New housing development despite council’s objections

A HOUSING development for 87 new homes has been approved by Wiltshire Council for the land off Station Road – despite strong objections from Westbury Town Council. 

The site, on the derelict land next to Network Rail,  was previously granted planning permission for 102 residential dwellings by Persimmon Homes in 2013. However, this permission  expired in 2016 as the developers had not begun building during the three years. 

When Newland Homes applied for planning permission to build 88 new homes in September 2017, objections from Westbury Town Council included inadequate parking, concerns over access, drainage issues, an excess number of one bedroom flats, and no footpath access to The Ham.

Following concerns, the developers then resubmitted amended plans in April 2018, this time for 87 homes, in order to deal with these concerns. However, Westbury Town Council believed that not all of them were addressed and objected once more. 

Now, approval has been given by Wiltshire Council, bringing 87 more homes to the area just metres from another new housing development from Linden Homes at the sailing lake.

Cllr Ian Cunningham, chair of the town council’s highways, planning and development committee said, “Westbury Town Council objected to development at this site twice 25/4/18 & /9/18 on a number of grounds and requested some conditions be considered should the application be approved. 

“We have not seen the decision notice, so we don’t know the exact details of any conditions that may have been applied. We did note that the developer had taken notice of some of our comments from the first application and that they had made efforts to report and listen to the town council during the process but we still had concerns including; the width of entrance and visibility onto a busy road; height of roadside elevations; lack of affordable (social) housing etc. 

“We also requested a number of items, for example: provision of a footpath up to the Ham; consistency in design & sufficient street furniture for public places (e.g. play area) with information boards about services in the town; built-in parking restrictions so that public money will not need to spent later to deal with a likely repetition of the type of ill-considered parking that happened (predictably) in Primmer’s Place and Slag Lane due to the proximity to the railway station. “

Newland Homes were approached for a comment but had not replied by the time WHN went to press