West of Stonehouse development

The building of the new ‘spine’ road continues apace, to the point where it is already hard to remember exactly what Grove Lane looked like before they started.

As reported last time, the Planning Application for the first phase originally submitted by Redrow, was rejected mainly for non-compliance with provisions in the Masterplan for buffer zones around Westend and Nupend.

This problem has been ‘shelved’ by both the builders and the planners for the moment as Redrow have now submitted plans for just the two land parcels that don’t have direct ‘sensitive’ borders with Westend – leaving it to another builder, Barratts, to argue about the buffer zones(!) The original owner of the whole site and authors of the Masterplan (Hitchens) are nowhere to be seen in all this.

The Redrow application will probably be passed, although there are still some contentious arguments on-going about the bridleway and it’s crossing of the new road.  Redrow seem disinclined to take this very real problem seriously.

Two discussions have taken place with Barratts and suggestions made about re-arranging the housing just a little in order to give our hamlets the breathing space promised in the Masterplan/Local plan.  However, Barratts seem disinclined to move very much from the original designs, which build right up to people’s back gardens, and we shall have to wait for the Planning Application itself to see what we can do next.

If builders were just a little more sensitive to the needs and sensitivities of ‘indiginous’ populations – not to say a little more careful about following the guidelines and provisions that they are supposed to – they would get much less opposition in general.  Ed.