Call for housing on site of former mill
JON MACPHERSON
ADERELICT former mill site should be transformed to address the ‘dire need for housing in the area’, community leaders have urged.
Councillor Munsif Dad has called on developers to bring forward their ideas for the former Woodnook Mill area, off Mount Street in Accrington.
The site has been boarded up since 2009 when the old mill buildings were pulled down and plans for a 50-house scheme approved six years ago failed to materialise.
Coun Dad said: “As a district council, we’ve always tried to push that something needs to be done on the site.
“Plans for 50 houses were approved a few years ago on the site but there were issues with flooding and the culvert on the land.
“I hope that someone will come forward with plans for the site as Hyndburn is in dire need for housing.
“So any developer that comes forward with plans for housing, industrial or any other use for the site, we’d be happy to work with them to see what could be done.”
Hyndburn’s MP Graham Jones has also written a letter to Hyndburn council asking what the latest situation is with the site.
In response, chief planning and transportation officer Simon Prideaux said that outline planning permission was granted for the development of housing on the site in January 2013.
He said: “However, applications for the approval of reserved matters were never submitted and the permis- sion has now lapsed.
“No further planning applications have been submitted for the development of the site and although there was some consideration given to the development of a social housing scheme this did not progress.
“Although the former mill buildings on the site have been demolished, a main river is culverted beneath the site and this presents a constraint to future development owing for the need for easements either side of the culvert to be main- tained.
“Notwithstanding this, the site remains a site that would be suitable for residential development and it will be considered as a potential housing site in the development of the borough’s local plan.”