Developers and residents filed into Kendal Town Hall this week to have their say in shaping the future of the auld grey town. Government-appointed planning inspector Shelagh Bussey took the helm of the review of South Lakeland District Council's Local Plan to hear objections to the development blueprint's most recent alterations.

On Wednesday, housebuilders took on SLDC in a bid to see a portion of North Sandylands allocated for residential use.

Meanwhile, Thursday saw the start of five days of evidence over the council's intention to earmark five hectares off Burton Road/Oxenholme as a business park.

SLDC has included the land in its proposed modifications after the local plan inquiry's previous inspector threw out North Sandylands for employment use and recommended Burton Road/Oxenholme Road instead.

JENNIE DENNETT reports.

RESIDENTS of North Sandylands were frustrated this week to find plans to build homes on a greenfield site near their properties back before the Local Plan inquiry.

"As far as most people were concerned this was finished with," said Sandylands homeowner Deborah Ingam, one of seven residents to attend Wednesday's hearing.

Residents were, she said, "very unhappy" to see housebuilders Russell Armer Ltd pursuing development plans for the land near Appleby Road.

The firm's plans - which had been supported by SLDC last year - to create 200 homes and hi-tech business units around a man-made lake at North Sandylands were thrown out of the Local Plan as a result of the last inquiry. Inspector Susan Holland concluded that the landscape impact of the development would be severe and that it would add significantly to traffic coming through Kendal town centre. She added that the land should be left undeveloped and designated as county landscape'.

But Russell Armer has not abandoned hopes of developing at least some of Sandylands and wants a portion of the site reallocated for development in the Plan.

At Wednesday's session, the firm's planning consultant Janette Findley set out the case for a more modest, housing-only, construction on north-east Sandylands - a 2.8 hectare plot also known as Birds Park Farm. The site could host around 88 homes with half allocated as affordable. If Russell Armer wins its case, SLDC is also keen to squeeze in sheltered accommodation for at least 35 people.

At the 2002 inquiry, Russell Armer had argued that housing was feasible on the boggy farmland because the neighbouring commercial development would subsidise a good drainage scheme.

This week, Ms Findley said it was still financially viable even without the neighbouring commercial development. Although she could not present commercially sensitive figures, she assured that the firm would not be pursuing the case if it did not believe it was viable.

Consultant Andy Wood presented a feasibility study suggesting two routes for a pipe to drain surface water from the site into the River Mint. Although Mr Wood admitted the study was only a "desk exercise" which did not go into detail about the infrastructure required to make the scheme work, he believed his evidence proved that it was "technically possible" to drain the land

Ms Findley further argued that the development was needed to satisfy demand for 195 homes required in the district outside Ulverston - a figure arrived at from targets in Cumbria County Council's Structure Plan. She argued that SLDC could not rely on windfall sites to meet that need because the supply of those small development plots not allocated in the local plan was inherently unpredictable.

In rebuttal, Anna Miller, SLDC's forward planning officer, said the district had overshot its housing target and had enough allocation housing land at Roundhill and Union Street.

Later, landscape architect Gillian Capstick argued for Russell Armer that the site could be developed without unacceptable detriment to the surrounding landscape. She also believed the case for designating it as county landscape' - a category which should give it some protection from development was "marginal".

To counter her, SLDC's landscape architect Des Metcalfe offered descriptions of landscape features that suggested that site deserved county landscape' allocation.

Resident Ian Woodward also made representations asking that SLDC move the development boundary to skirt existing homes and firmly exclude North Sandylands to protect it from further development.

The way forward now lies with Ms Bussey's recommendations.

May 30, 2003 09:30