Objectors celebrate as flats plan is refused
CAMPAIGNERS are celebrating after controversial plans to build assisted living flats on a ‘landlocked’ back alley were unanimously refused.
Applicant J&R Plant Hire UK submitted new proposals to Hyndburn council for six units on land adjacent to Back Owen Street in Accrington after a similar scheme was rejected last year by the council and also on appeal to the planning inspectorate.
Council planning officers had recommended the new plans be approved despite more than 100 objections from the public.
However councillors unanimously went against the planning officers at a committee meeting on Wednesday and refused the application on access and safety grounds.
The site off Whalley Road is a former industrial plot which has been redundant and dilapidated for years.
It is located behind Owen Street between the railway embankment and an existing terraced row of houses immediately to the north.
A petition signed by 108 people and seven individual letters of objection were sent to the council citing concerns over loss of privacy, traffic and highways safety issues, inadequate parking and increase in crime.
Speaking at the planning meeting, campaigner Jeanette Talbot said 32 acts of parliament have been ‘overlooked or disregarded’ by council planning officers along with 45 sections of the Hyndburn Core Strategy.
She also raised concerns about the loss of wildlife and bats and the impact on local electricity infrastructure.
Jeanette said: “Wouldn’t it make sense to build these houses on an already approved allocated site rather than placing them on these back alleys?
“It will look like a prison to the service users and to the community as well.”
Ward councillor Paul Cox also spoke against the proposals and claimed lack of pedestrian or cycle access will encourage people to make more car journeys.
He said: “The section of the road is an accident hotspot and to introduce another entrance and exit would be beyond the realm of sensible reason.
“Is social housing the most sensible use of that land?”
Council leader Miles Parkinson said he was ‘perplexed’ why no highways objections had been raised by Lancashire County Council (LCC) or the planning inspector at the previous appeal as it would ‘ask cars to reverse onto the middle of one of the busiest roads in the borough’.
Coun Jean Battle agreed saying: “LCC have not looked at this seriously. The access to this site is all wrong.”
Coun Dave Parkins, chair of the planning committee, added: “I’m not against housing whatsoever but it has to be in the right place.
“This area is landlocked. I have never seen a more landlocked place in my life.
“We don’t know what kind of disabilities people will be going in with.
“They maybe autistic, handicapped with wheelchairs of have challenging behaviour. I don’t think it’s fair to shove them up a back street.”
Simon Prideaux, chief planning officer at Hyndburn council, said the council spent ‘ a lot of money’ employing an independent highways engineer to back up their concerns at the previous appeal.
The meeting was told that the government inspector didn’t agree with the council’s reasons for refusal on highways grounds and instead dismissed the appeal because there was no section 106 agreement to deliver the social housing element of the scheme.
Mr Prideaux told councillors that ‘to some extent our hands are tied by the inspectors decision’
He said: “There is a real danger that if we do refuse it for the same reasons as last time the council will potentially be exposed to the awarding of costs against us. The inspector is quite clear.”
Planning agent and architect Peter Hitchen said they had ‘worked very closely’ with planning officers to reach a section 106 agreement and had also made amendments to their highways plans.
He said: “It’s important to point out that this is a smallscale housing development and will be under a housing management scheme.
“We have a designed a sensitive development that fits into the area and fits into the national planning framework.
“We have cooperated all the way down the line and feel it would be a wonderful regeneration of a brownfield site in the heart of Accrington.”
Councillors unanimously rejected the new application and after the meeting Mr Hitchen told the Observer they would appeal the decision.