Controversial plans for a housing development on the site of Cockermouth’s former fire headquarters will come back before councillors after it was agreed to accept the findings of an independent red squirrel survey report saving the council £44,750.
West Cumbrian businessman Bill Dobie lodged plans to build a private housing development on the land at Station Road in Cockermouth in May 2023.
Mr Dobie’s company bought the former county headquarters and land in 2015, paying about £2million for the 3.8-acre site.
It later went on to turn the derelict building into flats.
Originally plans were approved for the site at a meeting of Cumberland Council’s planning committee in September 2023.
However the application was brought back to the council in March the following year after the council found ecological reports submitted with the application were not carried out at the time the application had stated, but five years earlier.
At the 2024 meeting, councillors voted to defer the application, so that a new detailed ecological report could be produced. Members were told that this would be commissioned and funded by the council.
Members of Cumberland Council’s planning committee met at Allerdale House yesterday, February 25, to consider the matter and, according to the report, should the planning committee resolve to not amend the original deferral reason, it was anticipated that the cost would be approximately £44,750 for a full survey.
The development has been controversial, with protests being held outside of previous meetings and many objections to the plans over the course of the last three years.
Councillor Roger Dobson (Corby and Hayton, Lib Dems) proposed that they accept the submitted updated assessments carried out by the council’s ecologist and added: “We have to be careful with council resources.”
He was seconded by Councillor Tony Markley (Solway Coast, Conservative) and when the matter was put to the vote members agreed to change the deferral reason in order to allow the application to be put in front of the committee once more, for consideration of the substantive planning application to follow at a later scheduled planning committee.
Officers had recommended that councillors choose that option, saying in the report that officers were satisfied that all matters relating to ecological issues had been adequately addressed and reviewed.
