CWAC committee faces housing-heavy docket
Wain Homes’ plans for 240 residences on the edge of Ellesmere Port return for a verdict, while 86 homes south of Kelsall are likewise recommended for approval.
The Wain Homes site is 30.3 acres, north of Dunkirk Way in Backford Cross. The professional team includes DGL Associates, Emery Planning, Trevor Bridge Associates, and Tetra Tech advising on transport.
The plan is for the development to be accessed via Old Meadow Drive, which currently serves phase one of a partially completed Redrow scheme billed as The Pastures.
In planning terms, things stack up: it is within Ellesmere Port’s settlement boundary and is categorised within CWAC’s development plan as one of its four principal settlements for new housing.
However, members were unconvinced at the early September committee meeting, deferring a decision with a request for more information around highways, specifically on safety and offsite highways works.
There are concerns over the capacity of Old Meadow Drive, especially given there is also a further 91 homes at The Pastures to be added to the mix.
Addressing that, Wain’s team has submitted a clarification statement dealing with matters that have been provisionally agreed with highways officers, looking at junction capacity, junction form and the appropriateness of any planning conditions linked to offsite highway improvements. A new puffin crossing will be introduced to the main road.
In summary, the council view is that the project will not have a major impact on highways, and approval remains the recommendation. Scheme documents can be seen on CWAC’s planning portal with the reference 23/03825/FUL.
eScape Urbanists is working on the Green Lane Farm project. Credit: planning documents
In Kelsall, eight miles east of Chester, applicants Richard, Linda and David Blything have applied to demolish buildings on a nine-acre site at Green Lane Farm, to be replaced by 86 homes, 30% of them affordable. Only the farmhouse would remain of the existing stock.
Planner Asteer and eScape Urbanists are working with the applicants.
The application – reduced from 99 homes in its first iteration – has been called in by ward member Cllr Ted Lush, highlighting three issues: its location outside the Kelsall settlement boundary, encroaching into countryside, and blurring the settlement boundaries of Kelsall and Willington.
Kelsall Parish Council also objects, along with around 50 residents – although there have also been around 20 letters of support.
Although outside a settlement boundary, the site is in the local development plan and is not Green Belt. CWACs lack of a five-year supply is also a factor. Approval is recommended.
Scheme documents can be viewed on the CWAC portal, reference 24/03791/OUT.
Approval is also recommended at the 6 October meeting for a 10-acre extension of the Northwich Biogas anaerobic digestion plant at Lostock Gralam, enabling new site infrastructure to be added.
