'Offensive and untrue': anger over claimed link between social housing tenants and crime, as new Chorley estate is approved

Cllr Alex Hilton, vice-chair of Chorley Council’s planning committee, told a recent meeting that the concerns expressed over the development, off Wigan Road in Clayton-le-Woods, were “offensive” and factually flawed.

The committee ultimately gave the go-ahead to the plans, brought forward by Redrow, which will see 103 properties built on a plot which is currently used as pasture land and lies to close to the Cuerden Residential Park.

Objections to the proposal were raised by five households in the area, focusing on issues ranging from road safety to the possibility of disturbance being caused to existing residents.

However, one of the comments focussed on the 22 dwellings that will be made available for social rent, claiming that there was the “potential for antisocial behaviour from occupiers of social housing”.

Another response - to one of the two applications that made up the overall plans for the plot - was even more categorical, asserting that social housing dwellers “will increase existing antisocial behaviour and criminal activity”.

Cllr Hilton said that he was obliged to “call out” the claims.

“It is inappropriate, it is offensive and, frankly, incorrect,” he told the committee.

Nine properties on the site will be in shared ownership, bringing to 31 the total number that will fall into the “affordable homes” category.

However, committee members were less concerned about the tenure of the development than the safety of pedestrians walking to and from it - with two councillors bemoaning the absence of any plans to put a crossing point on Wigan Road.

Cllr Neville Whittam said that the A49 route was a “dangerous” one to get across on foot - and noted that a Co-Op foodstore lay on the opposite side to the new estate.

Cllr Martin Boardman wanted to see a condition imposed on the planning permission requiring the installation of a pedestrian crossing, but was told that the borough authority did not have the power to make such a stipulation.

“It’s unlikely that these additional houses in themselves require that crossing point,” planning services manager Adele Hayes said.

“It’s something that Lancashire County Council [as the highways authority] will need to look at in the round [considering] the development in that area as a whole.”

The new estate will be accessed via a recently-built adjoining Redrow development on Parkhurst Avenue, the entrance to which is directly off Wigan Road. Members heard that the majority of the peripheral hedgerows and trees will be retained - including two large oaks on the main road.

The site is allocated for a mixture of residential and employment use in Chorley’s local plan, but the move to reserve it wholly for housing purposes was deemed acceptable by planning officers - particularly given that the district is currently unable to demonstrate a five-year supply of housing land to meet its minimum annual housebuilding numbers.

However, committee member Alan Whittaker warned that the volume of housing springing up in the vicinity meant that Clayton-le-Woods and Leyland would soon be “joining up”.

Echoing his colleagues’ concerns about the impact of the plans on the roads, he added: “I just think there’s got to be a time when this has got to come to a stop and infrastructure has got to be taken more seriously.”

Both applications were approved by a majority.