THE LATEST attempt to build houses on an area of land next to a busy Mossley road has once again been turned down.
Uppermill-based Wickens Estates’ scheme would have seen six two-bedroomed and three three-bedroomed properties built next to Stamford Road.
But after being told allowing it would have been ‘complete madness,’ Tameside Council’s Speakers Panel (Planning) committee said no.
Wickens Estates previously failed with an application to put two four-bedroomed houses, two two-bedroomed homes and a block of 12 apartments on the same site.
Even an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate was dismissed, with inspectors saying: “The proposed development would cause significant harm to the character and appearance of the area.”
But the fact houses stood on that area until ‘about 1975’ was highlighted as a reason why the scheme should be given the go ahead.
This latest plan, lodged by Daniel Wilcox, attracted 30 objections from members of the public, while Mossley’s Tameside councillors and Mossley Town Council also opposed it.
Cllr Stephen Homer addressed the panel, saying: “Anything that interferes with that junction has major, major impact on the town. It always does.
“It would cause immeasurable damage and havoc. It would be complete madness to develop this piece of land.”
A statement on behalf of him, Jack Homer and Taf Sharif added: “Officers from the Council’s planning department recommended rejection on style and layout of this development.
“We backed up this decision focussing on the mayhem that would be created during the construction of this site and into the future.”
Paul Judge, the agent on behalf of the applicant, contested: “We reduced the number of houses on the site, we’ve reduced the height of the buildings.
“We think we have provided the best solution developing the site to provide houses.”
However, Cllr Doreen Dickinson, who sits on the panel, referred to the traffic in her opposition, saying: “I have to agree with Councillor Homer, it is dreadful.
“You can’t work on a premise that if it does cause problems we can get enforcement because as we know we don’t have a very strong enforcement team and you would need to be there all the time. I think we’re just setting ourselves up for a disaster.”
The plan was unanimously rejected by the committee.
What a crazy idea to build here,it would cause absolute chaos. It would be great to see this area planted up with wildflowers to try to compensate for all the green space that’s been lost in mossley,save the council cutting the grass every two weeks as well.