Stuck in limbo... Garden Village plans date back almost 20 years
WITH millions of pounds of Government funding allocated in the Budget, plans for a new village south of Derby could become a reality – but progress to date has been pedestrian.
More than two years after planning applications for 1,850 homes, a primary school, shops, pub, petrol station and acres of business space were submitted, the project remains in limbo.
Plans for the area south of Sinfin and abutting the A50 have been explored for the best part of two decades and the so-called Infinity Garden Village scheme dates back to 2012.
Neither Derby City Council nor South Derbyshire District Council – which have both had applications filed with them (in June 2019 and September 2019) – have made a decision on the plans and did not say, when asked, when this may be done.
The city council’s website lists the application as having an “agreed expiry” date of February 28, 2020, more than a year and a half ago.
Meanwhile, the district council website lists a “latest decision date” of July 7, 2020, approaching a year and a half ago.
An application for the first 51,100 square metres of business space as part of the scheme was submitted to the district council in June 2019 and has not had any further documents added to it in the past two years. It has a “latest decision date” of June 30, 2020 – also approaching a year and a half ago.
In late October, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that nearly £50 million would be used to help fund the new A50 junction to serve the scheme.
The junction itself was approved nine months ago, in early February, with little apparent progress since that decision.
Very few additional documents or comments from relevant organisations have been added to the respective planning applications since their submissions more than two years ago.
There have only been three new additions to the city council version of the garden village application this year – both of which are from Highways England.
After several requested extensions in which the authority asked for a decision to not be made due to lack of information, and indicating that the Government would need to sign off on the plans, the agency has now dropped its standing objections.
In a letter uploaded to the city council planning portal on October 10, Highways England has put forward a number of conditions which should sit alongside any approval of the scheme.
It says that if the council does not make a decision on the application in line with its recommendations then it would have to consult with Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State for Transport, and may not make a decision until that process is complete.
The agency says that the garden village and the approved new A50 junction could have a “material impact” on the A38/A50 junction and the A50/A514 junction. It says the Secretary of State does not feel the new junction would “negatively impact” users of the strategic road network – the nearby main roads.
The agency mentions that the proposed opening year for the junction would be 2030.
It recommends that no part of the development should start until details of surface water drainage are provided, and that no water run-off from the development would be accepted into highways drainage systems.
The agency also recommends that proposed earth bunds along the eastbound side of the A50 should be detailed before any work on the site starts.
It also says no work should start until the potential risk to motorists posed by glare from potential street lighting near the new A50 slip roads has been assessed.
However, three days later, on October 13, Highways England submitted a letter to the district council version of the garden village application retaining its “holding objection” and that planning permission should not be granted for a further three months.
This, it says, is pending submission of the documents it referred to in its letter to the city council. This would put a decision back to January 13, 2022.
A spokesperson for Derbyshire County Council, on behalf of the relevant councils and developers, said: “The announcement last month (on the A50 junction funding) will lead to an invitation to partners involved in the project to draw up a business case and we look forward to working with those partners in doing so.
“It is difficult to give any further information until we have details from Government on requirements for this business case.
“In the meantime, we’re awaiting further information from Government about the timescales for this.”
We’re awaiting further information from Government about the timescales for this.
Derbyshire County Council