Plans for more affordable homes in village near St Austell put on hold
The decision to build on land at St Stephen was deferred amid road safety concerns
Last updated 30th Sep 2022
A decision on whether nine new affordable homes should be built in a Clay Country village has been put on hold due to concerns about road safety. Cornwall Council's central sub-area planning committee unanimously decided to defer the application earlier this week.
Mr P James had applied for permission to build nine new homes – all of which would be affordable – on land near Stepaside in St Stephen, near St Austell. The land is currently a green field, but the plans were submitted as a rural exception site as all the properties would be affordable.
Under the proposals, three of the new homes would be offered as shared ownership and the other six would be for affordable rent.
Councillors heard that there are currently 277 households on the housing waiting list in the area.
Cornwall Council planning officers had recommended that the application be approved saying that the public benefits of providing more affordable homes to meet local need would outweigh the harm which might be caused to the landscape, which they said would be minimal due to landscaping and other measures proposed on the site.
However, the proposals had been objected to by St Stephen-in-Brannel Parish Council, local Cornwall councillor Mike McLening and local residents. They were mainly concerned about road safety as the road is a busy route including industrial traffic serving Imerys and other businesses in the Clay Country area.
Almost 300 local households on housing waiting list
Council highways officers had raised no objections to the plans saying that the proposed visibility splay for the access to the site was adequate and would ensure that the development would be safe.
Kim Wonnacott from St Stephen-in-Brannel Parish Council said that the main concern among councillors was the safety of the road for motorists and pedestrians but that there were also concerns about the affordable housing provision.
She said: "The numbers for affordable housing have been taken from the social housing register. Social housing is required in the area, not affordable housing. Local people can’t afford it".
On the issue of road safety, Cllr Wonnacott claimed that there were regular "prangs" on the road which were not reported to the police because "it isn’t worth it" and so figures for accidents were low. She said that the only way to improve the safety of the road would be to install a roundabout at the junction.
Cllr McLening told the committee that his concerns were about the road safety and suggested that the site was wrong: "I am not against nine houses but I don't think we have found the right location for them".
He added: "This to me is very dangerous where they are proposing to put an additional nine houses. Yes, nine houses would be nice, but this is the wrong place".
"Nine houses would be nice, but this is the wrong place"
Councillors quizzed the highways officer on his advice and report provided on the application and were told that a traffic survey carried out a short distance from the site had recorded between 1,000 and 5,000 vehicles using the road each day. The report also found that the average speed of vehicles, again at a location away from the proposed site, was between 32 miles per hour and 39mph.
Committee member John Fitter said: "I don’t think we have an expert report from the highways officer. It is no fault of the highways officer, he regarded it as a small scale development. It is a sensitive location.
"It is no criticism of the highways officer but he has been there once, we don’t have an accurate weekly volume of traffic. Gavin Smith (principal planning officer) says as long as the visibility splay is right it will be OK. I don’t think we have been shown sufficient evidence that it will be OK".
Michael Bunney proposed that the committee should defer the application so that a full traffic survey and more information could be provided for councillors to consider. He said that the highways concerns "weighs heavily on me" and also said that he felt "the weight of 100 per cent affordable housing, there are lots of positives there".
He said that councillors needed more information before they were able to make a decision on the application.
The committee voted unanimously in favour of deferring the application.