Showman site and housing scheme decisions deferred

Groups of protesters attended Doncaster Council’s planning committee yesterday to oppose a plan for an accommodation site for travelling showmen and a scheme for new housing.

Persimmon Homes already has outline permission to build 900 houses at Manor Farm, in Bessacarr, Doncaster, but campaigners claim the project should be halted over rail safety concerns.

Yesterday’s meeting was due to rubber stamp details for the first 276 homes, but protesters had insisted a bridge or underpass should be built on a busy rail line which links the site to the existing community before work begins.

Persimmon had hoped to hear the concerns overruled by planners, but instead were told that Network Rail had failed to provide adequate information for a final decision to be made.

Forum spokesman Phil Midgley, who said earlier this week that lives would be at risk if hundreds of homes were built without an adequate rail crossing, welcomed the deferral.

He said: “We understand that the decision will be deferred until the next planning meeting and we hope to have reached an agreement by then.”

Residents opposed to the site for travelling showmen in the Hatfield Woodhouse area of Doncaster also welcomed the deferral of the decision on that plan.

Theresa Plumb, who has been involved in protests against the site, said she and her neighbours had engaged the services of a law firm to write a report on the way the application was handled.

She added: “The report was handed to the planning committee at the start of the meeting and it was then decided to defer a decision until the next meeting.

“We are happy with that, because we think that the application has not been adequately scrutinised by planners and our lawyers report shows that is the case.”