DEVELOPERS looking to add 258 houses to a Hartford estate have been warned that the village simply cannot cope with more traffic.

Cheshire West and Chester Council is defending its decision to reject plans from Bridgemere Land and Redrow Homes to expand the Weaver Park development, off School Lane, at appeal.

The development – previously known as The Hollies – already has 279 houses, but the developers are determined to take that number to 537.

As a public inquiry into the planning application began on Tuesday, CWAC insisted that the road network around Hartford is ‘already at breaking point’.

Philip Robson, barrister representing the council, said: “As the highway network is operating over capacity at peak times, the impact of the development will be felt by adding pressure on an already overdeveloped network.

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“As the network becomes more congested smaller changes will have a greater impact.”

CWAC rejected plans to build 350 homes on the site in 2012, but the decision was overturned by the Secretary of State at appeal, and Redrow has since built 279 homes from the original scheme.

The developers have since submitted fresh plans to make the estate bigger and build an extra 187 homes on top of the original target, which CWAC rejected last November due to traffic concerns.

“These extra dwellings are not required,” said John Szostek of the Hartford Civic Society – one of 10 members of the public to speak out against the plans at the inquiry.

“They are of the wrong type, they are proposed for an unsustainable location, and they will exacerbate the problems that the local authority and other parties are trying to tackle.”

Redrow also has permission to build up to 300 homes at its nearby Hartford Grange development, at the former Grange Farm site, with many of these properties now built.

The developers were warned that Hartford has also been hit by traffic from the major Winnington Urban Village, where drivers pass through the village to get to the A556 for Chester and Manchester.

Cllr Phil Herbert, independent CWAC member for Hartford and Greenbank, recognised the need for more houses in the borough but insisted that Hartford has ‘contributed more than its fair share’.

Northwich Guardian:

Cllr Martin Llewellyn, chairman of Hartford Parish Council, suggesting cycling in the village is ‘not an option’ at peak times as the roads are not safe – while resident Karen Banks questioned how emergency vehicles could pass through when it can take 40 minutes to drive down School Lane.

“I don’t know if any lives have been lost but it is a miracle if they have not,” she added.

Castle resident Janet Begbie warned against the loss of open countryside by the Weaver, suggesting that ‘once it is built on it will never be reversed’, while Hartford resident Rita Hollens warned that villages ‘wish to influence the place in which they live’.

Cllr Sam Naylor, Labour CWAC member for Witton, has lived in Hartford for 40 years.

He was applauded by the public gallery at Wyvern House, in Winsford, after calling on planning inspector Andrew Dore to take the opposition from residents, councillors and Hartford’s neighbourhood plan on board.

Cllr Naylor said: “How can it be that the local people – and I hope it won’t be the case – get beaten up by the big developers that have got the muscle and the finance to convince whoever that they are right, and all these local people have got it wrong?

Northwich Guardian:

“And they are the ones who have to suck it up and continue to take their grandchildren along, watching them breathing in traffic fumes.”

But Bridgemere and Redrow insist their plans are sustainable and believe it would not have a severe impact on neighbouring roads.

Paul Tucker QC, representing the developers highlighted the appeal decision from 2012 which stated that ‘whilst there would be additional delays on the highway network at peak hours, this could not amount to a reason to withhold consent to otherwise sustainable development’.

He claimed that additional traffic from the Weaver Park development has not been as bad as predicted from the original appeal, and suggested that Hartford’s roads would benefit from the closure of the village’s Warrington and Vale Royal College campus.

Mr Tucker said: “There is no road safety issue. The only issue is introducing flows into a network which experiences congestion and that the modelled effect will be a trivial level of extra delay.

“The Secretary of State has already pointed out in relation to the development of this site that the planning system is not overly concerned about a little bit of additional peak hour delay to commuters.

“As against that, significant benefits arise, in relation to market housing, affordable housing, jobs, the provision of a right turn lane and a huge new area of well-planned parkland.

“There is no good reason why this appeal should not be allowed and planning permission granted.”

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Mr Tucker added that while CWAC does have a five-year land supply to meet the need for more homes, that should not stop the development from going ahead – suggesting housing targets are a ‘minimum rather than a maximum’.

The inquiry continues this week, and the planning inspectorate’s decision is due six weeks later.