The brakes have been put on plans that could have seen a house in Preston converted into a home for ex-offenders – in an area branded a “known crime hotspot”.
That was the description given to the proposed location of the seven-bed “residential institution” – on Lambert Road, close to Brookfield Park – by the applicant seeking permission for it.
The characterisation prompted concern from several members of Preston City Council’s planning committee, but the group decided to defer their decision on the scheme – rather than reject it entirely – after a question mark was placed over the reliability of the crime statistics presented to them.
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The proposal was described as a “flexible” application, meaning that if the residential facility was not ultimately delivered, the property could instead become bedsits – a house in multiple occupation (HMO) – because both uses sit in the same planning category.
However, it was the prospect of the ex-offenders institute – for recently released prisoners attempting “to reintegrate back into society” – which dominated the debate at the meeting.
Committee member Daniel Guise focused on a crime impact assessment accompanying the application, which suggested that there were 261 violent or sexual offences committed within a 1km radius of the house between May 2024 and April 2025. Most of them were said to have occurred in the vicinity of Lambert Road itself or the nearby Deepdale Retail Park.
Cllr Guise said he would have liked to have explored the issue with the applicant – who was neither present nor represented at the committee – but that, nevertheless, they were “planning to put a residential institution for ex-offenders in an area with known concentrations of crime”.
“That’s of concern to me,” he added.
Committee chair Javed Iqbal said having lived in that area for 57 years, the suggested crime rate felt “completely fictitious” to him.
Council planning officers had recommended the proposal be approved and one of their number, Patrick Marfleet, said in response to Cllr Guise’s concerns that a separate operational management plan for the institution would still have to be submitted and given the green light – even if planning permission were granted.
That document, he explained, would outline “what mechanisms [would be put] in place in the event that antisocial behaviour or crime does become an issue at the site”, where the committee was told a support worker would be based on a round-the-clock rota.
However, committee member Cllr Carol Henshaw said that while she was “very much in favour of integration of ex-offenders into the community”, she was ”not convinced that this is the right place for it”.
A vote on the recommended approval of the plans was defeated by a majority, but in response to a suggested outright refusal by Cllr Guise, planning officers expressed their own concern about the contents of the crime impact assessment, which was found during the discussion to contain geographical errors.
Patrick Marfleet said the authority “wouldn’t be confident” in defending any appeal against a refusal of the proposal based on that work.
While Cllr Guise suggested that the authority was “entitled to rely on the information provided by the applicant”, council legal officer Ian Blinkho warned that the impact assessment could be “disowned” by the applicant during an appeal hearing.
“We’ve then got no evidence of our own,” he said.
On advice from planning officials, Cllr Iqbal suggested a deferral of the decision in order to allow for more information to be sought about crime in the area. The application will now be reconsidered by the committee at a later date.
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