‘Exciting vision’ would change village forever
WHEN residents of Edenfield opposed plans to build over new 400 new homes and dramatically increase the size of their village, they were left feeling ignored and overlooked by Rossendale Council.
In the Local Plan - the document Rossendale Council has spent years creating and which determines what every piece of land in the borough can be used for - the council decided to hand over large swathes of Green Belt land in Edenfield for property development.
The council was warned that such a development would transform Edenfield forever.
The Labour councillors who backed the Local Plan - it was opposed by Conservative councillors - didn’t offer up any positive reasons for their decision in Edenfield, instead blaming the Government for the fact they have to find space for hundreds of homes to be be built every year in Rossendale.
Based on that logic, local councillors might as well hand all local planning matters over to the Government.
It’s no wonder many in Edenfield have been left feeling abandoned by the council.
That sense of abandonment will not have been helped by the publication of the Market Street Masterplan by developers Taylor Wimpey and Anwyl Lan.
They aren’t just going to build houses, it seems, but ‘deliver an exciting new vision for Edenfield.’
It’s no surprise the developers believe that the large, green field site on the edge of an attractive, popular village is perfect for housing development - they are the ones getting to build on there.
They speak about creating ‘three distinctive neighbourhoods’ and emphasise that affordable housing is very important to their scheme.
It’s essential the council holds them to this commitment - too often, the houses which are being built around here at the moment are too expensive for people living locally already but struggling to get on the property ladder.
And while the economic impact of such large-scale development is strongly advocated by the developers in their masterplan, little is said about the wider impact of the scheme.
Edenfield has a population of around 2,000 people.
400 new homes means, according to Taylor Wimpey, at least 400 ‘economically active’ residents moving in - or about 1.2 per house.
Even if no ‘non economically-active’ residents join them in those houses, that’s a huge growth for a small village.
There is talk of having to change Edenfield Primary School from one form a year to 1.5 a year - with no confirmation exactly how it will be funded or the level of funding required.
Again, that’s changing a local school forever.
The brazen assumption by the council, which doesn’t even run schools, in the Local Plan that this is an acceptable outcome is shameful.
This remains a fundamental change to a whole community, even before you get into the arguments of whether or not Rossendale Council should have been offering up Green Belt land for housing development when there remain dozens of pre-used brown field sites which could have done the job.
While the developers point out a condition of being able to build on the proposed sites is the creation of a ‘masterplan’ to set out the plans in one go, the fact it is called the Market Street Masterplan makes it very clear this is a development which goes way beyond the creation of new housing estates.
It transforms a whole village and many in the village don’t want it.
For those residents who feel overlooked time and again by the council, it’s highly likely the moment to halt the development has passed.
The council now needs to step up and do what it’s supposed to and act in the interest of local residents, to ensure the development which comes to pass is as tolerable as possible for local residents.