I SUPPOSE even when your political party is mired in sleeze, you’ve still got to do your day job, so (hard) hats off to Warrington South’s Tory MP Andy Carter.

Mr Carter dipped into Boris Johnson’s dressing up box to don hard hat and hi-viz to visit the Rivers Edge housing development which is taking shape at the Chester Road end of the Centre Park link road (Slutchers Lane to you and me).

Now if I was going to be churlish about this, and maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, but my recollection is that the new bridge over the Mersey which completed the Centre Park link was intended to allow some of the through-traffic to avoid all the town centre congestion and take some of the pressure off Bridge Foot.

Now, according to developers some 500 new homes will be built on the site, some for sale, some for rent and some will be affordable homes managed by Torus.

Don’t get me wrong, I am well aware the town needs more homes. I also agree that building on a brownfield site is a good idea.

But just consider how many new homes will eventually fit on the former Spectra Packaging (the old Thames Board) site.

How many more cars will that bring?

So while I was (and still am) a huge fan of the Centre Park link, I can’t help but feel a bit short-changed over the whole ‘it will ease traffic’ shtick. It sort of puts me in mind of the same kind of tales we heard about the Warrington Western Link, sold to us as a traffic relief scheme when in fact it’s more of an opening up land for development scheme.

Nevertheless, I also understand the town can’t stand still and if there is land that can be transformed, bringing us new homes, new jobs and increased prosperity, then so be it.

All I would ask is that we have a little honesty and transparency in the process.

I do have one or two questions though. If the figure of more than 500 new homes on the Slutchers Lane site is correct, surely that is going to put a massive amount of pressure on local services.

Has there been provision made for extra school places? What about medical services? It’s difficult enough to get an appointment to see a GP as it is so where are all the new people going to go?

There is some hope with Mark Hadfield, Countryside managing director in west Cheshire, saying: “Countryside is creating a sustainable community that will transform this brownfield site and the wider area.”

He added that as part of the development, Countryside will be investing £400,000 into the local community, supporting local health and education provisions and improving the local transport network.

It will be interesting to find out exactly how and where that money will be spent. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.

Oh, and one final thought. I assume that all the necessary risk assessments were carried out before building work started but isn’t that whole area at high risk of flooding?

Website getthedata.com certainly seems to indicate that it is and bits of that area have certainly flooded in the past.

On a completely different topic, I’ve picked up the occasional motoring fixed penalty notice, always because of my own carelessness or stupidity.

It’s a annoying and a waste of money that could have been put to better use but I’ve accepted it’s my fault and paid up.

There was one private parking charge ‘fine’ I disputed and won but all the ones involving the police or local authority, I’ve paid up promptly.

So I permitted myself a wry smile when I read the story of a driver who challenged a fixed penalty notice for parking on zig-zag lines at Lymm Dam, took the case to court and ended up having to pay more than £1,000 in fines and costs.

Perhaps that fixed penalty notice didn’t seem quite so costly in retrospect.