Refusal recommended for 99 St Helens homes
Planning officers offered up eight reasons for councillors to reject the application from Wain Homes, which centres around more than 12 acres of former Green Belt in Newton-le-Willows.
The land in question sits west of Mill Lane. Half of the plot is “white land”, meaning it has no designation in the recent local plan. The remaining half is safeguarded land.
Wain Homes’ plans for the site included the building of 99 homes, of which 30% would be designated affordable. The homes would be built on the white land part of the site.
Access would be from A49 Mill Lane. Access roads would be built on the safeguarded land, which planning officers said was in conflict with the local plan’s policies for that area.
Planning officers also said that the plans as they stood did not demonstrate a safe vehicular access to and from the development.
The development itself was described as “poorly planned” by St Helens planning officers, who wrote that the project would not add to the quality of the area due to a lack of room for landscaping.
Council consultations with Lead Local Flood Authority and Environment Agency resulted in objections being raised regarding the adequacy of the flood risk assessment and a lack of SUDs. The project was also criticised for not having an ecology report or an air quality assessment.
The council has also received 39 objections to the plans from locals, and two in support of the project.
While new housing was noted as a good thing, the officer report for the application stated that the council was able to demonstrate a housing land supply of more than five years – meaning the project was not key to meeting housing targets.
Emery Planning is the planning consultant for the project. SCP is the transport consultant. TBA landscape architects is the arboricultural consultant. DGL Associates is the creator of the planning layout. Barnes Walker is the landscape architect.
Wain Homes’ application will be debated by St Helens Council at the 6 December planning committee meeting.
The application’s reference number with St Helens Council is P/2022/0575/FUL.
St Helens Council is generally pro-development, so something’s not quite right on this one. A range-finder, perhaps?
By Buyer Beware
They are pro-development within reason. They have just adopted their new Local Plan so have plenty of housing sites to go at. No need for them to rip up green belt land for the Wain Homes site. It is safeguarded for housing for the end of the plan period. So technically this land shouldn’t be built on until 2037 or when they fall short of the 5 year housing land supply which won’t be anytime soon!
By Anon