Plans for 150 homes in Cornish village approved despite concerns over link road
They are set to be built on the edge of Clay Country
Plans to build up to 150 homes on the edge of a Clay Country village have been approved despite concerns about a proposed new link road.
Tregothnan Estates was granted outline planning permission for the development on land at Edgcumbe Road in Roche.
The application went before Cornwall Council’s central sub-area planning committee when it met this morning.
However the decision to approve was not straightforward with several councillors raising concerns about the planned St Austell to A30 link road which is planned to take traffic away from Roche.
The new road has planning permission and the government has indicated that it will provide funding, however that funding has not yet been handed over to Cornwall Council.
Roche Parish Council and local Cornwall councillor John Wood said that it would be better to wait until that funding has been confirmed before approving plans to build new homes.
The new link road would take heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) out of the centre of Roche.
But if the road did not go ahead then Tregothnan had proposed a road which would pass through the new housing development – some councillors said that this would be “inferior” and even “unacceptable”.
Roche Parish Council, in its Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP), has allocated that site as suitable for housing development but only if the link road is built.
Cllr Wood said: “I applaud the parish council for holding onto its neighbourhood plan strongly and putting every delay mechanism in place.
“The parish council has stood its ground and said ‘read the neighbourhood plan’.”
On the concerns about the link road he said: “Yes the government has given it the green light but no it hasn’t been paid for.”
He added that councillors had seen it before “with the government saying yes and then withdrawing funding” and highlighted the lack of financial support from the government for the Stadium for Cornwall.
Cllr Wood said: “The road has planning permission but compulsory purchase orders have been served but not completed, the government finance approved but not yet handed over the money to Cornwall Council.”
He added: “Why would we want to put this volume of traffic through this kind of housing estate? Surely we want to wait until the road is under construction?”
The councillor said that Roche Parish Council “reluctantly” supports the application but wants to be sure that the link road will be provided.
He said: “We are told it will be six to eight weeks for the road to be signed off, then the parish council will be 100% behind it.”
Cllr Wood was also concerned about the amount of financial contributions which would be made for education and health facilities for the new development.
The report to the committee stated that the developers would have to pay £50,000 towards health facilities but Cllr Wood questioned whether this would be sufficient when the current doctors’ surgery was at capacity.
He also highlighted that the local school was also at capacity with Cornwall Council having to pay to taxi children from the village to other local schools.
Planning officer Stephen Kirby said that there was work being done in London to get the link road funding signed off.
He added: “There is a degree of confidence that the scheme will go ahead.”
Mr Kirby added that the contractors were already on site and had been doing preparatory work for the road.
Committee vice chair Fred Greenslade said he was concerned about the road plans.
He said: “We have said that infrastructure should be built first. Here we are in Roche taking a gamble by saying there will be money to build the road and it hasn’t happened yet.
“I don’t want to have situation in Roche where we have a second rate road going through a new estate, going through a cul-de-sac.”
He said it would be better for the application to be deferred to give time for the link road scheme to be confirmed.
Dulcie Tudor agreed saying: “The parish council has said they are not opposed to the development. Listening to the officer and developer I still can’t understand why the rush.
“If we were to approve this today we could end up in a back stop position that the planning officer has confirmed we could end up with with even less affordable housing provision and less contributions to education and health because of the cost of the alternative road to be put in.
“That alternative road is not good enough.”
But Joanna Kenny disagreed saying: “It is only an outline application and I think they have made huge progress. I certainly won’t support deferral and I will support approving it as set out.”
Malcolm Brown proposed that the application should be deferred “to come back as soon as there is greater clarity about the timing and investment for the A30 link road”.
However, when put to the vote the proposal was lost with five votes in favour and nine against.
An alternative proposal to approve the application was carried with eight votes in favour, five against and one abstention.