Decision looms over plans for more than 100 homes in Longridge

Ribble Valley Council rejected ambitious plans to bring 123 homes to land behind Higher Road in April last year.

Council officers stated that the development, put forward by Skipton-based VH Land Partnership, ‘would lead to a level of development that exceeds the anticipated level of housing development’ in the borough’s planning strategy, and was in fact in the council’s eyes an ‘over-supply’ of housing.

In response, developers appealed the decision in October last year, stating that the inspector could not see the relevant parts of the site sufficiently to judge the proposal from public land.

The government planning inspectorate is now set to hold a full appeal hearing in the Ribble Valley Council chambers next month on Tuesday, April 17 – marking a change from the original plan to deal with the appeal via paperwork.

Council leader and Dilworth ward councillor, Coun Ken Hind, has since called a meeting of the objectors on April 9 to discuss the approach to take in the appeal.

Coun Hind said: “I am advised the proceedings will last a day and council officials feel the inspector will probably visit the site in the afternoon.

“It is likely that the Inspector will allow a small number of objectors to speak and this will be in the morning of the seventeenth.

“There is no established need for these homes and therefore their construction is not economically sustainable.”

Planning agents Gary Hoerty Associates state that the development sets out to ‘achieve a sustainable development that is well integrated with the existing settlement of Longridge’.