Property developer McCarthy & Stone has withdrawn its planning application for 105 new retirement homes on the land known locally as Barrel Field. The local planning authority has therefore stopped all work on processing the application and no decision will be made.
This may not, however, signal the end of the developer’s interest in the jam factory land at the end of Home Close, currently owned by the company Hain Daniels. Withdrawing a planning application is a ploy that some developers use to save money, as it means they can submit again without paying a second time. The planners have pointed out: “The applicant may choose to re-submit this or an amended application to us at a future date.”
Objections
The many objections raised during the consultation on the plans earlier this year made it clear to the developer that there is huge local opposition to the application, which was likely to have failed. The case officer in the planning department has now posted correspondence with draft reasons for refusing the application. In total, nine major issues were raised.
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The “overly large and incongruous scale, massing, and proportions” of the buildings in the plan were a primary consideration. This and the “sparsely landscaped public realm dominated by car parking” would make the development “out of character with existing residential development surrounding the site”, they said. The removal of mature boundary trees and little landscape mitigation was also cited as “harming the character and local significance of the designated Local Green Space Histon and Impington Community Orchard”.
Other reasons given for rejecting the plans would have been:
- substandard accommodation, including light levels, in the new properties
- an “overbearing and overlooking impact” to properties on Somerset Road
- insufficient vehicle access to the site, or car and cycle parking facilities
- failing to provide a safe crossing at the site entrance and integrate into the existing cycling and pedestrian network
- encouraging pedestrian crossings at a high-speed part of the busway
- failing to provide an up-to-date assessment of the impact on the ecology and protected species
- no calculations of net gain to biodiversity
- failing to demonstrate that occupiers wouldn’t suffer from odour and noise impacts from the factory
- insufficient information to prove that the site could be adequately drained.
All residents who participated in the consultation on the plans will be notified if McCarthy & Stone decide to re-submit their initial application or an amended one at a future date.
