More than 25,000 new homes are coming to Preston, South Ribble and Chorley by the early 2040s - here’s where
Central Lancashire will remain a place with “room to breathe” – even after the building of more than 25,000 new homes across the area over the course of nearly two decades.
hat is the pledge from Preston, South Ribble and Chorley councils after they published one of the final drafts of the document that will determine where new housing is developed – and in what quantities – all the way through until 2041.
The Central Lancashire Local Plan has been in the works for more than six years and is now being readied to be presented to an independent planning inspector this summer for assessment and approval.
It sets out how the three neighbouring areas will work to deliver the number of new homes demanded by the government – and formally sets aside the land on which it can be built.
In total, the blueprint provides for 25,579 dwellings during the 18-year timespan it covers. The starting date for that calculation – and the plan itself – is actually 2023, with the strategy having previously been expected to be ready by that point.
The trio of local authorities have agreed how they will pool their individual minimum housebuilding targets, set by the government, and redistribute them across the patch in the way they believe makes most sense for all three areas.
The timing of the publication of the plan is crucial, because if the document is given the green light at meetings of all three councils next week, Preston, South Ribble and Chorley will be exempt from the higher housing tallies for local authority areas that ministers laid out just last month.
In the small print of its planning reforms to boost the supply of new homes nationwide, the government said places about to reach the point in the local plan development process that Central Lancashire has now arrived at would be held only to delivering 80 percent of the newly-set minimum annual housing totals for their area.
The full increase would have resulted in Preston’s previous minimum new housing target more than doubling each year and South Ribble’s nearly trebling. Chorley’s figure was to have increased by just 11 percent, but from a high benchmark which it was already struggling to meet.
It means Preston will have a flat annual minimum - before pooling and redistribution - of 520 homes, instead of the 590 that would be needed if the government’s new target was implemented in full, while South Ribble’s tally will stand at 460, rather than 489, and Chorley’s will come in at 345, compared to 564.
Under the proposed local plan - and following redistribution - the three districts will, in reality, be expected to deliver a fluctuating number of properties each year, based on a range of different considerations across the wider sub-region.
Overall, between 2023 and 2041, the minimum requirements for each area will be:
***Preston – 9,360 homes;
***South Ribble – 8,280 homes;
***Chorley – 6,015 homes.
That means 23,652 dwellings are needed over the 18-year period, but the actual projected number of properties that will be completed according to provisions of the local plan exceeds that minimum by 1,927 homes – taking the total to the 25,579 figure, which includes 2,501 units already built during 2023/24.
If that higher tally is reached, the revised number of new homes coming to each area within the timeframe of the local plan will stand at:
***Preston – 10,156 homes (including 1,630 completed in 2023/24);
***South Ribble – 9,002 homes (including 580 completed in 2023/24);
***Chorley – 6,421 homes (including 291 completed in 2023/24).
The plan identifies a total of 90 plots that will be allocated for housing – 33 in Preston, 20 in South Ribble and 37 in Chorley – some of which were already earmarked for that purpose in the individual local plans that each council has had for around the last decade. Others, however, are fresh sites – including Fulwood Barracks in Preston, which is expected to become available for redevelopment before the decade is out. The new document also allocates land for employment use.
Formal planning applications – dealing with the detail and any local objections to particular schemes – are still required for each development at the time it is brought forward, with permission still having to be granted by the relevant local council. However, the established acceptability of building new housing on those sites gives them a strong start.
If the three councils give the go-ahead to publication of their joint local plan, a public consultation – the third to take place during the development of the document – will begin on 10th February. However, unlike previous consultations, responses must deal only with issues of “soundness and legal compliance”, rather than the desirability of the suggested locations for development.
The Lancashire Post understands the new plan will not be affected by the forthcoming local government shake-up in Lancashire which will see Preston, Chorley and South Ribble councils abolished and subsumed into larger replacement authorities. However, it could make the development of a future local plan for Central Lancashire more difficult depending on which council areas are ultimately merged.
SHARING THE BURDEN – AND THE BENEFITS
This is the first time a joint local plan has been created for the whole of Central Lancashire, but the three neighbours have a history of sharing the housebuilding burden dating back to 2012.
However, the previous, slightly looser arrangements fell apart in recent years following a series of controversial planning inspector decisions, after appeals from housebuilders against various refusals of permission for individual developments. Those conclusions – which, as the LDRS charted, often contradicted each other as a result of insectors’ different interpretations of planning rules – undermined the basis on which housing numbers had been pooled and redistributed across the area. The new joint local plan will put that co-operation back on a sound footing.
The agreement will also enable existing greenbelt boundaries to be protected – those specially-designated open spaces in between built-up areas which remain undeveloped in order to prevent the ‘urban sprawl’ of different settlements merging into one.
Papers published ahead of the plan being discussed at meetings of each of the three Central Lancashire councils next week reveal that while Preston and South Ribble have enough potential sites to meet their new housing needs between now and the early 2040s, Chorley does not – unless it were to encroach on its greenbelt.
However, Preston and South Ribble have sufficient developable land in their own areas to accommodate Chorley’s unmet need – and have agreed to do so in order ensure the collective housing target across the wider area is reached, via their refreshed pooling agreement.
Chorley has the most greenbelt of any of the three areas. While there are exceptions in national planning legislation which allow some types of development on greenbelt, wholesale construction of new housing would be deemed inappropriate – unless the greenbelt boundaries had been formally reviewed and some of the land released from its special status.
Councillors will be told that each district benefits from the arrangement, not just Chorley – with a higher housing requirement for Preston being “consistent with the council’s ambitions as a growing city” – and the potential to create “more and better quality jobs”.
Both Preston and South Ribble also have as-yet-unfulfilled sites already earmarked for housing under the City Deal house-boosting initiative, agreed with the government back in 2013 – which does not include Chorley.
All three areas, meanwhile, benefit from being able to present their collective plan for inspection within the timeframe that entitles them not to have to meet the governments’ new higher housing targets in full.
A PLACE FOR ALL PEOPLE
The Central Lancashire Local Plan maps out a vision for the sub-region to be somewhere people want to “live, visit, work and invest”.
It adds: “Our heritage assets will be conserved and our natural environment will be protected and enhanced for its intrinsic value whilst providing opportunities for recreation and leisure. Throughout Central Lancashire, people’s health and wellbeing will be enhanced through the creation of well-designed developments, delivering homes, jobs and prosperity.”
In a joint foreword to the document, Preston City Council’s cabinet member for planning, Amber Afzal, South Ribble’s portfolio holder for planning, Ian Watkinson, and Chorley Council leader Alistair Bradley say that the blueprint will “enable sustainable growth in Central Lancashire, generating the jobs and homes we need to support our economy and communities, whilst also ensuring we protect and enhance our unique local characteristics and the natural environment”.
They continue: “[It] will encourage sustainable, managed growth, whilst protecting and enhancing our green spaces and access to open countryside, enhancing Central Lancashire’s character as a place with ‘room to breathe’.”
WHERE WILL ALL THE NEW HOMES GO?
The Central Lancashire Local Plan allocates land that will be earmarked for housing development – and indicates how many homes can be built on each plot.
It identifies four so-called “strategic sites” – areas allocated for particularly significant development – which will create entirely new “vibrant, successful and sustainable…communities” and incorporate new infrastructure.
The document then lists dozens of other sites that can accommodate anything from a handful of new homes – to several hundred. Some of them plots already have planning permission in place, but have not yet been built out.
STRATEGIC SITES
North West Preston/Bartle
Part of the North West Materplan area – incorporating part of Cottam, along with Higher and Lower Bartle and Lightfoot Green – first earmarked in the mid-2010s for around 5,300 homes to be developed over the following 20 years. Around half of the proposed development is now complete.
Total number of properties estimated to be delivered during the local plan period: 2,767
Fulwood Barracks, Preston
A Ministry of Defence site that is no longer needed and is expected to be disposed of within the first five years of the local plan – before the end of the 2020s. Development will allow for the restoration and conversion of the existing barracks along with the building of new dwellings.
Total number of properties estimated to be delivered during the local plan period: at least 300, with the potential for more following “detailed masterplanning”.
Preston West
An area either side of the railway line on which the new Cottam Parkway railway station is due to be built, around Lea Road, earmarked for both housing and employment space.
Total number of properties estimated to be delivered during the local plan period: approximately 450, with up to a further 1,400 to follow
Pickering’s Farm, Penwortham, South Ribble
Rural site stretching between Penwortham Way and Leyland Road, controversially approved for housing by the government in 2023 amidst opposition from locals and after twice being refused permission by South Ribble Borough Council
Total number of properties estimated to be delivered during the local plan period: 1,350
OTHER SITES
Preston
Former Whittingham Hospital – 477
Former Horrocks Mill, Queen Street – 380
Avenham Street Car Park – 294
Land off Riversway & West of Dodney Drive Lea – 280
Land at Cottam Hall – 211
Corner of Manchester Road & Church Street – 167
Grimshaw Street/ Queen Street – 146
Cardwell Farm, Garstang Road – 151
Land off Ribbleton Hall Drive – 97
The former Sumners pub, 195 Watling Street Road – 77
Former St Joseph’s Orphanage, Theatre Street – 67
Former Gasworks, Ribbleton Lane – 59
115, Church Street – 57
Land at Eastway – 56
Former Perrys Car Showroom, 63-83 Blackpool Road – 55
Mount Street/ Garden Street – 47
Land North of Tom Benson Way – 45
Heather Moor, Cumeragh Lane – 41
Lancashire Fire and Rescue HQ, Garstang Road – 40
Gorlands, Whittingham Road – 32
Former Tulketh High School, Tag Lane – 30
37-41, Church Street – 29
Former Byron Hotel, Grimshaw Street – 28
Tulketh Crescent – 24
Moor Park Depot, Moor Park Avenue – 17
The Larches, Larches Lane – 15
Bretherens Meeting Room – 12
25&27, Whittingham Lane and land to the rear of 25-31, Whittingham Lane, Broughton – 8
50, Lancaster Road – 5
10-12, Lancaster Road – 5
South Ribble
Emnie Lane, Leyland – 500
Apsley House, Farington – 435
Chapel Lane, Longton – 270
South of Factory Lane and East of the West Coast Main Line, Lower Penwortham – 250
Church Lane, Farington – 200
Liverpool Road, Hutton – 120
Branch Road, Mellor Brook – 120
Daub Hall Lane, Coupe Green – 80
South of Liverpool Old Road, Much Hoole – 60
Kellet Lane, Bamber Bridge – 60
South of Factory Lane/ Land off the Cawsey – 60
Brownedge Rd / Railway Sidings, Bamber Bridge – 60
South of Bannister Lane, Farington Moss – 40
Gas Holders Site (land off Wateringpool Lane), Lostock Hall – 25
Golden Hill School, Leyland Lane, Leyland – 20
Windmill Hotel site, Preston New Rd, Mellor Brook – 10
Brambles Rest Home, Park Avenue, New Longton – 10
Land adjacent to The Fields, Long Moss Lane, New Longton – 8
Rear of 96-100, Marsh Lane – 5
Chorley
Land to the East of Wigan Road, Clayton-le Woods – 332
West of M61 – Town Lane, Whittle-le-Woods – 289
Great Knowley, Chorley – 246
Land 120m south west of 21, Lower Burgh Way, Chorley – 201
Little Knowley Farm, Chorley – 150
Land South East Belmont Road/Abbey Grove, Adlington – 137
Land adjacent to Blainscough Hall, Blainscough Lane, Coppull – 118
Charter Lane, Charnock Richard – 117
Land adjoining Cuerden Residential Park, Nell Lane, Clayton-le-Woods – 115
West of M61 – Land adjacent to Delph Way, Whittle-le-Woods – 102
Pear Tree Lane, Euxton – 100
Land north of Bonds Lane, Adlington – 92
Hill Top Farm, Whittle-le-Woods – 75
North of Hewlett Avenue, Coppull – 67
Land at Tincklers Lane, Eccleston – 66
Bengal Street Depot, Chorley – 62
Land off Gorsey Lane, Mawdesley – 55
West of M61 – Land North of Hill Top Farm, Whittle-le-Woods – 55
Land to the east of New Street, Mawdesley – 41
Babylon Lane, Adlington – 40
Land off Blackburn Road, Wheelton – 40
Eaves Green, off Lower Burgh Way, Chorley – 29
Land South of South Road, Bretherton – 26
Land at Carrington Road, Adlington – 24
Cabbage Hall Fields, Chorley – 17
Land off Westhoughton Road, Adlington – 17
Brookfields, Chancery Road, Chorley – 16
East of Tincklers Lane, Eccleston – 15
Land at Drinkwater Farm, Windsor Drive, Brinscall – 12
Mountain Road, Coppull – 12
East of New Street, Mawdesley – 11
Orchard Heys Farm, Coppull – 10
Land at Millbrook Close/Victoria Street, Wheelton – 9
Crow Nest Cottage, Mawdesley – 8
Rear of New Street, Mawdesley – 7
Blackburn Road, Wheelton – 6
Land to the rear of 62-66 Moor Road, Croston – 2
Source: Central Lancashire Local Plan (publication version)