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Housing development planned for Preston countryside has been rejected

Posted on 11th April 2023

A proposed new housing estate for Broughton has been rejected. According to the plans, 51 homes would have been built on a greenfield site off Garstang Road.

Preston City Council's planning committee denied the plans to build on the site, which is located between two other under-construction developments that were controversially allowed following public inquiries.

Hollins Strategic Land LLP claimed that a number of commitments they made as part of their application would have fulfilled various housing needs in the area.

The firm's blueprint suggested that 40% of the homes should be in the "affordable homes" category which is 5% more than the proportion demanded by town hall planners in rural areas of the city.

The applicant said this was in order to represent the “acute indeed” for the properties.

10% of the estate would have been reserved for people over the age of 55, two plots dedicated to purchasers who wish to build their own home and an undisclosed number of houses would have been built to satisfy the needs of larger families, particularly those from ethnic minority communities.

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A report presented to the committee

According to a report presented to the committee, the current assessed requirement for housing for the over-55s in Preston is 63 houses per year. However, this figure is for the city as a whole, not just Broughton.

It further noted that while there are presently 72 self-build or custom dwelling plots with permission in Preston, only four people have registered on a council list as having expressed an interest in such a purchase.

It was pointed out that the planning statement submitted by the applicant made no mention of how homes would be secured specifically for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) households.

Although not in greenbelt the proposal failed to adhere with a Central Lancashire-wide planning policy that directs growth towards “well-located brownfield sites in Preston and adjacent to key service centres”.

The proposal was also in conflict with Preston City Council's local plan and the Broughton Neighbourhood Development plan, which both aim to limit development in open countryside to that required for "appropriate rural uses" or so-called “infilling” of small spaces in already developed areas.

What the committee members had to say

Jennifer Mein said that if she were being “cynical”, the plans smacked of an attempt to tick “every single box” in order to persuade councillors to approve them. “I think they realised that it was never going to get through,”

David Borrow, who is also the authority’s cabinet member for planning and regulation said that while some other developments in the vicinity had been given the green light on appeal to the Planning Inspectorate, the proposed site appeared an “odd place to build”.

He added that in the context of Preston’s local plan as it was originally envisaged when it was adopted in 2015, “it is quite clear that we wouldn’t approve an application in this location because it is so far away from the current village."

Planning officer Lauren Holden said that other housebuilding in the immediate area such as the 130 properties on the other side of Garstang Road and 97 on land to the rear of the site under consideration had been permitted only when the city council was unable to show that it had five years’ worth of land set aside to meet its minimum new housing needs, as required under national planning legislation. However, the authority is now comfortably meeting that test.

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