Taylor Wimpey 600 homes plan for Yarm faces objections

Taylor Wimpey has submitted outline plans for up to 600 homes on land east of Holdenfields Farm, Green Lane, Yarm.

More than 180 comments objecting to the scheme have been made to Stockton Council, which is considering the plans.

The developer says it will provide two to five-bedroom homes, including up to 120 affordable homes, with open space and play areas, with access from Green Lane.

It argues in a planning statement the amount of housing is “relatively modest” and will help tackle a need for housing, expecting to fill the first houses within two years, then 40 homes a year.

The planning statement says the site is accessible, with a proposed “mobility hub” and potential extension of the number 7 bus service, and claims the hundreds of homes will have “minimal impact” on road junctions and no severe cumulative impacts.

It says the development will generate 50 construction jobs a year for Stockton residents, support 725 construction jobs over a build lasting more than nine years, support 90 on-site and off-site operational jobs, and bring £8.6m into the economy per year.

However, objectors have raised issues such as over-development, pressure on services and struggling infrastructure, traffic congestion, jams and fumes, road safety, loss of green spaces, health, wildlife, air and light pollution, environment and flooding.

One said: “Yarm is supposed to be a historic market town but is quickly become a sprawling housing estate.

“The infrastructure cannot cope with traffic as it is, let alone with another 600 to 1,200 vehicles… This is not a case of residents being NIMBYs, but real people who are living with all of the raised problems and concerns on a day-to-day basis and who KNOW that Yarm does not want or need or can cope with this amount of development.”

Other comments include:

• “I am appalled at the thought of another 600 houses in our area which has already been over-developed”;
• “We have already been heavily built upon and we have not got the infrastructure to take more housing”;
• “Further building of 600 homes, with potentially twice that number of cars and three times that number of residents, will only add to the existing problems on the roads, in the medical facilities and the schools”;
• “There is no getting away from more the fact that more houses amount to more cars on the unsustainable and unsuitable Yarm roads and given the astronomical size of this development, that is a lot of extra cars indeed… Given the development is proposed in an already unsustainable town this is in poor taste and a sucker punch to all Yarm residents.”

Stockton West MP Matt Vickers has objected, saying: “This application would further increase the unsustainable and biased overdevelopment of the southern part of the borough, with Yarm, Kirklevington and Ingleby Barwick ever expanding. This application is word heavy but light on details.

“No emphasis has been placed on the real impact that there will be to the natural environment and biodiversity.

“Inappropriate developments like this are extremely harmful to the Green Belt and should not be considered unless it meets very special or exceptional circumstances. Looking at the proposal, this plan does not meet any ‘exceptional circumstances’.

“We also cannot escape the fact that this site is not within the current Local Plan, so is therefore not earmarked as land for development. The fact that the application has even been validated does not assist the local authority in its reputation for passing any application that comes across its desk.

“A development of this size and scale will have a severe and detrimental effect on traffic concentration. Low Lane, Leven Bank and Green Lane are already heavy with traffic congestion.

“The road is also dangerous, with the area once dubbed an accident blackspot. I do not see in the proposals a way that will address these very serious traffic concerns.

“This application fails to explain how it would mitigate the pressure it would place on local schools, GP practices, roads and facilities. I therefore strongly encourage refusal of this application.”

A Taylor Wimpey spokesperson said: “We would like to thank the local community for their feedback on our plans for the proposed development off Green Lane in Yarm. The feedback received was considered ahead of the submission of our outline planning application to Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council.”