A neighborhood expansion in Woodhouses, Oldham, can now go ahead after a delay.
More than 40 new properties are due to be built on land next to Ashton Road.
Developers Jones Homes plan to erect 41 detached and semi-detached homes on a plot of land wedged between the M60 and a primary school. These include six three-bedroom and 35 four-bedroom properties.
Four of the homes will be ‘gifted’ to a social housing provider, two for social rent and two for affordable housing.
A water pump station would also be built on an adjacent plot of green belt land to supply the homes.
Jones Homes map of development at Woodhouses. Credit: Jones Homes.
In a design and access statement, Jones Homes wrote: “The proposed development would deliver a range of high quality, high specification homes for the local community in a sustainable location. The new homes would respond to the local housing demands and needs.”
The plans were fiercely opposed by locals at two planning committees last year, after almost 120 people lodged objections. Due to its proximity to the school and village hall, residents feared the new development would worsen existing traffic and parking problems.
Locals claim the surrounding highways are ‘dangerous’ with parked cars regularly being ‘smashed into or scraped’ by commuters who use Ashton Road as a rat-run towards town.
But council officers claim the impact of additional road traffic would ‘not be significant’, and that only two severe accidents – in which drivers were injured or killed – had been recorded on the road.
After deferring the decision once, councillors voted to approve the scheme in March. However an official planning permission was only issued this week, after the council secured a Section 106 agreement.
The agreement will see developers pay more than £18k towards improvements at the nearby Daisy Nook Country Park, and a 30-year habitat management plan for remaining green space.
Jones Homes will now have three years to begin the development.
Public inquiry announced into rail upgrade that could leave villages ‘cut off’ for months
One year on from shooting, Operation Vulcan continue to target crime in Derker
Oldham Council awards £266,000 to boost town centre businesses
Latics v Cheltenham Town: Cotterill and Mellon prove that managers matter
