Permission for almost 30 new homes at Holywell hospital site is withdrawn

Permission for plans to build almost 30 new homes on a former hospital site in Flintshire has been withdrawn after developers failed to sign a legal agreement.

Proposals to turn the infirmary wing of the old Lluesty Hospital in Holywell into 14 apartments were approved last April, as well as for 15 houses to be created on the surrounding land.

The move by WW Construction Limited to bring the site on Old Chester Road back into use came more than 10 years after it closed was welcomed by community leaders as a ‘landmark development’ for the area.

However, the site was later sold at auction and consent for the scheme has now been withdrawn as the new owners did not enter a section 106 agreement with Flintshire Council within the relevant timescales.

It would have required them to pay more than £25,000 towards two play areas in the town, along with gifting four properties to the local authority for affordable housing.

In a report, planning officer Katie Jones said: “It has come to the attention of the local planning authority (LPA) that the site was sold at auction in November 2019, whereby the new landowners have made a case on viability grounds and are therefore unable to comply with the obligations set.

“As such it is considered by the LPA that delegated powers allow, that the application be refused, as within the 12 month period lapsed a Section 106 agreement has not been entered into.

“Therefore in the absence of the required agreement, the proposal would not comply with the requirements of policies of the Flintshire Unitary Development Plan.”

The site was originally home to a workhouse in the late 1830s before it was turned into a hospital in 1948.

The Grade II listed property closed its doors in 2008 and has remained empty ever since.

Permission for the housing scheme was withdrawn by officers using delegated powers.

A seperate application for about 90 homes on a different part of the hospital grounds was approved by councillors in October 2019.

Liam Randall – Local Democracy Reporter (more here).