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Plans for a new railway station in suburban Preston are back on track after a wrangle over the land needed to build it was resolved.
It comes two months after a proposed development of almost 300 homes in the vicinity of the long-awaited Cottam Parkway stop was blocked by councillors.
Preston City Council’s planning committee had refused the Story Homes application, a key element of which involved the sale to Lancashire County Council – for just £1 – of a parcel of land that will form part of the forthcoming station site.
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However, its members have now given the green light to the dwellings, off Lea Road, after a deal was struck to ensure funding for the new school places that may be required as a result.
The developer had previously argued that its 281-home scheme – to be split into two estates either side of the railway line – would be financially unviable if the firm was forced to meet all of the cash and in-kind contributions demanded by local planning policies.
The housebuilder said that after payment of a mandatory £3.5m in community infrastructure levy – a charge intended to fund a raft of local improvements related to new housing – it could not also afford the county council’s request for a further £2.7m specifically to cover the cost of extra pupil places.
At the June gathering of the planning committee, deputy chair Sara Holmes suggested that the agricultural plot effectively being gifted to County Hall to enable it to deliver the Cottam Parkway station was worth just £27,000 – and contrasted that with the unfulfilled contribution towards schools.
While the official reason ultimately given for refusing the application was the fact that the site is in an area of open countryside – where housebuilding would not usually be permitted – the issue of extra classroom capacity had dominated the debate.
However, town hall planning officer James Mercer told the latest meeting of the committee that Story Homes had since “raised concerns” over an ”incorrect assumption” being made about the land value.
The committee heard its actual market worth has been estimated to be between £2.2m and £2.7m – and that the parcel was also more than double its previously under-reported size, at 3.24 hectares. To that end, city council planning officials decided members should be given the opportunity to consider the application afresh so that any “inaccuracies” were corrected and taken into account.
Separately, Story Homes proposed that the land for the station could instead be sold to Lancashire County Council at its full market value – with the money immediately repaid to the authority and reserved for the provision of extra school places. The company’s head of planning, Martin Nugent, said that the suggestion followed new information coming to light about the finances of the station scheme.
“It was always our understanding that there was no funding available…to purchase the land for [Cottam] Parkway – hence the £1 nominal transfer [fee]. However, it was suggested earlier this week that that might not be the case and that Lancashire County Council may have some funding available – [and that] their preference would be to use that …[as] an education contribution,” Mr. Nugent explained.
Councillors heard that the only other way of the authority obtaining the land would be via compulsory purchase order – which would be just as costly and could take up to two years.
However, some committee members expressed concern that the proposed arrangement left the option of a £1 transfer on the table – and so still ran the risk that funding for the new school places, which education bosses have now indicated could cost up to £3.1m, would not be forthcoming.
Committee member Daniel Guise said that the aim should be to “tie [Lancashire County Council’s] hands” and ensure the money – which would not make the county authority any “richer” – did end up being spent on schools.
After a short adjournment, planning officials returned with a newly-worded condition which removed the £1 sale option and required the price to be based on a “formal valuation process” to be undertaken at some point before the occupation of the 100th property on the new estates.
Twenty percent of the new dwellings will fall into the discounted ‘affordable homes’ category after the housebuilder said it would exceed the 6.7 percent proportion it claimed was financially viable for the development. In the absence of any viability considerations, 35 percent of the properties on new estates in rural areas of Preston are usually expected to be classed as affordable.
The Story Homes application was approved by nine votes to two.
Cottam Parkway – which will serve a population of around 12,000 residents and offer journey times of five minutes into Preston city centre and 20 minutes into Blackpool – is due to be open before the end of the decade.
‘We need school places now’
There was consternation amongst some committee members that the formal valuation of the land – and so the money for the new school places – could be several years away.
Cllr Carol Henshaw said: “We need school places now – we don’t need them next year, we needed them last year.”.
However, Preston City Council legal officer Ian Blinkho said it was not possible to demand the money upfront – because it had to be related to the development expected to generate the demand.
Planning officer James Mercer added that Lancashire County Council will not build new schools until there are the pupils to fill them.
As the Local Democracy Reporting Service has documented, there has been no confirmation of when – or whether – two new primary schools and a secondary school promised for North West Preston will be delivered, as per a masterplan for the development of the long-term area. In recent years, the county council has instead focused on creating additional places within existing schools.
Housing ‘not right’ for rural location
Under Preston’s local plan, housing development in an area categorised as open countryside would not usually be permitted unless there were “material considerations” which counted in its favour. The planning committee was told that the already-approved Cottam Parkway station – ticked that box.
A report to members also stated that the infrastructure project will “inevitably result in irreversible, significant changes to the role, function, purpose and appearance of the open countryside in this part of Preston, to the extent that it will alter its rural character”.
Given the proposed development’s proximity to the housing expansion taking place elsewhere in Cottam and across North West Preston as a whole – where more than 5,500 homes are set to be built over a 20-year period through to the mid-2030s – the Story Homes site could be considered to sit on the “urban fringe” of the city, the document added.
However, deputy committee chair Sara Holmes said she did not believe the material considerations outlined were sufficient to “tip the balance” in favour of approval. Her committee colleague Ben Ward also noted the ongoing conflict between the proposal and both Preston and Central Lancashire-wide planning policies.
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