Residents ‘horrified’ over six luxury homes plan
A scheme to pack six luxury properties into a plot surrounded by other houses has raised safety concerns among neighbours, with the local parish council saying it has left their residents ‘horrified’.
Nestled in the sharp hillside of the Ribble Valley above Langho, the affluent York hamlet has long served as a route for travellers coming in either direction from Blackburn or Whalley.
The sought-after spot has long been protected from any major development due to its designation as an area of open countryside within the Green Belt, a major attraction of the hamlet for its residents.
But this could all change over the next few years, after a developer put in a controversial application to build six large homes on the hillside – citing the Planning Inspectorate’s ruling against Ribble Valley Council that is allowing 300 homes to be built in Langho.
In their ruling on June 11, the national planning body stated that a ‘tilted balance’ in favour of housebuilding would apply to all development in Ribble Valley, as the council was unable to demonstrate a five year supply of land for housing.
Heavy machinery moved onto the site this week as preliminary work began on the mixed development opposite the railway station. Built on a former farmer’s field, the project will increase the size of the village by roughly 40 per cent.
This huge development is just a stone’s throw down the hill from York and was cited heavily in the application to build half a dozen luxury properties in the grounds of a large property in the hamlet.
The firm that put together the application, Hive Land and Planning, said that the ruling “provides that planning permission should be granted unless any adverse impacts of doing so would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits.”
But a resident living directly opposite this proposed in-fill development has raised concerns about a number of environmental and safety issues regarding the six-home scheme.
Michael Taylor works in the music industry and has lived in the hamlet for over 20 years. He says he is ‘all for sustainable development’, but couldn’t believe some of the claims about road safety, accessibility, and drainage made in the application.
Situated in a patch of land between homes on Snodworth Road and York Lane, two routes too narrow for vehicles to pass each other easily, Mr Taylor pointed out that the access point for the development and its future occupants would be off a ‘very busy rat run’.
When the Local Democracy Reporting Service visited the site around midday during the working week, scores of cars, vans, and even large farm vehicles roared past this access point off Snodworth Road, which is just before a blind summit and has no pavement for pedestrians.
The other access point on York Road, which will be used by four of the potential properties, has some pavement but suffers from similar road visibility issues. These two entrances are not connected, to prevent the turning being used as a through route.
The access statement admits that ‘the visibility that can be achieved is below what would be required’ but argues that this is irrelevant, as the access point already exists and hasn’t been recorded as the site of a crash in the past five years.
Although public crash data did not show accidents occurring directly at this access point, Mr Taylor shared pictures of multiple car accidents that had taken place on Snodworth Road in recent years, as well as of how the steep route could be made impassable by icy winter conditions.
Other residents who have submitted objections to Ribble Valley Council over this six-house scheme have called it an “accident waiting to happen”.
One respondent told planners that, with 300 homes on the way in Langho and 1200 more coming in at the other end of the route, Blackburn’s Sunny Bower development, the two roads “will be death traps.”
These safety concerns form just one part of York residents’ opposition to the plans, with the other main issue being its potential impact on the surrounding environment and on the considerable run-off that comes down the hill when it rains.
Surprisingly for residents adjoining the proposed luxury development, many of the watercourses that run down from the peat moorland at the top of the hill were not marked on the submitted plans.
Several of these visible drainage routes run directly through the area where the homes will be built, despite the application stating that there are no waterways within 20 metres of the site.
Mr Taylor said: “This is false. The property is at the foot of Dean Clough Reservoir and several gulleys and streams enter the site, most of which flow into a large pond that is clearly marked on the Lange Registry.”
This pond is marked on the plans as the site where Plot 1 will be built, though the scheme does state that an attenuation pond will be placed elsewhere in the development to deal with runoff.
Other environmental issues with the application are not as simple to deal with, according to a recent biodiversity report carried out at the site.
Any amount of mediating measures will still result in the net loss of habitats conducive for wildlife, with the report stating a decline of 44 per cent being the likely result of the scheme. Due to its small size, any measure to remediate this would have to take place “off-site”.
But while this laundry list of issues from local residents has resulted in a number of objections being filed against the plans, it remains to be seen if the points raised will meet the high bar set by the Planning Inspectorate’s ruling in Langho.
This ‘tilted balance’ applied in favour of housebuilding may result in this development ultimately being approved, whether by the council or on appeal, unless these negatives ‘significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits’.