Carnforth councillors raise concerns over plans for new homes

Lancaster City Council officially approved and adopted its long-awaited and revised Local Plan at a full council meeting on Wednesday July 29.

The plan sets out the city council’s vision for the development of the district for at least the next 10 years.

The plan has been revised to take account of recommendations made by Richard McCoy, who was appointed to examine the Local Plan by the national Planning Inspectorate last year, one of which has a direct bearing on the potential future development of Carnforth.

Land behind Windermere Road on the Highfield estate between Lundsfield Quarry and Back Lane was originally included in the draft plan and was earmarked for development for housing including affordable housing, a new primary school, and a recreational sports hub which might have provided a new home for local sports clubs including Carnforth Rangers FC.

By law the draft plan has to be submitted to the Government, which appoints a Planning Inspectorate to consider if the plan has been properly prepared before it can be adopted by the council. The inspector can direct the council to make changes to the plan before it is adopted.

At a local hearing in April 2019, Mr McCoy, recommended the removal from the plan of the land in south Carnforth.

Mr McCoy considered that a large housing development so close to the quarrying at Back Lane Quarry would lead to a poor living environment for the new residents.

Mr McCoy noted that the quarry is important to the economy, producing a million tonnes of limestone every year for building projects as well as asphalt for road repairs.

Given the importance of this quarry and its need to operate on a 24-hour daily basis, Mr McCoy was concerned about the possible impacts for residents of the new development site from dust, vibration, noise and disturbance from lorries visiting the quarry.

The development site itself might also have sand, gravel and limestone and Mr McCoy felt that the council’s plan should protect these minerals for the future.

Mr McCoy thought that whilst land for housing is needed the case for developing this site was not strong enough and so it should stay as Green Belt.

Despite protests, the Planning Inspectorate has upheld the inspector’s recommendation and Lancaster City Council has been forced to revise the Local Plan and remove the land from the document.

A statement from the town council said: "Carnforth Town Council is bitterly disappointed that a key piece of land for the potential development of 500 new homes, many of them affordable, together with a new primary school, a community sports hub and a new home for Carnforth Rangers FC, has now effectively been removed from Lancaster City Council’s Local Plan following a decision by the Planning Inspectorate to safeguard the land for future mineral extraction.

"This decision by the Inspectorate takes no account of the needs of our community for new starter homes for purchase and for rent and it denies hundreds of our young people access to sporting and recreational facilities.

"It effectively sets back the development of the town in the interests of mineral extraction at some indeterminate date in the future.

"We will be doing our utmost to bring pressure to bear on a number of different agencies, including Lancaster City Council and the Planning Inspectorate, to put our present and demonstrable development needs ahead of future and unspecified quarrying requirements."

Before the inspector made his ruling, a potential developer of the land, H20 Urban LLP, based in London, had drawn up plans to build 500 homes, comprising 200 affordable and 300 market homes, a new primary school, a community sports hub and a new home for Carnforth Rangers FC, plus a new park and green network on the site.

These plans for development are now redundant and the land will remain part of the Green Belt.

A Carnforth town council spokesman said: "No date for quarrying has been provided as the land is merely being “safeguarded” for mineral extraction at a later date but the impracticality of quarrying next to an existing housing estate (Highfield) does not seem to have been considered by the Inspector.

"The effective abandonment of what is perhaps the biggest housing and leisure development in Carnforth’s history does not remove the need for affordable housing and recreational facilities.

"The revised Local Plan does not make alternative provision for the loss of those in the H20 scheme, nor does it offer any hope of improving access to sporting and leisure facilities in Carnforth.

"It may also have an inadvertent outcome, by creating pressure from developers to use other Green Belt land in the area for similar purposes but without the synergy and practicality that H20 Urban’s development would have created by linking with the Lundsfield Quarry site, a longstanding brown field development site and problem for the town."

Coun Janice Hanson, Cabinet member with responsibility for planning policy, said: “When the council submitted its plan in 2018 it had hoped that the site would have provided for much of the future development needs of Carnforth and brought benefits such as the proposed recreational sports hub.

"After considering the evidence on the benefits and constraints on this challenging site the Inspector took a different view on the balance of the suitability of the site for development and that it was why the council has removed the site from its local plan.

"The Government expects all councils to update their local plans every five years. Future updates will give us the opportunity to assess local housing needs at that time and explore land availability that will allow us to meet those needs.

"In the meantime, the council will continue to work with Carnforth Town Council to find ways in which the provision of sport and recreation facilities can be developed and improved for their communities.”