A POTENTIAL housing development which applicants claimed could help alleviate hazardous parking problems at a village school has been refused by Wrexham Council.
The authority’s planning department has rejected plans for six new homes and a new school car park with 15 spaces, opposite Eyton Primary School in the village.
Reasons given for refusal in a delegated decision signed off by the council’s chief planning officer David Fitzsimon range from highways impact and flooding concerns to a potential increase in phosphates pollution entering the River Dee.
A planning statement submitted on behalf of the applicants by agents Roger Parry and Partners LLP, suggested the development would help ease parking congestion outside the village school if approved.
It stated: “With the current car parking congestion occurring along the B5426 by the school, it is believed that the proposed site provides a perfect opportunity for alleviating this current hazardous issue by providing additional car parking spaces for the primary school, being located opposite Eyton Primary School.
“It is proposed that the site provides 15 car parking spaces for Eyton Primary School. A new footpath link leads from the car park to a proposed pedestrian crossing point across the main road for safe access to and from the school grounds.
“The proposed development site is an infill site located within the village of Eyton, adjacent and opposite to the existing dwellings, providing a continuous built-up frontage within the village.
“The development will include a mix of single storey detached dwellings comprising of either three or four bedrooms with single or double garage.”
But in a decision made by planning chiefs, five reasons were given for refusing the development, including a loss of grassland and development in open countryside.
In the decision notice, Mr Fitzsimon writes: “The application proposes unjustified and unsustainable open-market residential development within the open countryside.
“The proposal would result in the loss of species rich grassland, a Welsh Priority Habitat as per Section 7 of the Environment (Wales) Act.
“The proposed development would lead to increased phosphate inputs entering the freshwater catchment of the River Dee and Bala Lake Special Area of Conservation.
“Insufficient information has been submitted to demonstrate the proposed development would not cause a detrimental impact upon highway and pedestrian safety along the B4526 public highway, and that the development would provide adequate pedestrian facilities along and across the B4526 public highway.”
He adds: “Insufficient information has been submitted to demonstrate that the consequences of any surface water flooding would be acceptable for the development, and that it would not give rise to any unacceptable flooding impacts elsewhere.”
