Couple beat council – but lose out to voles!

A WARRINGTON couple have won a planning battle with the borough council – but lost out to their neighbouring water voles!
An independent planning inspector has upheld their appeal against the council’s refusal to grant retrospective planning permission for a wall and potting shed in their garden.
But he has dismissed a similar appeal against the refusal of permission for a concrete footpath on a river bank because it destroyed a potential water vole habitat.
Mr and Mrs John Speakman, of Clay Lane, Burtonwood had appealed against the council’s refusal to grant them retrospective planning consent for the overall development.
The inspector, David Pinner, said the use of the land as a residential garden was consistent with its location. The potting shed and the wall caused no harm.
The council’s main reason for refusing planning consent related to the loss of potential wildlife habitat as a result of the concrete path on the bank of Phipps Brook.
Mr Pinner said: “The destruction of the watercourse bank by the construction of the concrete footpath has meant that nobody can now know whether any water vole habitat was destroyed or not.
“However, water voles have been detected within a reasonable close proximity of the site – within 1km and the bank could have potentially have provided a suitable habitat.
“It is clear that if planning permission had been sought for the footpath before the works were undertaken it would not have been granted because of the resultant habitat loss.”
He said the lost habitat could be reinstate on removal of the offending development.
But that would be a matter for enforcement action.
Mr Pinner said the footpath now served no useful purposes and had resulted in habitat loss.