Chorley housing development to go ahead close to listed building

The owner of Hawksclough Farm in Clayton-le-Woods told members of Chorley’s Council’s planning committee that access to the six proposed dwellings, off Preston Road, would impinge on his own property.

Tim Barwood-Vincent said that an 1840s Ordnance Survey map showed that the gateway to the eighteenth century farmhouse marked the divide between public and private land.

He claimed that one of two gateposts at the spot had been uprooted without his consent to allow improvements to the narrow lane leading to the planned estate – and added that he had recently put it back in place.

“Now that the gatepost has been reinstated, the applicant will not be able to fulfil the conditions…that the highways authority have specified.

“The gatepost will end up in the middle of the new access road and [it] is my private property, as is the land on which it stands – so its removal will require permission which I’m not willing to grant,” Mr. Barwood-Vincent said.

However, the meeting heard that an independent conservation planner, commissioned by the council, did not consider the gateway to be within the “curtilage” of the Grade II-listed Hawksclough – and so would not be “listed by association”.

“Ownership of the access road is a civil matter that would have to be resolved outside of the planning process,” said the authority’s principal planning officer, Iain Crossland.

The council also concluded that the setting of the three-storey building would not be damaged by the proposed development.

Rachel Leather – agent for the applicant, Thistle Homes – said that the civil issues over ownership were not a “reason for refusal”.

She added that the developer had revised previous plans for two larger properties and replaced them with six smaller dwellings that better reflect the “existing scale and character of development in the immediate vicinity”.

“There are numerous trees around the site which provide a high level of screening to the rear and which will be retained as part of the proposals,” said Ms. Leather.

Members had deferred their decision on the plans last month so that they could visit the site for themselves. On this occasion, they voted by a majority to approve the proposal – but stopped short of giving it a ringing endorsement.

Cllr Martin Boardman said that access for a notional dozen vehicles would be “difficult”.

Fellow committee member Alan Whittaker – the only dissenting voice in the actual vote – said it was the “weirdest site I have ever seen in 30 years”.

“It’s 20 feet lower than the track that is supposed to be a road [leading to the site] and [the homeowners] are going to have to get access onto the busy A6,” Cllr Whittaker said.

Hawksclough Farm dates back to around 1700 and the property was used by Catholic priests who celebrated Mass there for more than a century until the opening of nearby St. Bede’s in 1824, according to Historic England.