A housing development in the heart of Crewe which was previously deemed “not worthy” of the town has been approved at the second attempt, writes Stephen Topping.
Countryside Properties has been given the green light to demolish unused buildings at the Bombardier site in West Street – along with the historic boundary wall – and build 239 homes and 24 flats in their place.
The revised plans featured six fewer houses to make room for 30% more public open space, while the homes were also redesigned – but they still failed to meet Cheshire East Council’s design guide.
Steve Hughes, associate director of planning at Countryside Properties, told the strategic planning board: “We’ve made fairly significant changes from what you have seen previously.
“It’s fair to say we probably have a difference of opinion on some issues with the council’s urban design officer, and I think ultimately it comes down to an element of subjectivity around design and the approach to that.
“We have looked at the structure and layout in terms of reflecting some of the terraced properties that front onto West Street, but ultimately we do have an element of standardisation in our house types. We think we have struck as best a balance as we can.”
David Malcolm, planning manager at CEC, told the board there is “no debate” that the homes did not meet the council’s design guide – but suggested a compromise had to be reached.
He said: “There is a financial constraint on the site.
“We recognise that and we talked about the fact that there are significant costs to redeveloping the site as a brownfield site.
“There’s clearly a better scheme that could come forward, but we have reached the point with viability – we’ve had discussions, our requests have gone further than what you see today from a design perspective.”
Members were split on whether they felt the plans represented a ‘missed opportunity’.
Cllr Brian Roberts, Labour member for Crewe West, felt that the space could be put to better use.
He said: “I’m very pleased that there has been an attempt to increase the public space area, although it’s still not adequate for this number of houses.
“I would like to see the developer have another stab at this in terms of slackening the density and increasing the number of apartments.”
But Cllr Peter Groves, Conservative member for Nantwich South and Stapeley, suggested the scheme could give Crewe a boost.
“We are very concerned about restoring prosperity into Crewe town centre,” he said.
“We’ve got 263 dwellings here in walking distance to the town centre. If we want to attract people back into the town centre, then this is one of the ways to do it.”
Cllr David Brown, Conservative member for Congleton East, added: “We talk about what is the ideal world and what we would really like. I think we are just faced with a straight-forward dilemma now.
“People have gone away and done what they can. Do we have a brownfield site that might sit there for another 10 years until it becomes viable, or do we do something, build something and regenerate the town centre?
“It’s a difficult one but that’s what we get voted in for. On balance my preference is to approve it.”
Members voted unanimously in favour of approving the scheme.
The developers have also agreed to record part of the site for information boards to help preserve some of the town’s rail heritage.
(pic by David P Howard, creative commons licence)
People complain when houses are built on greenbelt or on existing fields. Here we have a brownfield site – an old factory – being used for housing and still people are complaining.
Good luck with that, we have a far more ancient wall here in Nantwich that needed urgent repair 20yrs ago, yet no one can take the lead and resolve it.
Why so many houses needed when shops are vacant in Crewe now.
Convert them into useful serviced apartments with leisure facilities.
We don’t need more shops, and we certainly don’t deserve empty ones either. We are let down at every turn
Where are the new plans? Why hasn’t the planning application on Cheshire East’s website been updated?
Perhaps a Councillor could tell me what the point is of having an approved Design Guide if developers can be granted permission without adhering to it?
Shocking, don’t the council care about the town history? Also too many houses been built!
Nostalgia is wonderful but are you going to pay to repair the wall when it inevitably becomes unsafe?