Campaigners’ joy as plans for 80 homes withdrawn

Campaigners have expressed their joy after plans for 80 new homes in their village were withdrawn.

The Clark Estate entered proposals for a housing development on fields off Wrexham Road in Abermorddu back in March.

But according to the Flintshire Council website, the application has now been removed after residents raised concerns about the impact on the area’s overstretched services.

Members of the Abermorddu, Caergwrle, Cefn-y-Bedd and Hope Community Group have welcomed the news, which follows a protest being held in the village against the plans.

Co-founder Claire Olsen, who grew up living opposite the site, said: “We’re really delighted that it’s been withdrawn, although it’s been a lot of hard work.
“We feel it’s important to protect green space particularly and we’re against over development.

“It’s an incredibly busy road and I think we’re already at breaking point as a village.
“It’s been quite a saga because I was involved about 10 years when they first tried to put in an application.
“It would be nice to think that this is the end of it, but for now this victory is good enough for me.”

Residents previously raised fears that the lack of a current Local Development Plan (LDP) in Flintshire had led to the area becoming a target for speculative planning applications.

However, Caergwrle councillor David Healey believes the recent suspension of a piece of planning legislation could be behind the withdrawal of the plans.
In July the local authority welcomed the Welsh Government’s decision to allow it to suspend part of Technical Advice Note (TAN 1) which required them to show evidence of a five-year housing land supply.

It allowed the council to remove a section of the long-standing policy which stated that “considerable weight” should be given to the need to increase housing supply, when dealing with residential applications.

Cllr Healey said: “My guess is that the developers have withdrawn this because they realised that this, as an outline application, would not have given sufficient detail to get through the planning committee.
“In addition, the decision on the part of Welsh Government to suspend the relevant part of TAN 1 will have made a difference.

“Under current circumstances the application was not going to go anywhere.
“The key things now are for the Welsh Government to review the evidence it has received about TAN 1 and, hopefully, decide on a more sensible way of calculating housing supply – one that does not destroy the Welsh countryside.
“Also, hopefully, Flintshire will complete the LDP process and have a plan in place which also offers more protection locally.”

By Liam Randall – BBC Local Democracy Reporter.