A Nantwich housing application has been deferred with one councillor saying he didn’t want to put his name to a scheme which resulted in someone’s death because a full traffic assessment hadn’t been done.
Cheshire East planners had recommended councillors approve the outline application from Nightingale Land for up to 75 homes off Broad Lane.
The application also included bulldozing a bungalow to create an access for the site, which would have the narrow Batherton Lane to the west of it.
But at the Strategic Planning Board yesterday, several councillors raised concerns about the ability of the road to cope with extra traffic – especially knowing applications for a possible 700 more homes were in the pipeline.
Highways officer Andrew Goligher said the 75-home scheme was small in highways terms.
“We’ve assessed the access is safe and suitable,” he said.
“What we haven’t done is junction capacity assessments of the wider network, because it is a small development in highway scales,” he told councillors.
Mr Goligher said an application had just been submitted for about 400 homes and another was expected for an extra 200 or 300 “so with those applications, we will be doing a wider assessment of the highways impact in Nantwich”.
Knutsford councillor Stewart Gardiner (Con) said he thought the 75-home application should be deferred and the survey undertaken.
“We need to be assured that the creation of this new access with the additional vehicles using it are not going to result in increased highway danger.
“And that is why I am concerned that we appear to be just looking at the access point rather than the wider impact of this development on the main road, which is going to be carrying not only the 75 plus potential units from this site, but also those from these other developments,” said Cllr Gardiner.
“I do not want my name put to a scheme, and I’m sure you don’t, that in a few years’ time, results in somebody’s death because it turns out, we didn’t take the opportunity to look at something of safety in the wider context.”
Crewe councillor Marilyn Houston (Lab) said putting more cars on the road in this area was creating a “perfect storm for traffic congestion”.
“I would wonder whether it is possible to defer this and to ask for a proper highways survey that took into account all the cumulative effects of development in this area,” she said.
Planning and highways officers repeated that the impact of the 75 homes would be small.
But Cllr Gardiner said the council did have a legitimate reason for deferral.
“It’s not unreasonable for us to consider the whole picture, because it’s possible that we might need to make improvements to that road, which need to be jointly funded by the developers of the land to the north and the developers of this site,” he said.
“We are saying, technically, we are aware of other developments in the vicinity, all of which are going to feed onto the same road, and all of which need to be assessed, because we need to know what infrastructure we might need to have.
“We can’t fund it. We haven’t got any money as a council, and so therefore it has to be funded by contributions.”
Cllr Steve Edgar (Haslington, Con) argued a traffic assessment would be done when the larger applications were considered.
Head of planning David Malcolm said a deferral could be for six to nine months.
But committee chair Brian Puddicombe (Macclesfield, Lab) said: “Traffic surveys will take as long as they take, I guess.
“But I think we have got a duty of care to the current and future residents of Nantwich.”
Cllr Gardiner moved the application be deferred and this was seconded by Cllr Houston.
Five councillors voted for deferral, four voted against and one abstained.
(Story written by Belinda Ryan, local democracy reporter)
There isn’t any duty of care to residents, infrastructure or impact to green spaces by housing developers wanting to build on a patch of land. All due diligence measures should be in place before even coming up for discussion. All these houses being built, where is consideration on other infrastructures for new doctor’s surgeries, police stations, fire stations, bus routes, pavements, not forgetting, more houses, more people…there aren’t enough supermarkets in an around Nantwich to cover these housing developments. Think Cheshire East council just seeing REVENUE, not caring for the impact on people and the environment. Also more consideration should be given to the ever increasing traffic on already over capacity A routes, bad drainage and broken roads.
There needs to be a long-term plan linked to housing and infrastructure; considering developments on their own individual merits is short sighted and will lead to future problems and failure. Deferral to consider combination effects is the correct approach.
Where is the CEC long term plan to refer to? Its the lack of this endorsed plan which is causing these planning headaches. If it was there, it would be possible to work out a plan for infrastructure improvements linked to an overall strategy which could then be funded by the developers. This would likely also reduce the number of speculative applications once the true costs of the projects to the developers were known and they need to fund infra as well. i.e. not just buying a field, building as many houses as possible and walking away with the cash
I think that, while as lovely and responsible an idea that is, in reality almost all households have, or will eventually have more than 1 car and people who buy houses need to work. Buses serve some service in terms of worker commute but in rural towns like Nantwich, people will have cars to work and travel.
It feels like Nantwich is being overrun by development at the moment. I’m glad they are looking at the overall impact of traffic, but there’s no mention of the developers needing to pay for a doctor’s surgery to ease the burden there.
The Officers comments do not give me any confidence in the quality of application assessments. CEC should cover all aspects in respect of infrastructure. So simple.
nobody is actually thinking outside the box, they are just assuming every household will have cars
why not limit car use and provide a better bus service, all day there are constant buses from Crewe to Nantwich going mostly on one road, being Nantwich rd and Crewe rd, then there is the railway too
why not extend the route as a circular so housing estates have a reliable bus service. in Stapeley there are only 5 buses a day, on one road none on a Sunday and they are every 2 hours, EVERY 2 HOURS!! not acceptable
then the pavements are not fit for purpose, there should be a direct cycle lane to town from housing estates, off road as there are too many dolts racing around built up areas to even think about using the roads in peak times