CONTROVERSIAL plans for more than 700 homes on land in Grappenhall and Appleton have been deferred a second time by planning chiefs at Warrington.
Members of the borough council’s development management committee put off a decision at a special meeting at the Parr Hall, attended by several hundred people.
The decision was greeted by cheers and applause.
It does not means the proposals will not go ahead. Tne principle of housing in the area was established more than 20 years ago.
But a strong message has been sent to the Homes and Communities Agency, the applicants, that local people will not tolerate housing plans put forward without adequate infrastructure – particularly roads – being in place.
Officers had recommended the proposals be approved and a number of committee members pointed out that if they refused the plans there would be an appeal that the council could not win.
The need for more housing, nationally and locally, was stressed.
But fears over more traffic on local roads already overloaded prevailed and the committee voted to defer both applications . They will be re-considered following the borough council’s local plan review, which is expected to be completed within in a matter of weeks. Councillors decided it would be inappropriate to reach a decision on such major housing developments in advance of the review.
Protestors who packed out Warrington town hall at the original meeting
3 Comments
There should have been out-right refusal. HCA had made a mess of the application – and if refused an appeal would have been unlikely to win.
If refused locally following deferred period it will still go to appeal and we will see if your prediction is right.
Whilst pre-judging any appeal outcome should not lead those with a vote on the committee, one expects this will again be the case, so the more widely held belief that the appeal would be accepted outside the local remit will likely see this get passed following this delay/deferred period as the council will not want to be seen to decline what is then accepted nor want to incur the costs of appeal.
I’m afraid, that what might be going on is just theatrical, political point scoring – but really all parties singing from the same song sheet.
Appleton / Grappenhall, Lib Dem councillors making a song and dance about a ‘campaign to fight’ the applications – but misleading objectors into believing that the ‘previous consents’ meant that the development couldn’t be stopped and that the best that could be achieved was to ensure good infrastructure was included. This was incorrect as the ‘previous permissions’ related only to the previous plans (with loads of infrastructure). These were entirely different plans. The sites being split and HCA trying, by doing this, to get the housing without forking out for the infrastructure.
As the myth of the ‘previous permissions’ being valid was widely believed, and having no up to date local plan, gives ‘a presumption in favour of development’, HCA, may have thought they would have it passed through ‘on the nod’, and they hadn’t produced very good plans – misleading information, lack of information, unclear calculations etc.
However, the proposals were challenged.
The ‘presumption in favour of development’ can be challenged, and the developer has to prove that the ‘benefits’ not just outweigh but CLEARLY outweigh any negative issues. Which this application couldn’t – and thus should have been refused. Any appeal by HCA could only have been decided on the circumstances that existed at the time of refusal – and I doubt it would have succeeded. If the plans had been passed – I think an objector’s appeal would have been won.
The deferral of the application, gives HCA time to ‘tidy up’ the proposals and the ‘awaited local decisions’ may be in their favour and add weight to their application. Personally I would think that there must be members who would have some idea of which way the ‘local decisions’ will go.
Whatever, as the weight appeared clearly on the objectors side at the meeting, I would have thought that a ‘call in’ to scrutiny might have been made.
I suppose we will all have to wait and see how it all unfolds.