Shropshire Homes has submitted plans for 68 houses on the site east of the Eco Park. This site is allocated for housing and light industrial use. The site was given outline planning permission for an indicative total of 80 homes and light industrial use in September 2016. This is south of the site on which Western Power Distribution (WPD) wants to build a new depot.
This is an improvement to the outline proposals. The scheme sits well in the landscape and has a better use of green space. As always there are details to be resolved, such as whether the scheme will have a children’s play area and whether a power line will be moved.
This planning application was submitted in mid-June (19/02741/REM) and I am delayed in writing it up. But it is timely that I can publish it alongside the WPD application. This allows us to see the overall scale and pattern of development for the site, which is allocated for development in the SAMDev local plan.
The site, which has long been used to grow potatoes, lies between the Eco Park and Squirrel Lane. Is currently fallow. The plans show a typical housing estate with two cul de sacs and a gently curving road through the centre.
The homes are set back a minimum of 60 metres from the boundary of the WPD substation as agreed in the outline planning permission (14/01012/OUT). This buffer will now be public open space. In the outline application, this space was to be allocated for twelve workshop and studio units (shown brown on the plan below). Squeezed between the substation and the housing, this always seemed a way of filling space rather than a plan for a good quality work and living environment.
The indicative housing layout in the outline planning permission was cramped and felt clunky. The new plans are more relaxed. By abandoning plans for workshops and reducing the number of homes by twelve, the housing scheme looks more comfortable in its landscape. Unlike in the outline application, homes will be set back from Sheet Road and the spine road. This spine road is intended to eventually link up with the approved housing development south of Rocks Green, opening up the area east of the bypass for more housing.
At the centre of the development will be a “Green Heart”. There is no mention of a play area (Locally Equipped Area of Play – LEAP). The application does not specify the location and number of affordable homes but there are likely to be around twelve.
A footpath will connect with the Eco Park and the park and ride. The pavements on the new development will link to a new footpath on the north side of Sheet Road linking to the Eco Park entrance.
A power line runs across the site. There is no information on whether this will be retained, undergrounded or diverted. But the outline approval allowed the line to remain in place.
As the plan below shows, attenuation ponds designed to slow down the rate of water discharge into Ledwyche Brook were intended to be within the development. This scheme was replaced in 2018 with an attenuation pond the other side of Squirrel Lane (17/05983/FUL, see plan above). A proposed link road to the land east of the lane, which would have opened the area for additional housing development, was withdrawn from that application.
No mention of a bus service either for the housing or the industrial site. Has this not been written into the details?
The buses stop at the Eco Park every half an hour.
Andy, cannot believe that even more development is being planned east of the by-pass! At this rate the by-pass will soon become an inner-relief road! When the eastern route was chosen for the by-pass it was done on the basis of being the eastern edge of any more town development. South of Ludford, between the river and the old A49 was the area initially proposed for future development of the town. How times have changed.
Personally I think the new access road onto the Sheet Village road will not be in a good location. The brow of a hill, the inside of a bend and 3 junctions all very close together; the Eco Park, the new development and Squirrel Lane is not a good idea. It will be interesting to see what the planners / highways consider a safe design.
The location for access to the site and spine road was approved in 2016 and was supported by highways.
The plan has been to build east of the bypass has been in place for many years. It is more sustainable and less damaging to the setting of the historic centre than south of Ludford.