Almost 150 homes approved for Chorley farmland to prevent 'something far worse'

Councillors have reluctantly given the go ahead to a major housing estate in the Chorley countryside amid a warning that failing to do so could “open the floodgates” to unwanted development in every corner of the borough.

Members of Chorley Council’s planning committee all but held their noses as they approved building 146 homes on Little Knowley Farm, off Heapey Road.

More than 130 objections from members of the public were lodged to the plans for the agricultural plot - just east of the M61 - with concerns including the loss of green space and the potential impact of the proposal on traffic.

The site, which will be accessed from a new opening on Blackburn Brow, is not designated as greenbelt - but neither is it allocated for residential use in Chorley’s local plan. However, the district authority does not currently have a five-year supply of land set aside to meet its new housing needs.

Under government planning legislation, that means the council is obliged to give the green light to proposed development unless it would cause such harm that it would outweigh the benefits of bridging the gap in the number of new homes.

Town hall planning chiefs judged that would not be the case in this instance and recommended the committee approve the blueprint for the land, which was put forward by Castle Green Homes.

However, all three councillors for the Chorley North and Astley ward lined up to push for a different conclusion.

Cllr Adrian Lowe said he was “absolutely astonished” that highways officials at Lancashire County Council had raised no objection to the application, “given the existing pressures on the local road network”. He said the “cumulative impact” of other potential development in the area - both on the roads and landscape - had not been properly considered.

He added that the rural area was faced with several hundred new homes - and risked being turned into “an urbanised commuter estate”.

Fellow ward member Mark Perks criticised council planners for placing too much weight on the yet-to-be-adopted Central Lancashire Local (CLLP), which will ultimately replace Chorley’s borough-only strategy - and, under which, Little Knowley Farm will then be earmarked for development.

He also reminded the committee that a government planning inspector had refused an appeal for 130 homes on adjacent land less than three years ago - and called for "consistency" with that decision.

“The inspector firmly established a legal benchmark, ruling that major housing on this specific landscape causes unacceptable, irreversible harm to the area's rural character,” Cllr Perks said.

However, the council's head of planning, Kevin Foster, said the appeal site was “a different piece of land with its own set of issues and considerations” - and that Little Knowley Farm should be assessed separately. The committee was also told that the CLLP - which covers South Ribble and Preston, as well as Chorley - was at such an advanced stage, it was now a material consideration.

Nevertheless, ward representative Cllr Jean Sherwood warned of the impact of the estate on the wildlife that currently thrives there.

“This is not simply an empty development site. It contains a connected mosaic of grassland, scrub, ponds, hedgerows and mature trees,” she said, telling the committee that the “fragmented” green spaces planned within the development were no substitute for what would be lost.

However, committee member - and cabinet member for planning - Alex Hilton said that while “no-one wants to see anything built on a green field”, the price of rejecting the Heapey Road plans could be far worse - and more far-reaching.

“This application site has been assessed strategically as part of the new local plan…[and] so it has been [deemed] suitable for housing. It's gone through public consultation [and] been voted on by three councils.

“If we were to not work with the [forthcoming] local plan…that would open the entire borough of Chorley up to speculative development. You will have people applying to build on greenbelt all over Chorley,” Cllr Hilton warned.

Cllr Craige Southern agreed that there was a danger of creating open season for development, telling the meeting that he and his fellow committee members “can't have it both ways” - and risked real-world consequences if they tried to.

“We can't say yes to something [being] allocated as housing land [in the local plan] and then object to it when [an actual application] comes in.

“[If] you say no to this…you open up the floodgates - and [then] we've got speculative development all over [the] greenbelt,” Cllr Southern said.

Sean McBride, planning manager at applicant Castle Green Homes, argued that the proposed properties - ranging between two and four bedrooms, 30 percent of which will fall into the discounted ‘affordable home’ category - would “make a significant contribution to the borough’s acute housing needs”.

Ultimately, the proposal was voted through by a majority of nine votes to two.

Road ramifications

A local resident who addressed the committee highlighted what he said was contradictory advice on the highways situation in the area that had been given by Lancashire County Council.

Colin Brunstine said the absence of an objection to the Little Knowley Farm scheme stood in contrast to the concerns County Hall had raised about two neighbouring proposals, which it said it could not reach a conclusion upon so long as there were “unresolved” road-related issues connected to the redevelopment of nearby Botany Bay.

However, the committee heard that, after its initial response, the authority had questioned the reliance of the Castle Green Homes application on highway “mitigation” measures proposed for the Botany Bay project.

The county council raised concern that the housing scheme could be completed sooner, before those road upgrades were in place - and that a mechanism would therefore have to be agreed to ensure they were instead delivered by the housebuilder in that scenario.