Developer gets verdict on controversial plan for 300 homes in this part of the Ribble Valley
Plans to build an estate of 300 homes in the Ribble Valley have been refused by planning chiefs.
Hallam Land Management Ltd submitted outline plans to Ribble Valley Borough Council for a development close to Langho railway station in April.
They said the 20 acre site between the railway line and the A59 (Longsight Road) was an “important opportunity to create a sustainable extension to Langho”, and promised “a greater number of bungalows and homes suitable for downsizing and retirement” as well as larger homes up to 2.5 storeys.
They promised to create outward-facing development blocks that will overlook public open spaces, committed to 30 per cent of the total housing provision being affordable housing, to provide 10.876 hectares of public open space, two formal play spaces and a car park for Langho Railway Station.
But the plans attracted 167 objections from resisents and from Langho Parish Council, which slammed the developer for ‘grossly overstating’ local public transport provisions, and raised concerns over highway safety and claimed that the land is not within the settlement boundary. They quipped: “The applicant clearly knows so little about the bus services, that he has included several student-only buses in his list.”
Officers recommended that the application was refused by councillors, and this was the case this week. Members of the planning committee said the proposal:
- Would result in a large-scale residential development, outside of a defined settlement, which fails to meet any of the exception criteria for allowing development in such location,
- Would result in a largescale development in a rural location resulting in future users being reliant on a private motor vehcile, which is against key policies,
- “Would result in the introduction of an incongruous, unsympathetic, and discordant form of development...(and) this would result in adverse, long term and permanent visual and landscape harm”,
- The application fails to carry out appropriate assessments to fully assess the impacts of the development upon habitats within and adjacent to the site, and
- The proposed development would result in the loss of existing habitat, hedgerow and watercourse units.