'Scrap affordable housing on new Leyland estate to make road safer', locals say
Locals believe it will make financial sense for the developer - as well as dealing with their main objection to the plans.
Residents living near a site in Leyland where a controversial new housing estate is set to be built have called for it to be radically redesigned to reduce the road safety risk they say it poses.
A government-appointed planning inspector earlier this year overturned a decision by South Ribble Borough Council to refuse permission for the 23-home development on land off Cocker Lane.
However, a neighbourhood group that had battled against the blueprint hopes that the next stage in the planning process could yet see the number of dwellings slashed - with affordable housing being replaced by high-end homes.
The Friends of Cocker Lane believe the change would make the plot more profitable for any housebuilder to deliver - and more palatable for those living close to it.
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South Ribble’s planning committee rejected the original proposal in May 2025 amid concerns about an increase in traffic on the narrow, partially pavement-free route - which locals estimated is used by as many 150 children walking to and from the nearby Moss Side Primary School.
Councillors on the committee were told that the school’s headteacher, Andrew Wright, believed the estate created a scenario whereby “an accident is near-certain to occur involving children, either outside our school or on the roads close by”.
However, the development was ultimately refused on the basis that it would have a “detrimental” impact on the character of the immediate area, after committee members were advised by council planning officers that it would be difficult to defend a rejection on road safety grounds - because highways bosses at Lancashire County Council were satisfied with the plans.
The planning application had included the promised introduction of a footpath on one side of Cocker Lane so that pedestrians no longer had to walk on a narrow grass verge or in the middle of the road - and the removal of an equivalent strip of greenery on the other side in order to allow the carriageway to be slightly widened.
The applicants - representatives of pension organisation BW SIPP Trustees Ltd - successfully appealed to the Planning Inspectorate against the refusal of permission.
However, the approval now granted is only in outline form - meaning South Ribble Borough Council still has to be asked for permission regarding the details and design of the estate, including how many dwellings are ultimately built.
A Central Lancashire-wide planning policy means 30 percent of the homes will have to fall into the discounted ‘affordable housing’ category - and the Friends group hopes that might not make financial sense for whatever constructor ultimately takes on the site.
The threshold for affordable housing to be required on a development in South Ribble is 15 properties - but residents think there might be a case, from a housebuilder’s perspective, for reducing the number planned for Cocker Lane far below even that level.
“At the moment, [a developer] will have the very expensive work of [reconfiguring] the carriageway and dealing with the street lighting and drainage,” a Friends group spokesperson told the Lancashire Post.
“Then there is the affordable housing on top of that - which they make no money from.
“However, if they were to reduce the number of houses to, say, five or six larger homes, rather than 23 smaller ones, the affordable housing wouldn’t be required.
“But then the highways authority [might also] review its position [and query whether] we need all this messing around with the road for a small number of houses.
“And we, too, would be quite happy with a reduced proposal like that.”
In her decision granting outline permission for the site earlier this year, planning inspector Elaine Moulton acknowledged that the proposed estate would “inevitably change the character and appearance of the site and the more informal and semi-rural nature of the final stretch of Cocker Lane”.
“Nonetheless, it would not be out of keeping with the established pattern of development in the area,” she concluded.