Housing plan is ‘out of character’

Councillors need to ‘draw a line in the sand’ on the quality of housing, it’s been claimed, as an application for 48 homes in Long Sutton was refused.

Members of the district council’s Planning Committee agreed with the recommendation of its officers, and rejected the 48 homes for land off Lime Walk.
The proposal was a re-submission of the idea after a similar plan for 56 homes was refused.
The site, currently agricultural land, is on the east side of Lime Walk.
Long Sutton Parish Council reiterated previous objections and said the plan was over-development of the site.
“No improvements in local infrastructure, lack of school places, lack of doctors appointments, no investment in sewerage, no financial benefit to the community, no access to S106 funding, loss of agricultural land, traffic increases on a busy road.”
The report says the proposal was ‘unacceptable harm to the character and appearance of the area in terms of visual impact.’
The density proposed, at 48 dwellings, was above the site allocation of 34 for the site, described as ‘the soft, green rural edge of the town,’ says the report.
It adds that the proposal ‘does not create a high quality development in terms of layout or design and is out of character with the rural setting of the site.’
Speaking on behalf of the applicant PJK Magpie Close, Mr Lee Russell told the committee that the application was less dense than other new developments.
There had been a raft of objections from nearby residents, including loss of farmland, overshadowing and excessive demand on infrastructure.
The meeting was told that the applicant had offered to make a host of amendments following the publication of officers’ recommendations, but that officers felt it was too many to deal with as amendments and a new application would have to be submitted.
The highway authority says the planned road layout is acceptable.
If permission were granted, there would also be a total of 12 affordable units in total.
NHS Lincolnshire wanted £31,680, while education requested £178,521 and Anglian Water said there was capacity within the system.
“The proposal would therefore materially harm the character and appearance of the area.
“Moreover, the general layout and design is such that a significant proportion of the public footpath, running along the south-western boundary, would have a general lack of natural surveillance from nearby properties.
“These concerns are of such weight as to outweigh other factors in favour of the scheme,” the report adds.
Coun Paul Redgate said: “I see very little change in the decision made regarding over-development.
“It’s on the outskirts of the town. We’re not talking about a development in the main hub itself.
“We said the quality of the design was poor as well and they’ve not listened to us on that.
“We need to draw a line in the sand on these and say we need to see a different approach by developers coming into the district and that we need good quality housing.
“We want them to understand these are rural environments.
“We’ve seen it for too long and enough is enough.
“While it’s a token removal and there’s elements of Section 106 that come, we need to say if the site is for 34 homes, make it for 34. If you can’t make that financially viable, that’s not our problem.
“Our job is to give people high quality, good standard living in South Holland.”