Story Homes lodges plans for huge Cuerdale Garden Village
Up to 1,300 homes and 1.7m sq ft of employment space could be built on more than 400 acres of Green Belt around the A59 and close to Junction 31 of the M6.
Story Homes has submitted an outline planning application for Cuerdale Garden Village, a scheme first unveiled in February, to South Ribble Council.
The creation of Cuerdale Garden Village aims to respond to the growth opportunities provided by the enterprise zone and the development of the headquarters for the National Cyber Force.
The government announced last year that it planned to build the National Cyber Force HQ at the former Samlesbury Aerodrome. By 2023, around 3,000 people could be working out of the facility.
Story’s aim is to create a “vibrant new community of much-needed new homes, business facilities, community infrastructure, and green open spaces”.
As well as homes and offices, the project will feature a primary school, a local centre and a 500-space park and ride facility.
In addition, Manchester-based Logik Developments is drawing up plans for employment space on land earmarked for future phases of Cuerdale Garden Village.
The project could generate £225m for the South Ribble economy every year, according to the developer.
“Cuerdale Garden Village has been thoroughly designed with place-making at its core, demonstrating our commitment to delivering an exemplar Garden Village,” said John Winstanley, managing director at Story Homes.
“The plans have been sensitively designed with the feedback received during the pre-application consultation to deliver a high-quality, sustainable development fit for modern-day living.”
The proposals have received pushback from residents in Samlesbury and Cuerdale parishes who held a non-binding referendum on the scheme to determine public opinion.
Of the 483 people who voted, only nine were in favour.
“We understand there have been some concerns to the proposals within Samlesbury Parish, however, we are confident that the plans will unlock significant benefits for all residents in South Ribble and beyond,” Winstanley added.
“Cuerdale Garden Village will bring forward a range of quality homes in a carefully designed, sustainable new community whilst unlocking significant business investment within the borough.”
South Ribble Council has also moved to allay the fears of residents, saying it has asked that Story Homes offers residents “plenty of opportunities” to learn more about what is planned and to provide feedback.
“We know an application of this size will generate a lot of interest locally,” said Cllr Paul Foster, leader of South Ribble Council.
“As always, our goal is to ensure that any development is right for the borough, our residents and the community and we will carefully consider the proposals put forward.”
Great – another thousand homes next to a motorway junction. In what way is this ‘sustainable’? Have we really learnt nothing about sustainable development in the last decade? My bet is that there will be another 1,300 individual gas boilers in the development as well as about 2,600 cars. And perhaps I’m being picky, but I’d be interested to know how many of the Garden City principles this sell-nominated ‘Garden Village’ meets. Is anyone else embarrassed to be a professional planner in 2022?
By Peter Black
If you going to build such a large scheme on green belt land it would surely make more sense to build it in close proximity of existing train lines such as the Clitheroe line,so there is alternative to car use and where it will boost train numbers.House building should be directed to location that are brownfield or where tram or train lines and not to location that only accessible by road and so environment unfriendly.
By Anonymous
Of the 1,300 homes, how many will be built to the PassivHaus principles? Will there be a decentralised energy system in this “Garden City’? What about the industrial spaces? Will they be built to the highest sustainability standards using CLT and Glulam?
By Philip Smith-Lawrence
Just like the Greater Manchester development plans you intend to obliterate greenbelt land and don’t care in the slightest what the residents and community think . Hopefully like Bury my local borough there will be legal challenges from members of the community to stop you destroying the environment. Hope the planned development never goes ahead
By Martin Ingham