New apartments plan for Derbyshire village gets the go-ahead - with strings attached

Land at the rear of 9b Lees Street, South Normanton, has been earmarked for the building which will contain five flats.

The former site compound for the Hub during its construction has been redundant since the centre opened 12 years ago to provide health services, council offices and a community police base.

Full planning permission for the apartments has been granted by Bolsover District Council but with strings attached. The planning authority has set out 15 conditions including several which must be carried out and approved by the council before development can begin. These stipulations include an investigation to see if there is any contamination of the land which is in a coal mining referrral area with a low to medium risk of subsidence and immediate reporting if contamination is discovered; detailed remediation scheme and implementation to bring the site to a condition suitable for the intended use by removing unacceptable risks to human health and other property; parking layout scheme.

Jessica North, who lives on Lees Lane, raised concern about the increased traffic that the apartments would generate. She said that the design and access statement indicated that the planned five two-bedroom apartments and two one-bedroom apartment would share one visitor parking space between all seven dwellings and that each flat would have just one parking space.

Miss North said: “There are already ongoing issues of parking on the double yellow lined areas on the access road of both Lees Lane and Shiners Way. As a result, sole accesses to existing dwellings are obstructed, the flow of traffic is affected and it creates congestion. Insufficient traffic enforcement officers to the area have resulted in this being an ongoing problem.”