PLANNING chiefs have given the go-ahead for four detached houses to be built on a Green Belt site at Warrington – two years after rejecting the same scheme.
Outline plans were refused by local planning chiefs in 2018 because the site was in the Green Belt – but allowed after an appeal.
Now detailed proposals have been drawn up – and approved by the borough council’s development management committee.
Four nearby residents and Rixton-with-Glazebrook Parish Council opposed plans for the development in Marsh Brook Close, Rixton .because the site is in the Green Belt and there would be a loss of trees.
But planning officers recommended the scheme be approved and pointed out that the Green Belt issues had been settled at the appeal two years ago.
The houses will be built at the head of Marsh Brook Close, a development of 32 houses on the outer edge of the village. The site 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 trees along the northern border of the site will be removed and a hedgerow replanted and moved back from the footpath, within the development site. This will 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, according to officers.
Residents opposed to the scheme questioned the need for building more houses on Green Belt land in an area where many new houses have already been built. They say there will be a loss of trees and of uninterrupted views across open countryside.
The parish council objected because the site is within the Green Belt and because of the loss of trees.
The committee decided the houses will make a useful contribution resolving the borough’s housing shortfall.
