A PLAN to build nine affordable homes on Green Belt land at Lymm has been rejected by borough council planners.
The outline proposal was for land at Pool Farm in Pool Lane – where a similar plan was refused in 2019.
Warrington Borough Council Planners ruled that the development would be inappropriate in the Green Belt and that special reasons outweighing the harm to the openness of the Green Belt were insufficient.
Officers considered reports which stated that two objections had been received to the scheme – based on traffic issues and increased noise – but three other nearby residents had supported the proposals.
Lymm Parish Council also supported the plan and pointed out that no traffic issues had been raised in respect of previous applications in the area.
Pool Farm is the only dairy farm left in Lymm, providing an important local service and local employment.
Investment resulting from the proposal would enable the business to modernise and create more employment.
But overall, planners decided the harm to the Green Belt outweighed the benefits of the scheme.
In response to the decision, Joe Broadsmith from Poole farm said: “This was a proposal to build 9 genuinely affordable homes on less than one acre of land. The proposal was for the homes to be sold at a discount of 40% from their true market value.
“This would enable young people in Lymm to buy a home in the village in which they grew up. A small family-run dairy farm could then invest the funds raised, to sustain the business and generate local employment. This is a business which, by its function, effectively protects around 80 acres of green belt land through its agricultural use. Despite concluding that this small parcel of redundant land made a ‘weak contribution’ to the functions of the green belt, the proposals were refused by planners.
“We will now have to proceed with a costly appeal process. Meanwhile, less than 10 yards south of the field, Warrington Borough Council has allocated a large area of green belt land in the Local Plan for a minimum of 170 homes to be built. Perhaps the better option would just be to sell the whole farm to a developer and farm elsewhere. That is the consequence of WBC’s incompetence when it comes to green belt policy.”
