A CONTROVERSIAL proposal to build four detached houses on Green Belt land is to be put to Warrington planners on Wednesday.
Outline plans were refused by local planning chiefs two years ago, but allowed after an appeal.
Now four nearby residents and Rixton-with-Glazebrook Parish Council are objecting to detailed plans for the development in Marsh Brook Close, Rixton.
The houses would be built at the head of Marsh Brook Close, a development of 32 houses on the outer edge of the village and is surrounded by existing residential development on three sides. The fourth side adjoins a large open field used occasionally for exercising horses.
A public footpath runs along the northern edge of the site, providing a useful link between residential areas and the village school. The developer plans to widen the path and improve its surface to make it safer to use.
However all trees along the northern border of the site would be removed and a hedgerow replanted and moved back from the footpath, within the development site. This would strike a balance between the need for privacy for the occupiers of the new houses, and some existing properties, and the desirability of maintaining greenery along the footpath.
Residents opposed to the scheme question the need for building more houses on Green Belt land in an area where many new houses have already been built. They say there would be a loss of trees and of uninterrupted views across open countryside.
The parish council objects because the site is within the Green Belt and because of the loss of trees.
But planning officers are recommending the scheme be approved. They say the Green Belt issues were settled at the appeal against the original refusal and that the four houses would make a useful contribution to the borough’s housing shortfall.
