Preston village 'can't take' any more new houses, councillor warns
The roads surrounding the site of a proposed new housing estate in rural Preston would not be able to cope with the extra traffic it would bring, a councillor has warned.
A bid to build up to 95 homes on the former Swainson House Farm in Goosnargh is due to be decided by Preston City Council’s planning committee on Thursday (5th June).
The blueprint has been recommended for approval by the authority’s planning officers, but Anthony Eccles – a member of Whittingham Parish Council – has urged the committee to consider all the other development already taking place in the area.
Forty homes are currently under construction on another part of the ex-farm, off Goosnargh Lane, along with a further 26 on the opposite side of the road. Nearby, a total of 900 dwellings will ultimately occupy the former Whittingham Hospital site.
Committee members will visit the location ahead of Thursday’s meeting, having deferred a decision on the farm development last month so that they could see the plot for themselves.
Lancashire County Council highways officials have offered no objection to the proposal on the basis that it would not have “a severe impact” on the local road network.
However, Cllr Eccles says that assessment smacks of being born out of a “conspiracy of optimism”.
“A lot of the traffic would turn right and go down Goosnargh Lane onto Langley Lane – a frightening road.
“And if you look at the [proposed] houses, they are going to be three or four bedrooms – so they’ll mostly be two-car households.
“[Say it generates] 150 cars – I just don’t think the village can cope with it. I don’t understand why the highways department [are so] passive about this,” Cllr Eccles added.
A report to be presented to committee members will tell them that the estate would help contribute to the city council’s new housing targets at a time when the authority is unable to meet a government requirement to show that it has a five-year supply of land available to meet its new-build needs.
Previous plans to develop the part of Swainson House Farm that are now once again under consideration were refused by Preston City Council in 2020 – when the vision was for 87 properties. That decision was upheld on appeal to a planning inspector two years later.
The authority also rejected the 40-dwelling development proposed elsewhere on the former farm plot, but the same planning inspector allowed the appeal in that case – concluding that it would improve the approach to the village by replacing unsightly and redundant agricultural buildings.
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