PLANNING chiefs had to postpone making a decision on plans for 770 new homes in South Warrington after too many protesters turned up at the town hall.
Hundreds of local residents turned up at a meeting of the planning commitee to object to proposals to build 770 new homes on land at Grappenhall Heys and Appleton Cross.
With only 43 seats available in the town hall chamber planning committee chairman Cllr Tony McCarthy said he had no choice but to postpone the meeting on safety grounds.
The meeting will now be rescheduled to take place at a larger venue, possibly the Parr Hall.
The proposals, put forward by the Homes and Communities Agency, are for 400 properties at Grappenhall Heys and 370 at Appleton Cross.
Planning officers are recommending the schemes be approved – but the campaigners say there are major issues which need to be settled before the development can go ahead.
Cllr Ryan Bate, who represents the ward in which both applications are located, issued a rallying cry before the meeting urging residents to turn out in force saying: “These are two hugely important applications and local people rightly have many concerns about them.
“Highways, school places, health provision and protecting green spaces are just some of the major issues which we feel haven’t been done justice by planning officers’ recommendations to approve the applications”.
Greater commitments on transport infrastructure and provision of public services top their list of concerns of local residents. More than 300 objections have been received for each application.
The proposals are opposed by Appleton Parish Council, Grappenhall and Thelwall Parish Council, Stockton Heath Parish Council and Lymm Parish Council.
6 Comments
Sorry, but more than half of the complainants will live on Grappenhall Gets and the green parts of Appleton Thorn, did they complain when they bought their homes built on the fields with full! Knowledge of more to come. Nimby
They’re not objecting to the homes, they’re arguing that the infrastructure needs to be improved to make them work. Read the story and get the chip off your shoulder.
Not quite right Mark, most protesters don’t want any more housing on what remains of Appleton/Grapenhall’s green fields but they are being led to believe by local Lib Dem councillor ‘campaigners’ that this land has been ‘predestined’ to be developed and that it is not worth objecting to the proposed developments and thus the best they can strive for is to secure adequate infrastructure.
This is utter baloney! These areas were classed ‘strategic development’ sites – only to be used for development if there were no other areas available to enable the housing targets to be met. Since Satnam’s challenge to the planning dept’s cocked up long term plans ‘strategic development’ classifications have been removed. However, this does not change the fact that this is green land and should be considered for development secondary to brownfield etc. Warrington needs lower cost, affordable housing and not more 4/5 bedroom ‘aspirational’ 500k residences and there is more than enough land available elsewhere – Arpley Meadows, Omega, etc etc where housing developments would be beneficial.
Warrington planning dept have been allowing development vastly over target for years so that to fulfil the housing quota to 2027 we should only have to be building under 400 units per year. Now the cumulative calculation slate has been wiped clean and the past overdevelopment no longer applies to the target figures, so we do have to supply a higher quota per year. Whatever, there are plenty of other sites which should be considered before green land is destroyed.
The last round of developments in Appleton/Grappenhall were allowed to be completed without the infrastructure to properly support them. This infrastructure should be put in place now but without us being blackmailed into accepting any further housing.
What people should be protesting about is a planning dept not fit for purpose, a council that gives money to housing associations to build affordable homes outside of our borough, but most of all about misleading political careerists.
PETD, do you consider the people who protested against the recent Peel Hall development proposals to be ‘nimbies’ too? Everyone has a right to make a stand against things which will impact on their quality of life. And as Mark has said “Read the story” the proposed developments in Appleton and Grappenhall, if they go ahead, will have a severely detrimental effect on a far wider area. When the last round of developments were built the promised infrastructure failed to materialise and this has caused serious problems ever since. These new proposals won’t even provide the infrastructure previously promised – yet vastly increase the population and make the problems worse.
If people throughout the town joined forces against greedy developers who threaten our green spaces we’d all be better able to keep them at bay. This wouldn’t be something the developers would want – your sad attempts to create a North / South divide make me wonder if you are working to an agenda?
Too many developments have received the nod from our planners without any consideration being given to their influences on the local and overall infrastructures.
Would it not make sense for the meeting to be held in south Warrington such as the leisure centre or high school? Whilst I appreciate this will affect central and north Warrington residents due to increased traffic it is likely that more people will attend the meeting from the South. It would therefore be better from an environment/pollution aspect and logistics for any elderly residents who want to attend to hold the meeting in the area most greatly affected.