Delayed Washington extra care housing scheme approved
Alongside the apartments and bungalows, the scheme will also have ancillary support services and an on-site social hub.The 2022 planning permission was subject to a legal agreement over the provision of affordable housing, as well as an outstanding requirement for detailed landscaping and road improvement plans.Legal agreements are a standard process to secure financial contributions from developers, with cash earmarked to improve infrastructure and local facilities, as well as reducing the impact of new homes on local nature sites.
According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, councillors were previously told the delays were linked to "quite a few landowners" needing to accept the legal agreement.The applicants had hoped to start work on the site in summer 2023, subject to the legal agreement being completed, however "complex matters" linked to the scheme caused delays, they said.As a result, the council could not issue planning permission and the site has sat undeveloped and overgrown for a number of years.Laura Devaney, land and partnerships director at Esh Construction, said following the "initial resolution to grant planning permission" in 2022, "a number of complex matters needed to be addressed before full consent could be formally issued"."We recognise that the process has been more complex and time-consuming than initially anticipated, due to the number of parties and nature of the requirements involved."
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