Deferral for Lovell in Workington

Allerdale Council has deferred a decision on housebuilder Lovell’s plans for 267 homes in Workington.

Lovell secured outline permission for the 11-acre plot off Ashfield in 2014; this was for 290 houses. The site is allocated for housing development under Allerdale’s development plan.

The housebuilder had put forward a reserved matters application which will allow work to begin on the largely-agricultural plot.

Lovell is proposing a mix of homes; these will primarily be three-bedroom with 187 of these put forward, along with 34 two-bedroom and 46 four-bedroom homes also proposed.

Of these, 46 are for affordable tenures and are scattered throughout the site; 23 are for discounted open market sale with the other 23 for affordable rent. The properties are to be delivered in partnership with housing association Home Group.

The plans were set to be signed off by Allerdale’s planning committee this week; while officers admitted there would be a “significant amount” of trees lost, due to the constraints of the site, these would be replaced by new tree planting.

Officers said: “There are constraints including physical features such as the mine shafts as well as policy amdoutline permission requirements to provide play areas, address areas of flood risk and the need to retain boundary buffer trees for matters of ecology and landscaping.

“That said, a significant amount of central tree plantation will be removed, but this is necessary to provide the number of dwellings to deem the development viable and ensure an appropriate, policy compliant mix.

“Furthermore, the indicative proposals at the outline stage assumed this loss and a satisfactory, compensatory tree replanting landscaping scheme is proposed.”

However, the planning committee instead decided to defer a decision.

Ainsley Gommon is the architect.