councillor Margaret Cracknell, cabinet portfolio holder for children and education, said: "As far as I'm aware, at the moment there are no plans for a significant increase in our secondary estate.
"But of course, the Local Plan is very much something that will be out for consultation. And included and included within that there are a number of homes that need to be built and the associated infrastructure to support those homes may well include schools as well - not only secondary but also primary education.
"So, there is an opportunity now, I think, for residents to make their views known and if there is there consensus that that number of homes requires further schools, then so be it at the time.
"But I don't think, at this moment, we're in a situation where, currently, we need any further schools."
During the same session, people also raised the issue of traffic and congestion that will come with the installation of hundreds of new homes.
Council Leader Philip Jackson responded saying they were aware of upcoming infrastructure problems and they had even asked the Government to reconsider the target for North East Lincolnshire, but said they did not "seem prepared to compromise on that number".
"The problem is, if we end up with those homes being built around the villages, we don't really have the infrastructure to support those numbers of houses in those sort of areas.
"We know that the road network in the villages around North East Lincolnshire is already overloaded which is part of the reason why we're currently putting together a revised Local Plan which, hopefully, will direct homes to other areas of the borough", he explained.
"We are going to have to look at where we can get Section 106 contributions from developers and builders to enable us to improve the road network.
"We're going to have to look at what we can do to try and streamline the road network to reduce bottlenecks, but it's going to be a problem. I don't think there's any point in denying that."
Suggested sites for the development include the Grimsby West site as well as other brownfield sites and town centres.