Plan for more homes on former Lostock Hall gas works site

Plans have been unveiled for an additional 13 homes on the estate being built on the former gas works site in Lostock Hall.
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Morris Homes has lodged an application for permission to build the properties at the entrance to its St. Mary’s Park development off The Cawsey. The plot of land in question is currently being used as a construction compound for that development.

It will bring the total number of dwellings to 294 – still some way short of the 350 for which outline permission was granted back in 2014.

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According to documents submitted to South Ribble Borough Council, the extra units will be a mix of three, four and five-bedroomed homes, featuring two and two-and-a-half-storey designs – described as conforming with existing housing on the opposite side of the road.

Work on the St. Mary's Park development as pictured in April 2019Work on the St. Mary's Park development as pictured in April 2019
Work on the St. Mary's Park development as pictured in April 2019

All of the new homes will be outward-facing, either onto the existing estate or The Cawsey itself, in order to promote “natural surveillance”, the application states.

The additional houses will be accessed via a new road from within the new estate – but those properties facing The Cawsey itself will be served by a private driveway which the developer claims will create “a more natural frontage with…the cross borough link road”.

That route, which connects to Carrwood Road in Walton-le Dale and was a requirement of the permission for the overall development, is yet to open to traffic – more than a year after it was due to do so. The latest delay followed calls for safety improvements to be made on the Carrwood Road side of the connection.

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Existing trees will be retained and “hedges and landscaping have been positioned along the link road and within the development helping to define the private and public realm”, according to the applicant.

The original outline permission covered the land now being used as a construction compound, but it required approval for detailed designs to be submitted within three years. While such an application was made for the rest of the site, it was never completed for this particular portion of the plot – meaning that the process has had to start from scratch.

Remediation work on the site, in preparation for housebuilding, began as far back as 2004.

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