Councillor claims more Derbyshire homes needed due to ‘influx of people coming into this country’

Cllr Garry Purdy, leader of Derbyshire Dales District Council, made the comments during a planning committee meeting where councillors were debating plans, which they subsequently approved, from Derby firm Chevin Homes for 18 homes off Normanhurst Park in Darley Dale.

Cllr Purdy said: “Where is the good reason for refusal? It is already in our Local Plan. There are many many people out there who want homes.

“We are very fortunate that we have got our own homes and so I see this authority as having a duty to provide for the need of this country, not just the Derbyshire Dales.

“There are many areas of this country where people are not able to have the key to their own property and I think, therefore, that this authority has that duty to provide that facility for those people that are in need.

“I appreciate it is a change to the scene that you have been used to, but then that would have been a change when your new property went in, when my new property went in, wherever we go.

“We can’t stop the birth rate, which is the cause of all the need for housing, we can’t stop the influx of people coming into this country, it seems, so we have a massive housing need and we have a duty under our Local Plan to meet that need.”

Cllr Jason Farmer, a member of Darley Dale Town Council, said the authority was opposed to the plans due to the “stress” it would put on public services. He also said the plan for the site’s children’s play area on either side of the access road into the site had caused concerns.

Cllr Farmer said: “We are genuinely concerned that this will invite health and safety issues regarding the children running across from one side of the road to the other.”

The location of the play area was a key reason why plans for the site had been deferred in October, with councillors and residents concerned over children breathing in fumes from the busy steam railway which runs past the site.

Normanhurst Park resident Archie Walker told the meeting that the plans were “ill-conceived” on safety grounds, due to the proposed pedestrian crossing over the A6. Rodney Howlett, who also lives in Normanhurst Park, said: “The planning officials continue to studiously ignore the elephant in the room in respect of this application, namely the proximity of the railway line.

“As Peak Rail stated in its objections, the proposal invites misuse, vandalism and criminal trespass on operational railway land by the public, as well as posing risk to life and limb and so would be totally unacceptable to Peak Rail.

“While the committee wanted to move the play area away from the railway track, they have disregarded that children will rapidly get bored with a swing and a see-saw, and it doesn’t take much imagination to think that young teenagers would find passing trains far more exciting and ultimately get into dangerous games like putting coins on the line for trains to run over and squash.”