Inspector upholds Chorley homes refusal
The council secured a much-needed victory at appeal earlier this month but it was not enough to stop Michael Gove calling out the authority for poor planning performance.
Metacre, a subsidiary of Northern Group, appealed the non-determination of its plans for 130 homes on 16 acres north of Heapey Lane earlier this year.
Prior to the appeal being heard, Chorley Council said it would have been minded to refuse the application claiming it would have an “unacceptable adverse effect on the visual amenity and appearance of the countryside”.
Martin Russell, the planning inspector assigned to the case, sided with Chorley Council despite the authority being unable to demonstrate a five-year housing land supply.
The inspector said that the scheme, by virtue of its scale, “would be greatly at odds with the prevailing more pastoral and natural surrounds of this part of the countryside” adding that “there is a need to protect the intrinsic character and beauty of the countryside”.
Metacre will be hoping to strike an immediate blow back; the developer is waiting on the determination of another appeal against the refusal of plans for 11 homes in Euxton.
Chorley’s Heapey Lane appeal victory was not sufficient to convince Michael Gove of the authority’s planning performance.
Announcing the revised National Planning Policy Framework on Tuesday, Gove described Chorley Council and Fareham Council as two local authorities that “persistently underperformed in dealing with planning applications”.
The accusation left the Lancashire authority dumfounded, with leader Cllr Alistair Bradley saying: “Chorley is by no means anti-development and, in fact, if you look at Chorley’s housing figures, we have delivered a great deal of homes – much more so than our neighbouring areas,”
Gove’s decision to designate Chorley as a poor performer stems from the number of appeals the council has lost, Place North West understands.
Chorley Council had 15.6% of its 45 major planning decisions overturned at appeal between October 2020 and September 2022 – the most recent figures available.
This is significantly higher than most other councils, with the vast majority having less than 5% overturned.
Chorley lost seven out of 11 major planning appeals during this timeframe, equating to a 64% failure rate. The other 34 decisions were not appealed.
Having been singled out by Gove, Chorley is required to come up with an improvement plan and developers will also be able to bypass the council and go directly to the Planning Inspectorate to have their applications considered.
Yes. Too many houses everywhere. Let the homeless live in tents.
By Anonymous
Throughout most of my adult life,there has always seemed to be a ‘housing crisis’ – an excuse to cart-blanche approve all planning applications and concrete over the countryside with relentless urban sprawl schemes,both residential and commercial.
The views of local residents who object to such schemes largely fall on deaf ears and are dismissed as ‘nimbies’ for daring to raise such concerns.
I call for common sense when at comes to planning applications of such scale and stop insulting the average persons intelligence with beauracratic mumo jumbo!
I’m not denying the need to build when the need arises.but surely consider a brown field site first,before digging up and concreting over pastoral,lush green fields to delivery these spurious ‘targets’!!
By Conservation Chris
Conservation Chris has cracked it! What an absolutely fantastic idea! Let’s only build on brownfield sites. Hopefully with that approach our children might just be able to afford £750k for a 2-bed terrace in Skelmersdale
By Alan