Plans for a 76-home estate in Penrith have been refused.
Housing association Riverside and Atkinson Building Contractors Ltd applied to Eden Council for permission to develop the affordable two- to four-bedroom homes on 2.18 hectares of land at White Ox Farm, Inglewood Road, with a mixture of rental and shared ownership properties.
It was considered by Eden Council’s planning committee today, who were recommended to approve the scheme, subject to all of the homes being affordable and the site being linked to existing footpaths.
But members moved to refuse it, because they said the site had poor amenity, connectivity and transport and mixture of tenure.
A motion to refuse planning permission moved by Henry Sawrey-Cookson (Ind, Kirkby Thore), seconded by Mike Eyles (Lib Dem, Penrith) was passed with six votes for and three against.
Cumbria County Council had objected to the development because the applicants would not agree to a £204,000 payment towards education provision, because they said it would make the scheme ‘unviable’.
A council report prepared ahead of the meeting said the applicant had attempted to address concerns around scale, design and layout, as well as landscape, drainage, highways and noise and air impacts.
The report said: “While some of the changes made are not as far-reaching as officers would prefer, it is recognised that to go further would potentially jeopardise the ability to deliver a 100 per cent affordable scheme and the significant social and economic benefits that this would achieve/deliver to the district.”
A previous planning application for the wider 3.95 hectare site in 2017 for 51 homes was given the go-ahead.
Fourteen neighbours were consulted about the scheme and Eden Council was sent five letters of objection and four neutral representations.
Riverside and Atkinson Building Contractors also supplied a masterplan for the site, which said the remaining land would be earmarked for further housing at a later stage.
