[ad_1]
Councillors have begrudgingly rejected plans for more than 460 houses on a former Derbyshire airfield after major concerns from JCB and concerns over a “poor” design. The twin plans, from FW Harrison Estates Ltd and David Wilson Homes East Midlands, were for 367 homes and 101 homes, both on the Ashbourne Airfield site.
This airfield site forms the lynchpin of the council’s housing and employment development aims for the Dales, eventually set to include 1,500 homes and 60,000 square feet of employment land. At a Derbyshire Dale District Council meeting last night (April 11), both sets of plans were roundly rejected with members feeling that much more work needs to be done to get the first phases of the overall scheme right, in order to pave the way for the rest of the project.
This rejection was hoped to send a resounding message that the Derbyshire Dales “will no longer accept mediocre housing development”. This is despite the scheme already encountering significant delays, with a £2.5 million 50-metre roundabout, built by Derbyshire County Council with £1 million in public funding to serve the scheme, now having sat complete but leading nowhere for nearly two years.
Read more: Plans for 460 homes on Ashbourne Airfield set to be blocked
Chris Whitmore, the district council’s head of planning said at this week’s meeting that the authority had aimed to provide decisions on these two schemes in September but had sought to work out the many issues with the developers. However, he said this has proved “fruitless” and that he and fellow officers felt it was time to reject the proposals and restart discussions.
Key concerns included the potential overloading of the newly built roundabout with too many homes, due to the applicants looking to add a “windfall” site of 101 extra properties onto a plot which planners had approved for 367 – squeezing the plot to a total of 468. They also include the creation of insufficient legal access for JCB to use to get to its testing and training grounds, with a five-metre wide entry proposed when it needs at least 7.5 metres.
The smaller road on the other side of the currently too small access would also be insufficient, the construction firm said, and would mean large HGVs would need to mount the kerb, driving very close to people’s homes and would be unable to pass other vehicles. Grant Anderson, speaking on behalf of JCB, told the meeting: “JCB supports the development over the wider airfield site proposed in the Local Plan, however, given the importance of the site and the scale of development proposed JCB considers it important that development of the whole site is comprehensively planned at the outset to ensure all necessary infrastructure is in place and that a coherent, comprehensive and high-quality development is achieved.
“The two applications before you adopt a piecemeal approach to development which will prejudice the comprehensive delivery of the wider site and in JCB’s submission are unacceptable.” He said the current situation would “inevitably lead to road safety issues” and put “inevitable pressure on JCB to curtail its operations”.
Mr Anderson said the applicants had: “Failed to demonstrate there is sufficient capacity on the A52 roundabout to serve the whole of airfield site at increased density proposed, that should be a particular concern given that significant public funds have been spent on the delivery of the roundabout access specifically with the objective of providing access to serve the whole of the airfield site.” Helen Bareford, speaking on behalf of the two developers, asked that the council defer a decision on both plans in order for further talks to take place.
Ms Bareford said matters could be resolved if a “positive and proactive” approach is taken to create a “high quality” scheme. She said the firms can prove there would be a sufficient biodiversity net gain, that habitats for butterflies would be enhanced and that the roundabout could sustain planned traffic levels – even with 101 extra properties.
Ms Bareford said the firms were “extremely disappointed” with comments about the “very poor” design of the scheme. She said “timely delivery of a high quality scheme instead of unnecessary delays” would be preferable, pointing out that the council does not have a five-year land supply, saying this made it “vulnerable to unwanted housing” elsewhere.
Chris Whitmore, starting with the 367-home scheme, said: “In design terms we feel that the application is suboptimal for a development or a site of this scale. What happens in phase one will set the scene for wider development on the airfield site.”
He said despite some talks, significant issues remained and the route for HGVs from the A52 to the industrial estate had not been “properly considered” along with the impact these vehicles would have on homes. He said: “We want to work with the applicant to try and deliver the airfield and the strategic allocation in the plan and we will continue to do so, however, we have been presented with this application and the requirement to engage in a positive and proactive manner is considered best served this case by issuing a decision at the earliest opportunity, allowing the applicant to exercise their right to an appeal.”
Cllr Janet Rose said: “This is a huge brownfield site, it is very very important for the development of Ashbourne, but why are we talking about it (the detailed layout) now, shouldn’t we have been talking about it years past, months past? And we should have had a plan for the whole site rather than, individually, developers just coming forward and asking for what they can get on land they have got?
“The site needs careful planning for leisure facilities. We are going to have hundreds of people living here, what are the children going to do? Where are the playing fields? Where’s the park? There are so many questions to be answered before we can get to making a decision.” Cllr Peter O’Brien said: “The design is so fundamentally flawed that refusal is the only way forward and deferral is not appropriate.” – With Mr Whitmore agreeing with this position.
Cllr O’Brien said these decisions would show that applications can now be refused on design grounds, and that it was not a matter of “individual taste”, which would ensure “places of quality” are built in the district, “places that reflect architectural tradition of the Derbyshire Dales”. He said: “It is not about opening up page 47 of a pattern book and selecting a design which that particular housebuilder thinks is going to sell for the most profit.
“This refusal would give a clear message to developers that this council will no longer accept mediocre housing development, not just in Ashbourne but throughout the Derbyshire Dales.” Cllr Peter Slack said: “There are so many things wrong with this application that I totally agree with the officers (and vote to refuse).”
Cllr Richard FitzHerbert said: “This is a really big project and it is essential that we get this right. I have sympathy with a deferral but agree with officers. It is a great shame that we have got to refuse this. I think all members want to be proud of Ashbourne, to be proud of this approach into our town and the district and sadly, and regrettably, we have got to refuse this particular application.”
Cllr Jacqueline Allison said she was “really quite disappointed” with the schemes, due to good work by David Wilson Homes on a 180-home estate in Doveridge, and said the council should be leading on design of the site so that developers have something to work towards. Cllr Jason Atkin, chair of the planning committee, advised the developers to draw up a master plan for phases one and two of the overall airfield before proceeding.
The 367-home plans were unanimously refused first, before a brief discussion on the 101-home plans. Ms Bareford said: “We did strongly believe that deferral was the more collaborative approach but we do appreciate that there is some work to do with regards to design.”
Mr Whitmore said the 101-home scheme “scores very poorly” on design, because it is “dense, dominated by cars, and sporadic in mixture of different house types, scales, and pallets of materials” with no open space allocated on the site at all. Cllr Tom Donnelly said: “This is a very very poor application that just doesn’t fit into the area at all, especially with where the properties are.”
Cllr Slack repeated his previous comments, saying: “There is so much wrong with this application that there is no choice but to refuse this.” The 101-home plans were unanimously refused.
We send out the biggest stories in an email every day. Sign up for the main Derbyshire Live newsletter here.
Read more:
[ad_2]
Source link