Plans submitted for dozens more homes opposite large Derbyshire housing development

The application, from Modern Edge Development Group Ltd, would see 40 homes built on land off Peasehill in Ripley.

If approved, the development would sit opposite the 400-home Bellway Homes Coppice Heights scheme, which sparked controversy when it was approved despite public opposition in 2018.

Amber Valley Borough Council will make a decision on the scheme in the next few months.

Plans from UKSD, submitted as part of the application, detail that the proposed 40-home scheme would be built on a vacant field with numerous trees to the rear of 127 Peasehill.

To make way for the scheme, 127 Peasehill would be demolished, providing access into the site.

UKSD details that trees and hedges along the boundary of the site would be retained, with a number of trees around the homes themselves.

It says that almost all of the properties would be semi-detached houses with between two and four bedrooms each, with the remaining homes being “duplex” apartments.

The site would have 68 car parking spaces, with a minimum of 51 bike storage spaces – which could be shed-like compartments on each driveway or in garages.

UKSD writes: “The proposed scheme represents an opportunity to deliver a high quality and sensitively designed development that will further contribute towards the five-year housing land supply buffer requirement.

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“The site has the potential to immediately deliver a number of dwellings that would assist in the sustainable growth of both the town and the district and make a strategic difference to demonstrable supply.

“It is important to place such a proposal in a strategic context given the overall demonstrable supply and the fact that the proposal seeks to bring development to a sustainable location in planning policy terms.

“The development of the site would bring significant economic benefits to the local area in terms of both the construction phase and once the dwellings are occupied.

“The site is relatively flat and does not contain any built form and is not at risk of flooding. It has the opportunity for good main road access.

“All of these factors lend support to the consideration that the site is deliverable in the short to medium term.

“The design of the proposed scheme is one that respects the site’s context and will provide much needed new housing in the town in a sustainable location without detriment to the locality and surrounding area.

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“The site not only benefits from an extant permission it also benefits from excellent transport links and local facilities, it is more importantly located within an already well established residential area.”

Councillors broke out into a heated debate when the outline stage of the “Coppice Heights” plans were approved in 2018.

The debate saw Labour opposition leader, Cllr Chris Emmas-Williams, and another then-Labour member, Cllr Brian Lyttle, storm out of the Ripley Town Hall chamber.

Borough council officers, not councillors, approved the reserved matters application for the Coppice Heights site in August 2020, after a call-in to the planning committee was rejected by then head of the committee, Labour councillor Mick Wilson.

Objectors had said the development, close to The Ripley Academy, would put too much pressure on the area’s roads, schools and health services.