Consent secured for West Lancs housing
Planning consultant Hourigan Connolly has secured planning permission for Seddon Homes to build 128 homes at the former Greaves Hall hospital site in Banks, West Lancashire. The proposal also includes 10,000 sq ft of office space.
Outline consent for residential and employment uses was agreed in 2014 at the brownfield site, which has been vacant since the early 1990s. Complications overcome since the granting of outline consent included issues over access proposals and affordable housing provision.
Elements included in the scheme that helped secure recommendation by planning officers include a new car park for the local St Stephen’s primary school, the provision of footpaths and lighting to key local roads and 7.4 acres of public open space.
Mike O’Brien, director of planning at Hourigan Connolly, said: “The original outline planning application attracted local opposition so we are very pleased to obtain a positive committee resolution from the council for the proposals.
“This will enable the delivery of much needed housing on a long term vacant brownfield site, alongside employment development as well as infrastructure for the local community.”
Greaves Hall was built amid 124 landscaped acres in 1900. Briefly used as a school in the 1930s, it then housed a hospital which was closed in the early 1990s and demolished following arson attacks in 2009.
The wider site already houses business space within Greaves Hall Industrial Estate and houses built by Redrow, while former hospital buildings have been used to house St Stephen’s and the Banks Leisure Centre.
