Bid to keep field out of developers' hands

Alexandra Wood

RESIDENTS are campaigning for a proposed housing development outside an East Riding village to be scrapped.

Plans for 17 homes on a greenfield site beyond the development limit of the village of Leven have enraged local people. More than 200 residents attended the most recent parish council meeting for an update.

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Developer Home Group, a registered social landlord, is looking to build 17 properties, including six three-bedroomed homes and four two-bedroomed flats, on what is now an agricultural field. A dozen of the properties would be for rent and five for shared ownership.

Parish council chairman Patricia Ablett said she hasn’t seen such strength of feeling for a very long time: “The parish council and everybody else doesn’t feel it is the appropriate place for this type of development. The main concern is that it is a greenfield site and there’s quite a lot of acreage. If this goes through, whilst the planning department say they look at any application on its own merits, we are all convinced they would have a hard job to stop further development.”

She added: “We hope councillors refuse this application as it will set a harmful precedent. Greenfield sites should be protected.”

Leader of East Riding Council, Coun Steve Parnaby, backed villagers by urging councillors to reject the plans at a meeting on Monday.

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The development is being funded by the Homes and Community Agency and seeks to address the lack of affordable housing in the area. The plan is backed by housing officers, who cite two surveys as proof of need. A postal survey in 2006 – which got just a 19 per cent response rate – identified the need for a total of 63 affordable houses over a five-year period.

However, residents claim the surveys are “serious flawed” as development in the village since then has included homes for first-time buyers. The parish council says five comment sheets handed in by attendees at an exhibition back in the summer of 2008 were favourable “because people were led to believe it was a low cost first-time buyer development for young people from the village.”

But planners insist that the council’s figures are the most accurate and a legal agreement will mean first priority for housing will be given to local residents.

They conclude: “The layout of the site with the location of the access road and the length of some of the rear gardens is not ideal, but this has to be balanced against the need for affordable housing in the village.”

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