No halt to house-building despite complaints

A house builder has been told it will not face enforcement action, despite complaints it started work on 38 homes before a number of planning issues were resolved.

In August, Living Space was given permission to build 38 affordable homes just off Cedars Drive in Shrewsbury, subject to a number of conditions.

However, local residents claimed not all those conditions were met when work started just before Christmas and legal advice was being sought.

But Shropshire Council said there had been a "robust examination of the outstanding matters" and it was decided a "stop notice" was not appropriate.

The Housing Plus Group, which employed Living Space as its contractor on the project, said it took "matters relating to planning compliance seriously".

It said it had spoken to both the council and Living Space and made it clear to the contractor that planning requirements had to be met.

It said it would meet residents to listen to their concerns.

The company also said the Cedars Drive development would "deliver much needed, high‑quality social homes for local people".

When planning permission for the homes was originally granted, it was in the face of local opposition.

Those residents have now complained conditions still not agreed included drainage and the issue of promoting a net gain for bio-diversity in the area.

They also said they were concerned about the way contaminated soil and rubble was handled on site.

Chris Price, who lives on Cedars Drive, said he believed there had been a "clear breach" of the planning conditions.

With an apparent lack of repercussions, he said: "We have this perception there's a process and the council will try and follow that process."

But Price said he believed the developer had been allowed to "effectively ditch it".

Flooding was a concern for another resident, Pat Jones, who said: "We were reassured that it would be absolutely managed properly and so I'm concerned because they've started, they've got the pipes before the conditions have been passed."

Charlene Duxbury, who also lives nearby, said she felt like residents' views "haven't been heard.

"It's been shown that they can just turn up, start work and there's very little that planning enforcement will do," she said.

In an emailed response to Jephcott, the council said ordering work to stop in a situation like this could have "immediate serious consequences on a business".

The authority said the guidance to councils was to discuss issues with developers before taking punitive enforcement action and it had carried out an investigation.

It concluded it was "unfortunate that despite the developer's assurance before Christmas that no works to commence the development would occur before the resolution of the discharge of conditions applications the investigation determined a material commencement had occurred".

But it said talks were taking place to "engage with the developer and residents to bring this matter to a swift resolution".

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