Miller proposals set for consent

Plans for 129 homes on a greenfield site in the Burnley borough of Cliviger have been recommended for approval at next week’s planning committee, despite proving controversial locally.

Proposed by Miller Homes on land west of Red Lees Road, the plot was included for residential development in Burnley’s Local Plan, approved in 2017.

However, due to its position on the very edge of Burnley, near to Towneley Park, and its current use for grazing cattle, the project has received several objections, including from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Cliviger Parish Council and local residents.

The proposal is for 94 detached, 26 semi-detached, and nine terraced homes, designed around nine different house types.

The application is set to go before Burnley’s planning committee next Wednesday, with a recommendation to approve as long as section 106 and education contributions are agreed.

A report to the council summarised the objections to the scheme.

Campaign to Protect Rural England pointed out the project has been “locally opposed by residents and the parish council” and said that “trust in the planning system would be eroded if ‘pattern book houses’ are merely ‘copied and pasted’ into the site, without an understanding of local concerns”.

Burnley Civic Trust stated “the whole development is uninspiring”, while Cliviger Parish Council “strongly object” and was “disappointed that the land was put into the Local Plan in 2017, particularly in light of strong opposition”.

Cllr Andrew Newhouse, called the number of homes “excessive” and said the scheme was an “unimaginative layout of cramped housing of no architectural merit”.

The Burnley Conservation Forum also pointed out fears that there were a variety of protected birds which would be impacted by the loss of feeding grounds, which hadn’t been captured by the bird survey and habitat assessments submitted with the application as the studies were carried out outside of breeding season. The forum said the land was “vitally needed”, and could impact bird species Golden Plover, Lapwing, Curlew, Redshank and Twite.

However, in recommending the scheme for approval, the council defended the project as complying with the previously approved development plan, “and there are no material reasons to outweigh this finding”.

The architect is Banners Gate.

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Breaking News. Plans afoot for ALLOCATED site in the LOCAL PLAN. Local residents outraged.

By Same Old Housebuilder Bashing

Honestly. I know nothing about this site, or application, but google mapping the site it’s absolutely clear the land is not “vitally needed” for birds. They’ll do fine in the surrounding million billion squillion acres of open land.

What is actually “vitally needed” is houses. For People. In areas chosen (by professionals) that are appropriate for development. Planning thankfully isn’t a democracy, and the sooner idiots realise this the better.

“Excessive” and “pattern book houses”? – We need to build 300,000 homes a year, they can’t all be Grand Design HUF Hauses whittled from Willow and happy thoughts. And they’d still object if they were.

Nimbyism is exhausting, I’m exhausting, droning on about them! Let’s all move on, and live in a shiny new cut and paste development on the edge of town together, it’s built excessively, so we can all have one!

By Same Old Housebuilder Bashing

Derelict sites abound in Burnley; build your houses if you must, but why the obsession with the hollowing out of traditional centres so more and more farmland can be lost on the outskirts to accommodate another Noddy Land?

By Roger Eli

@Roger Eli – the answer is that both is necessary. When the Council allocated sites for development (which were widely consulted on with the public, including several ‘call for sites’ exercises) they determined that there are insufficient brownfield sites to meet housing requirements. The brownfield sites can often take longer to deliver but they have to demonstrate they CAN be delivered before they’ll be allocated – take the former Baxi factory site in Padiham for example.

Another major problem for Burnley is that they have an incredibly under-resourced planning department leading to further delays in delivery and an overall poor service for developers and the public. I’ve submitted applications all over England, Scotland and Wales and never have I seen a planning department as under-resourced as Burnley.

By NWPlanner

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