Plans to build 58 homes on the edge of Barrow will be debated by councillors.
The plan from Holbeck Homes Ltd would see a mixture of two-, three- and four-bedroom properties built on land to the north of Leece Lane and east of Holbeck Park Avenue.
The homes would, according to a submitted transport assessment, each come with provision for at least two parking spaces.
The land identified is 44,000 sq metres in size and is used as horse pasture. It constitutes a chunk of an area of 64,300 sq metres that has been allocated for housing and has an ‘indicative total yield’ of 135 properties.
The applicant has suggested providing six properties classified as affordable, above the 10 per cent required by policy.
The 58-home plan – ‘phase one’ of the larger allocation – is to go before a meeting of Barrow Borough Council’s planning committee next Tuesday, March 14.
A report produced by case officer Maureen Smith ahead of this advises committee members to support the proposal ‘in principle’.
Ms Smith notes the applicant has suggested access would initially be from Kempas Avenue and that access from Leece Lane would be created at a later date.
She says the borough council’s preference is that access be from Leece Lane partly to prevent all traffic coming past the Kempas Avenue public open space.
“The applicant has submitted a viability assessment which advises of the need for some flexibility to achieve a reasonable level of return, and a transport assessment which supports traffic for the whole development coming from Kempas Avenue based upon highway capacity,” she says.
“The compromise would see access coming from Kempas Avenue for an initially agreed number of dwellings only and then this access would be closed off and retained as an emergency and cycle route only.
“The access off Leece Lane would have to be completed before the end of phase one.”
The report says seven letters of objection to the proposal have been received.
These have raised a host of concerns, including over parking and potential harm to wildlife, which are among the issues addressed in Ms Smith’s report.
The report includes the response of Cumbria County Council’s highways department to the proposal. The department says ‘parking provision for the proposed number and type of the properties is within acceptable range’.
Ms Smith notes, in response to concerns about wildlife, that the development would result in the loss of a managed grassland habitat.
“But the ecological assessment identifies that the proposal will deliver a net gain in biodiversity,” she says.
She advises that a final decision on the scheme be delegated to the borough council’s head of development management.
