Council to decide on controversial village apartment block proposals

RESIDENTS ARE objecting to a three-storey retirement apartment block being built in an upmarket village near Hull.

Apartments, detached homes and affordable bungalows are earmarked for the four-acre site in Tranby Lane, Swanland, by developers McCarthy and Stone and Duchy Homes.

Councillors are due to meet tomorrow to decide whether to approve plans for 36 retirement apartments, nine four-bedroomed homes and four bungalows.

There have been dozens of objections, including from Swanland Parish Council, to the proposals from villagers who say it is out of scale and would be better suited to a town, not a village. The parish council has asked for it to be reduced to two storeys.

Seven addresses have written in to support the scheme.

Planners are recommending approval of the scheme, pending the signing of legal agreement towards payments totalling £143,000 for affordable housing and open space.

In a report, they reject claims it could set a precedent for threestorey buildings in the local area, saying other proposals “would be subject to an assessment of their own merits”.

Meanwhile, a planning inquiry will take place later this month which will finally decide the future of a landmark East Riding building at 54 Elloughton Road, Brough, which is earmarked for retirement flats. Last November councillors for a second time rejected plans to knock down the former Victorian boarding school and build an apartment building in its place. The inquiry, due to begin on May 23, will hear an appeal by McCarthy and Stone against the first refusal.