Masterplan for estate village faces new probe

Wharncliffe Estates, which owns much of the land and property in the village of Wortley, north of Sheffield, has drawn up the blueprint which includes new houses, offices, workshops and a new road layout.

The Wortley Village Masterplan was first revealed in the Yorkshire Post in April 2011 when it was distributed to residents in draft form, showing a new one-way system and an unpopular “woodland car park”.

It has now been revised in an attempt to placate local opposition and submitted to Barnsley Council’s planning regulatory board, and officers recommended its approval at a meeting held on Tuesday afternoon.

But members of the board said they were not prepared to allow work to begin until they had seen the 17 sites which are involved across the community and they will now visit the village late next month.

Drawings submitted to the council highlight all the sites involved and Wharncliffe Estates wants full planning permission for nine sites, and less detailed, outline plans to be approve for eight others.

Last year, residents, including the parish council chairman Roger England, said they had been “horrified” at some elements of the plan, particularly the car park in a copse on the drive of Wortley Hall.

Mr England said: “It has really raised discussion levels in the village. The idea of the car park has got people’s imaginations going. They have all sorts of lurid ideas about what might happen there.”

Wharncliffe Estates has now removed the idea for the car park from the plan and has also scrapped an idea which would have seen a new house built in the grounds of an existing home in the village centre.

The redrawn scheme now shows outline plans for 24 new homes, including six almshouses and an estate workers cottage on eight separate sites around the village, along with an office and workshop complex.

Full planning permission is requested for a new covered car park new amenity space in the centre of the village, a holiday cottage, a new park for residents and road alterations around the Wortley Arms pub.

A petition containing 108 signatures opposing the plan has apparently been received by Barnsley Council, along with 17 individual letters of objection, althugh 12 letters of support have also been sent.

Some of the sites involved are green belt, but in their assessment of the scheme, Barnsley Council’s planners said “very special circumstances” had been shown by the estates company.

Wharncliffe Estates is a trust which was set up after Wortley Hall itself was sold to the trade union movement by the fourth Earl of Wharncliffe in 1959.

The village lies on the edge of the Peak District, is popular with tourists and walkers, and its location on the busy A629 between Sheffield and Huddersfield means it is a sought-after address.

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