A housing developer wants to build another 118 homes on a farmland in Nantwich – just days after Cheshire East Council’s Local Plan was kicked into touch by an inspector.
Now furious councillors and residents are preparing for another fight to stop the latest proposals for land off Queens Drive.
Gladman Homes has already won permission for 270 houses on green fields off Queens Drive, and building work is underway with Bovis and Barratt the main builders.
Now Gladman has targeted the neighbouring field with another 118 houses – using the same access road.
Nantwich North ward councillor Arthur Moran said hundreds of residents received “consultation” leaflets through their doors from Gladman over the weekend outlining the plan.
Cllr Moran (pictured) said: “It has not taken long for developers to start coming in and looking at other sites now that Cheshire East Council is in complete disarray with its Local Plan.
“This latest one is on the field that stretches along the back of Queens Drive and goes to the lane up to Fields Farm.
“If this is allowed, it will amount to around 400 new homes being built in this area alone, all coming off the same access road.
“The infrastructure cannot take it. As it is, any improvements to Queens Drive, Marsh Lane or Welsh Row isn’t going to happen until the first 50 houses of the current scheme are completed.
“Nantwich North is being hammered as this brings the total to around 1,500 homes if you include the Reaseheath plan for Kingsley Fields into it.
“All they’ve got in Nantwich South is the Stapeley Water Gardens plan.
“I want people to air their views in the strongest possible terms over this.”
Campaigners in Nantwich and surrounding villages like Wistaston, Willaston, Shavington and Stapeley have all voiced fears that developers will seize on the news that Cheshire East’s Local Plan has been delayed.
A planning inspector criticised the Plan in a report, concluding it did not go far enough in addressing housing supply needs over the next 15 years.
Nantwichnews has contacted Gladman Homes and we are awaiting a reply.
Regarding the ‘blocking of Taylor Drive’, I understand that a road link should have been constructed between Taylor Drive and Edmund Wright Way when the land adjacent to Taylor Drive was developed, which would have provided a vehicular link between Taylor Drive and Marsh Lane.
However, I have heard it alleged that the developer (or developers) outflanked the then Crewe and Nantwich Borough Council with the result that the link was never constructed, although I don’t know whether there is any truth in this allegation. If it is true, could it be yet another example of local authority incompetence?!
With all these houses going up is’nt about time someone thought about an extra secondary school and doctors as ours are already overflowing and with more people going to live here we are seriously going to need them.
I would love to trade down to a smaller house and garden, but all these new builds are either large 4/5 bedrooms at well over £350k or smaller terraced ones that go straight to housing associations who then sell a % and charge a rental for the balance. Just how is this affordable? The worrying thing is that these houses are snapped up by these housing associations to then lie empty for many months.The designs of these larger homes are not fit for purpose either, they have no ground floor shower room for elderly or disabled and very few have a seperate ground floor room that can double up as a guest bedroom/granny room. Tis no wonder many elderly live in care homes, because builders fail to build multi purpose modern homes, for blended families.
When will all this stop? I endorse Mr Harvey’s comments completely. I would also like to point out yet again the farcical situation that has existed for a long time over the blocking of Taylor Drive. I understand that there will be no road improvements until at least 50 properties have been completed. What will happen in the meantime with construction traffic along Queens Drive? They say there will be affordable housing on the scheme, affordable for who? Housing associations?
Kevin Hammersley, Queens Drive.
Gladman Developments bankroll farmers seeking permission to build on their fields | Daily Mail Online: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2846629/No-win-no-free-lawyers-ruining-countryside-bankroll-farmers-seeking-permission-build-fields.html#comments
wots it gonna take the death of a child or more before these developers are creating nitemare foreve.there were skylarks in that top field
Just to clarify the position in Nantwich South – Stapeley Water Gardens site, 300 houses; Audlem Road, 33 houses; Stapeley, 189 houses – Phase 1 of 1100 houses awaiting appeal decision. The only ‘planned’ development in Nantwich south is Stapeley Water Gardens, the only ‘planned’ development in Nantwich north is Kingsley Fields.
As the new Gladman proposal shows, the whole of Nantwich is under threat from unplanned, speculative development.
The residents of Nantwich do not need more homes built we need more and better Dr’s and the schools are full already. look around Nantwich now and you will see there are plenty of houses for sale already.This is a total disgrace with no regard for the people who live here already.The traffic up and down Queens Drive and Marsh Lane will be horrendous and Welsh Row will be a nightmare.
This is totally unacceptable, and indicative of an administration with no plan for genuine economic growth other than digging up our green fields and ruining our towns with over-development. We need proper, Supply Side Economic Reform, not the clueless, short-term importing of ‘demand’ we have today. This is why GDP *PER CAPITA* has barely moved since the Economic Crisis.
UKIP Development Policy is to scrap the Conservative’s NPPF and hold Local Referenda on contentious planning applications like this. That way, towns will get the developments they need, not the speculative, ill-thought through excuses like this, and the other Gladman Development on Queen’s Drive.
Vote UKIP in 2015 to get rid of this incompetent Council and Government who are ruining our town and our country.