Protests gather pace over thousands of new homes

Residents are manning the barricades in an effort to quash plans for what could bring more than 2,000 new homes to Lancashire Villages.
Dozens of people gathered for the housing protestsDozens of people gathered for the housing protests
Dozens of people gathered for the housing protests

Dozens of homeowners in Goosnargh and Whittingham turned out for a day to learn how to object to development proposals.

Goosnargh and Whittingham Against Overdevelopment has now assembled residents to launch an assault on the “influx of speculative planning applications that have bombarded the village”.

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Nicky Machin of the protest group said: “There has been no public consultation to speak of for any of these developments, and residents have been deliberately overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information relating to each.

“This event was a great opportunity to galvanise the community on this matter, and provide a hub to share ideas, support and advice on how to object to each of the many proposals threatening the area.

“It also served to send a message of defiance to the opportunistic developers.

“We were absolutely blown away with the number of residents who attended the event, who are all very much in agreement that these plans simply must not go ahead.”

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However Nicky stressed that the group’s fight was not about nimbyism and that it was not against development per se. She said: “Villages need development and growth to survive. We want real affordable houses for our children to be able to buy in the future should they wish to.

“We want our children to have a diverse community with infrastructure to sustain a growing cultural community. This, unfortunately, is not what is proposed here in Goosnargh and Whittingham.

“In little over three weeks we have seen the submission of multiple extensive and major scale housing developments bombarding this small community and village area.

“These developments would have catastrophic impacts on the existing village, community and infrastructure. It is this that we object to.”

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Critics of the developments in the villages say that if all the proposals go ahead it would mean the parish of Whittingham would quadruple in size.

To see a full list of the housing developments planned for the area go to whittinghamparishcouncil.org.uk

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