Detailed plans for 400 new homes on green fields near Chesterfield set for approval

Barratt Homes already has outline permission to build the properties on land off Inkersall Road at Staveley.

Chesterfield Borough Council planning officers are now encouraging councillors to give detailed designs on the new properties the green light at a meeting on Monday, February 21.

The site is a triangular-shaped parcel of land bordered by the Trans Pennine Trail, Inkersall Road and Inkersall Green Road.

A planning officer report published ahead of the meeting says: “The site is currently green field land with a central corridor forming a water course which crosses the site in a diagonal east to west.

"There is a Grade II listed farmhouse located to the far south and a cluster of cottages to the south-east.

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"Poolsbrook Country Park is to the east and Poolsbrook Caravan Park.”

Barratt Homes was given outline planning permission to develop the site in August 2020.

Council planning officers say ‘significant negotiation’ has taken place since then to ‘improve the layout of the development’, provide green spaces and the ‘creation of a sense of place’.

The development will be accessed from Inkersall Road to the north, and Inkersall Green Road to the south.

There will be a mixture of two, three and four-bedroom homes, with seven per cent allocated to be ‘affordable’.

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Although the council says significant work has taken place to ‘improve the design of the house types’, this has come in for criticism.

Derbyshire County Council’s report says the properties are ‘unlikely to meet lifetime homes standards’.

Residents have also raised concerns about the loss of green space.

One said in an objection letter: “This area is very close to the Trans Pennine trail and there are a multitude of different birds and wildlife that we fear will be affected and driven away by it.

"This is usually a very peaceful and tranquil area that is bound to be disrupted.”

Concerns were also raised that the area’s infrastructure of schools, GP surgeries and dentists could not cope with 400 new homes.

Planning documents add in conclusion: “The principle of the development is established by the outline permission. Whilst there remain some outstanding matters to fully resolve these can be adequately addressed via condition.”

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