Derbyshire housing development plans thrown out over ‘urbanisation’ and road safety fears

The proposed scheme, from Tom Goodall, for land off Main Road, Brailsford, were rejected at a Derbyshire Dales District Council meeting this week.

Cllr John White, on behalf of Brailsford Parish Council, said the proposed site access, on the brow of a hill, was not safe. He said: “I am very concerned that we could be engineering a fatality here.”

The parish council had formally objected, saying the village had tripled since 2013, and doubled since 2017, risking its sustainability.

Elizabeth Tarling, a Brailsford resident who lives adjacent to the proposed 75-home site, said the village had been earmarked for 114 new homes in the council’s current Local Plan – a blueprint for future development – but 191 homes have been approved since 2014.

She said from 2011 to 2021 the population of the village has increased by 67 per cent, changing the face of what has been a “rural community for centuries”.

Ms Tarling said Brailsford was “rapidly losing its individuality and character and is becoming increasingly more urbanised as more large-scale generic housing developments are built”.

She said footpaths were becoming pavements and tracks were becoming roads, with the loss of valued hedges “impacting on the historic identity of a mediaeval village”.

Andrew Stock, agent for the applicant, said the 75-home plan would take up half of the land than a rejected plan for 100 homes on the site which was refused by councillors a year-and-a-half ago.

He said there was a “lack of lateral thinking” at the council, which he said was still committed to seeing housing come forward on a number of quarry sites – in Matlock and Wirksworth – which were not being developed.

Mr Stock said the public benefits of the site were being overlooked, including affordable housing, land for employment uses, a new drainage system, school spaces (to cope with the development) and improvements at local medical practices.

The proposed plan included space for a “commercial development” which officers said could become shops, offices or light industry.

Cllr David Burton, chair of the planning committee, said: “This is a very precious area of open countryside, with the oak tree there.

“By allowing development it is certainly going to have a very significant impact and you are not exactly going to be walking on a country footpath.”

Cllr Neil Buttle said: “If we allow building on both sides of the A52, we move the village so that it has got a main road running through it.”

Adam Maxwell, a council planning officer, said: “There is a distinct changing character between north and south side of the road, with the north developing and the south more historic.”

Cllr Stuart Less said he was opposed to the plan due to highways safety issues and Cllr Peter Slack said the site was “very dangerous place for children, traffic down there is horrendous and there is no proper crossing area”.