200 homes on Derbyshire green field site would create “isolated island community”, planning inquiry hears

A public inquiry into plans for 196 houses, on land off Sowbrook Lane and Ilkeston Road, started yesterday (Wednesday, August 9) at Long Eaton Town Hall.

Worcester firm Wulff Asset Management Limited had appealed against its project being refused by Erewash Borough Council at a meeting in October, leading to the inquiry.

The inquiry is due to last seven days and the opening session saw the rival organisations clash on reasons for and against the proposed development, along with comments on behalf of the Kirk Hallam Green Squeeze campaign group and from former long-serving councillor John Frudd.

Andrew McCormack, the Government-appointed planning inspector overseeing the inquiry, said he was considering six main issues over the scheme:

• Sustainability

• Impact on the character and visual amenity of the landscape

• Impact on the Grade-II listed twelvehouses cottages opposite the site

• The potential risk to the borough council forming a successful blueprint for future development through its core strategy

• The impact on the council attempting to designate the plot part of the Green Belt

• The impact to the council aiming to secure a “green infrastructure corridor” between the site and the surrounding area

Jonathan Easton KC, on behalf of Wulff, said the site was an “obvious candidate for development”, with no protections over its land status and with “compelling benefits” to the proposed scheme.

He said the council does not have a five-year land supply, with pressure to find spaces to build houses, in a borough “constrained” by protected Green Belt land, describing this as a self-defined failure of the council.

The site is not within the Green Belt and is not listed as a plot with any designated protections, but the council is currently in the process of adding it as an extension to the Green Belt.

He said the adverse impacts of the scheme do not outweigh its benefits, saying it “made no apologies” for the number of proposed benefits, including helping the council with its housing shortfall, public transport connection improvements, footpath enhancements, open space improvements, a biodiversity net-gain, walking and cycling links, more residents using shops and services, and development of land not in the Green Belt.

Bus stops would be improved and there would be electric vehicle charging points on site, he said.

He said the site was a “reasonable distance” to Kirk Hallam, which he claimed was supported by Derbyshire County Council’s highways department – who had objected to the application, due to the public safety risks of walking and cycling to and from the plot.

The county council had said: “The proposal would result in the introduction of a significant number of pedestrian movements at a location where no footways provision exists requiring pedestrians and other vulnerable users to use the carriageway, increasing the potential for conflict with vehicles contrary to the best interests of highway safety.”

Mr Easton also claimed the county council accepted the distance would “not be a disincentive” to people walking the route.

He said the development would improve the quality of the walking route with street lighting, making it an “attractive solution to a car journey for some”, saying “it is unreasonable to expect everyone to walk or cycle to school or work”.

It is 1.6 miles from the site to Kirk Hallam Community Academy, one mile to the nearest supermarket (Nisa Extra in Queen Elizabeth Way) and 0.7 miles to Dallimore Primary and Nursery School.

Mr Easton said the neighbouring New Stanton Park development on the former Stanton Ironworks site, including 24-metre-high warehouses, seemed to have “alluded the council”.

He said the scheme was “not a substantial” part of the council’s housing requirement – 5,800 homes by 2037, saying: “It is entirely on the council should it decide to rip up the core strategy.”

Satnam Choongh, the barrister representing the borough council, said: “The development is not in the Ilkeston urban area and nor is it adjoined to the Ilkeston urban area.

“It is separate and removed from Kirk Hallam and not connected to Ilkeston, it is divorced from Ilkeston and Kirk Hallam and the industrial centre in Stanton.

“It represents obvious bad planning.

“It will appear discordant and unconnected from other developments.”

He said it had been a long-held policy to ensure Ilkeston and Kirk Hallam remained disconnected and that is why the council was seeking to protect the land in its current draft core strategy.

Mr Choongh said the development was “incompatible with the Green Belt and green corridor plan” and that the negatives of the scheme “demonstrably outweighed the benefits”, with “non-car” modes of travel not representing a “realistic” option from the site.

John Frudd, who stepped down from the council in May, but had been the most vocal opponent to the plans in October’s planning meeting at which the scheme was rejected.

He had dubbed the scheme “one of the worst, most flawed applications that I have ever seen”, a claim which he repeated at the inquiry.

Mr Frudd said the site was “isolated and cut off from most of the built-up area, there is no footpath on the whole of the perimeter of the site and no footway other than on the other side of the road which is hardly to a satisfactory standard”.

He said: “There is a substantial risk of people coming to grief sooner or later as a result of a road traffic accident,” saying this would worsen with increasing numbers of HGVs and with the roads having 40mph speed limits.

Mr Frudd said protected skylarks on site needed to be protected, representing a red-list species in drastic decline.

He said: “This would turn a green corridor between settlements into a sprawling bank of houses totally at odds with houses in the area.”

Mr Frudd said it would “seriously compromise” access to a popular pond and to the canal.

He said schools were already “saturated” with pupils and a new school was required.

Dallimore Primary and Nursery School has 385 pupils, with a capacity for 315, while Kirk Hallam Community Academy has 870 pupils with a capacity for 1,202.

Mr Easton said the developers planned to contribute £700 per house to the county council to offset the impact on schools – following a request from the authority – which totals £137,200.

The county council had told the borough council in October that schools had sufficient capacity for the new site.

Paul Harvey, speaking on behalf of Kirk Hallam Green Squeeze, which has around 700 members, told the hearing that people living in the village were focused on “paying bills, holding down jobs and putting food on the table” but were still highly aware of the scheme and its impact on the green space and its biodiversity.

He said there was a long-standing link between the importance of the green space in partnership with the area’s industrial history – with the fields providing a valued area of escape.

Mr Harvey said: “It provided fresh air which could not be more different from the working environment.

“A walk in the countryside was not just a family tradition but part of the family DNA.

“If you stop anyone walking through that area they will tell you, ‘my dad brought me here’ or ‘my grandad brought me here’ or ‘my uncle brought me here’.

“It is a safer, quieter more natural area away from the filth of the working environment, where many people remember hearing a skylark for the first time.”

He said the people of Ilkeston would perceive the developer’s actions as “bullying”.

Mr Harvey said: “This would create an island community with no school, nowhere to buy a newspaper or milk – an isolated characterless colony.

“It is not the type of living we should be aspiring to in the 21st century.”

The inquiry is due to conclude on Friday, August 18, with a decision to be made later this year by the inspector.