Green light finally beckons for 370 Whitehaven homes
National housing body Homes England is looking to secure outline consent, having been pushed back over traffic concerns in 2018.
Should consent be secured in line with officer recommendation, reserved matters applications are likely to follow from a range of housebuilders.
At the 2018 meeting, approval had been recommended, but committee members had been minded to go against that advice and refuse the scheme due to concerns over highway safety and impact on the road network, leading to a deferral.
This led to Copeland triggering an independent review of housing accelerator HE’s highways report and the responses of Cumbria County Council, the relevant highways authority.
Carried out by Arup, the review found that the applicant’s planning reasons were robust and could not form grounds for refusal.
However, since that review in 2019, HE has done further work on the highways aspect of the proposals, along with other areas where objections had arisen following re-consultation. Dissenting voices includede those of Sport England, the Woodland Trust and Natural England.
These have now been dealt with. In Sport England’s case, a payment will be made towards the Whitehaven Academy, consented in June. In terms of public engagement, each round of consultation met with around 100 objections.
Tetra Tech is Homes England’s planning consultant, also covering areas including drainage, transport and heritage; and is supported by TEP on ecology and Aecom on geotechnical issues.
The site concerned is 56.8 acres and is agricultural – mostly used for grazing. It also includes a disused playing pitch. The site is enclosed by the Harras Moor industrial estate, housing areas (one an estate developed in the 1990s by Persimmon) and woodland.
The site, marked in red at the centre, will accommodate 370 homes and 17 acres of open space. Credit: planning documents
The recommendation from planning officers is that members delegate authority to approve to the head of place and planning on the grounds that a 15% affordable homes threshold is met, that 17.5 acres are held back as public open space with ongoing maintenance provided for, and that a commuted sum is committed to offsite habitat creation or enhancement to provide a biodiversity net gain.
Access to the development will be from Harras Road and Caldbeck Road, with the expectation that these will be joined to form a spine road.
Notably, of the statutory consultees, the council’s housing officer is effusive in welcoming the plans, stating that it will provide “much-needed” homes, adding that one-bedroom properties in particular were shown in a recent survey to be desired by local residents.
Copeland and Cumbria councils sold the plots required for the project to Homes England in 2017, following a request from both for help in delivering residential at the site.
Tetra Tech’s planning statement said that given one of HE’s objectives is to support SME housebuilders, “it is likely that a number of reserved matters applications” will be submitted by developers on a phased basis.
Pre-application discussions with Copeland have confirmed that the plans are in line with the borough’s development plan, said Tetra Tech. The plans go to committee on Tuesday 16 August.
