Almost 100 homes planned for former Preston farm famed for Goosnargh Duck

Plans to develop 87 homes on part of Swainson Farm in Goosnargh – where the renowned Goosnargh Duck was previously reared – were amongst six proposed estates that were refused permission by Preston City Council five years ago. The authority said the “cumulative impact” of the total 557 dwellings – in open countryside – would have harmed the character of the village.

Five of those refusals were later upheld by a planning inspector after appeals from the housebuilders behind the blueprints – with the only one to be overturned being a proposal for 40 homes on a separate part of the Swainson site, on Goosnargh Lane.

Those properties are now being built after the inspector who chaired a public inquiry into all of the proposals in and around Goosnargh concluded that the smaller of the two farm redevelopments would replace unsightly agricultural buildings which had “a major negative visual effect on the area” – and so result in “a positive improvement” to the approach to the village.

Now, however, the estate planned for the larger section of the farm has also been put back on the table. An application to the city council states that the demolition of the farm units – which made way for the now under-construction homes – has left the remainder of the agricultural plot “functionally redundant and surrounded by residential development”.

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Documents submitted to the town hall on behalf of applicants Gillian Wells, Thomas Swarbrick and Lynn Johnson add that the context created by the neighbouring estate makes the case for the adjoining redevelopment – which is now based on a proposal for up to 95 homes rather than the original 87 – “even more compelling”.

The authority’s planning committee had originally approved both of the proposed Swainson Farm schemes in November 2019 when it was unable to meet a government requirement to show it had enough land set aside to meet five years’ worth of its new housing needs – meaning it was obliged to give the go-ahead to housebuilding proposals even on sites not allocated for the purpose.

However, when that situation changed in early 2020 – and before a notice confirming the committee’s decision had been issued – members reconsidered the matter and rejected the proposals.

The new application for the undeveloped part of the farm notes that the original approval found “no technical or site-specific harm” arising from the plans – and that there had been “no material changes in circumstances…which would alter this conclusion”.

If now approved, 33 of the new properties would fall into the discounted ‘affordable homes’ category in line with local planning policy.

The applicants claim the local authority is once again unable to demonstrate a five-year housing land supply after increases in housebuilding targets introduced by the government late last year.

However, as the Lancashire Post has previously revealed, Preston’s target will be lower than would have otherwise been the case, because of the point that has been reached in the development of the new Central Lancashire Local Plan. That document – which has been drawn up with neighbouring South Ribble and Chorley councils and will guide housebuilding in the areas through to the early 2040s – will also see the trio of local authorities pooling and redistricting their individual targets across the broader sub-region.

Although not yet adopted, its existence would be a consideration for council planners in any applications made for new housing in the meantime.

The part of Swainson Farm on which the 40 new homes were granted on appeal in February 2022 is currently being delivered by McDermott Homes. The firm is also building a further 26 properties on the opposite side of Goosnargh Lane, which were approved in 2018.