Councillors throw out 460 Derbyshire homes plans over ‘poor’ design

The twin plans, from FW Harrison Estates Ltd and David Wilson Homes East Midlands, were for 367 homes and 101 homes, both on the Ashbourne Airfield site.

This airfield site forms the lynchpin of the council’s housing and employment development aims for the Dales, eventually set to include 1,500 homes and 60,000 square feet of employment land.

At a Derbyshire Dale District Council meeting, both sets of plans were roundly rejected with members feeling that much more work needs to be done to get the first phases of the overall scheme right, in order to pave the way for the rest of the project.

This rejection was hoped to send a resounding message that the Derbyshire Dales “will no longer accept mediocre housing development”.

This is despite the scheme already encountering significant delays, with a £2.5 million 50-metre roundabout, built by Derbyshire County Council with £1 million in public funding to serve the scheme, now having sat complete but leading nowhere for nearly two years.

Chris Whitmore, the district council’s head of planning said at this week’s meeting that the authority had aimed to provide decisions on these two schemes in September but had sought to work out the many issues with the developers.

However, he said this has proved “fruitless” and that he and fellow officers felt it was time to reject the proposals and restart discussions.

Key concerns included the potential overloading of the newly built roundabout with too many homes, due to the applicants looking to add a “windfall” site of 101 extra properties onto a plot which planners had approved for 367 – squeezing the plot to a total of 468.

They also include the creation of an insufficient legal access for JCB to use to get to its testing and training grounds, with a five-metre wide entry proposed when it needs at least 7.5 metres.

The smaller road on the other side of the currently too small access would also be insufficient, the construction firm said, and would mean large HGVs would need to mount the kerb, driving very close to people’s homes and would be unable to pass other vehicles.

Grant Anderson, speaking on behalf of JCB, told the meeting: “JCB supports the development over the wider airfield site proposed in the Local Plan, however, given the importance of the site and the scale of development proposed JCB considers it important that development of the whole site is comprehensively planned at the outset to ensure all necessary infrastructure is in place and that a coherent, comprehensive and high-quality development is achieved.

“The two applications before you adopt a piecemeal approach to development which will prejudice the comprehensive delivery of the wider site and in JCB’s submission are unacceptable.

Cllr Peter O’Brien said: “The design is so fundamentally flawed that refusal is the only way forward and deferral is not appropriate.”

He added: “This refusal would give a clear message to developers that this council will no longer accept mediocre housing development, not just in Ashbourne but throughout the Derbyshire Dales.”