Petition launched in bid to stop potential large scale housing development on Mancot greenbelt

A Mancot Community Councillor has launched a petition in bid to stop any potential large scale housing development on local greenbelt land.

Flintshire Council launched a consultation at the end of September on a Local Development Plan (LDP) which could see up to for 7,000 new homes being in the county.

The final draft of the authority’s LDP was approved by councillors in July.

The document outlines land where houses should be built over the next decade, along with employment sites which could deliver up to 10,000 jobs.

It was backed by the majority of councillors, despite some questioning whether Flintshire had the right facilities to support thousands of new residents.

There are several large scale housing sites withing the LDP, the Northern Gateway development in Deeside, where 1,300 homes have been earmarked, along with 300 more at Warren Hall in Broughton.

A section of greenbelt land between Ash Lane and Park Avenue in Mancot where up to 280 could be built has also been earmarked in the LDP.

[The area shaded brown is the land currently part of Deiniol’s Ash Farm but proposed to be put into the Local Development Plan & used for housing.]

Cllr Sam Swash launched a petition at the weekend, it has gained nearly 500 signatures.

The petition lists a host of reasons why a large scale housing development should not be built on the land in Mancot.

It says that local schools are already over-subscribed with pupils.

“There are already significant traffic and safety issues outside both Sandycroft Primary School and Hawarden Village Church School. Adding a further 250+ plus houses will significantly exacerbate these problems.”

The petition also claims GP surgeries and dentists in the area are “limited in number and are also over-subscribed and struggling to cope with demand locally.”

It says local transport services have already been cut substantially and “will struggle to cope with further demand.”

The petition states that some of the proposed land between Ash Lane and Park Avenue in Mancot “is categorised as a flood risk. So are most of the connected roads in Mancot leading down to Sandycroft.”

Cllr Swash said: “The Welsh Government has just this year, declared a ‘climate emergency’ in response to threats faced to society by the climate crisis.

For Flintshire County Council to react to this by simply ‘deleting’ local greenbelt land so that it can be developed by private property companies is both deeply irresponsible and in direct contravention to the sort of environmental protections our community deserves.

The site was included in the last Unitary Development Plan (UDP) but faced large scale opposition from the local community and was removed.

“There is a huge amount of anger locally that the Council have included this site in the LDP.” Said Cllr Swash.

As part of a consultation, Flintshire Council arranged a drop-in session at Mancot Village Hall last week, “the planners ran out of paperwork explaining how to object because there were so many people in attendance.” Cllr Swash said.

He added, “After a decade of austerity cuts by central government, our local council should be prioritising the building of social and affordable housing on brownfield sites, not further developments of local white elephants made up of houses unaffordable to the majority of young and working class people.”

People living in the county have the opportunity to make their views known during the LDP consultation period which will run until 5pm on Monday 11 November.