PLANNING chiefs at Warrington are being urged to reject a retrospective application for a potting shed, wall and concrete footpath in a riverside setting – and to take enforcement action to have the development demolished.
The application by Mr and Mrs John Speakman involves their property in Clay Lane, Burtonwood.
It is a re-submission of a proposal refused in November last year.
Planning officers are recommending the scheme be refused and enforcement action taken because of the loss of wildlife habitat.
They say the banks of the river – Phipps Brook – should be reinstated.
The Environment Agency says it is possible that an active water vole habitat was unwittingly destroyed by the development.
The agency admits there is now no way to tell – but points out that guidance on water voles should have been sought prior to the work being carried out.
Warrington North MP Helen Jones says the application could be being sought retrospectively because the applicant hopes that having completed the work, permission will be granted.
Six neighbours have objected. They claim the potting shed could be turned into a dwelling in the future, use of the site as a market garden would involve the use of fertilisers and pesticides and waste from the site would go straight into the brook.
They also say the new path is more like a road, that two large trees have been felled and a wildlife habitat destroyed.
Planning officers say the scheme has not had any significant impact on the openness of the Green Belt or the living conditions of neighbours.
But it has resulted in the loss of important wildlife habitats – directly conflicting with the council’s aims of enhancing and conserving wildlife.
PLANNING chiefs at Warrington are being urged to reject a retrospective
application for a potting shed, wall and concrete footpath in a
riverside setting - and to take enforcement action to have the
development demolished.
Unauthorised project may be demolished
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Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
11 Comments
Hang on, someone’s got to be exaggerating a bit here. It’s easy to understand how one mans path is another mans road but surely a potting shed could never be confused with a flippin house. I always thought that garden sheds and paths on your own property didn’t need planning permission. We definitely need a picture to go with this to make any sense of it.
Hi Bill, I surveyed the area from south of Alder Lane to the Motorway for Cheshire Wildlife a year ago and it would be an ideal habitat for Water Vole if it wasn’t for the Himalyan Balsam along the Sankey Valley. I didn’t get as east as Clay Lane so I can’t comment but if there isn’t much Balsam then the habitat and banks of Phipps Brook would be a suitable environment.
A path on the edge of a brook can have a big effect and in building such a structure will cause major problems for these timid creatures not to mention the run off of any products. The loss of two trees is also an issue for me as a conservationist, Chair of the Warrington Nature Conservation Forum and steering group member of the Mersey Forest – we are trying to plant an protect trees.
A recent planning application off Manchester road, near where you live, last year that had to take Water Voles into consideration.
By relaxing such planning condition will see even larger developments of sheds for example there is one in Rixton that has put in for two applications of significant size, withdrawn it – built more without permission, stuck in a 2nd app, withdrawn it and then completed said project and only once all the work has been done has submitted the third and final application.
There are a number of planning laws especially in relation to wildlife and habitat that are there for a very good reason. It is always best to contact the planning department if you are unsure and check out what you can and can’t do under the present planning legislation.
If the water voles which may or may not have ever been there have already had their habitat disturbed, then what good would making the applicant demolish his shed and path do now? Sounds to me like neighbours complaining for the sake of it and using any excuse they can think of to justify their NIMBYism.
1)Sends a clear message to anyone that building without planning permission then retrospectively applying for permission is not the way to proceed and you will not get away with it.
2) I am no expert but I would have thought returning the habitat to it’s original state – which this individual should be made to do – could encourage voles to settle in this particular location.
But there’s no evidence that water voles were ever actually there in the first place, only that the riverbank MIGHT have been suitable for them. I’m all for enforcement of planning laws, but this is a shed and a path in a garden we’re talking about – and the only grounds the neighbours have been able to find for objection is to conjure up some hypothetical little furry creatures.
The easiest way to discourage retrospective planning applications surely would be to just make them far more expensive than applications made in advance.
I’ve always been under the impression that you don’t need planning permission for garden sheds let alone a potting shed if indeed this is what we’re talking about.
As the report’s a bit lacking in the fact department, we can only speculate that this is something on a bit more of an industrial scale, in which case they really are out of order.
If on the other hand this is the sort of potting shed I would buy from the garden centre then I think the argument for refusal on the grounds of potential loss of water vole habitat is absolutely pathetic.
The fact is that if the person had actually applied for planning permission then the planning authority would have requested a water vole survey. However he has just gone ahead regardless, destroying the potential habitat before a survey could be undertaken, and removing all possible evidence of voles. This is why planning legislation exists, and why anybody trying to avoid the standard procedure should be brought to account.
I agree with NIck’s points – plus It’s hard to tell unless you see the shed’s location – I would think that it was the location close to the bank that was the issue not the shed.
The Water Vole is a protected species and very timid so you are unlikely to see it only it’s droppings… ‘The water vole is found throughout riparian habitat in mainland Britain. However the water vole has suffered a catastrophic decline in the latter part of this century. A survey carried out by the Mammal Society (1989-90) showed that the species had been lost in 94% of the sites where it had occurred earlier this century’
The Cheshire Wildlife survey that I took part in throught the Sankey Valley was to see if the habitat was suitable and likely to have Water Voles present as the are near where I live along Blackbrook. The idea is then to protect these areas and help the WaterVole prosper. Hence the need to have protection for them.
I very much doubt that the actual (brick built flat roof) potting shed that has already been ‘could be turned into a dwelling in the future’ unless it’s for elves as it only measures 3 metres by 2.3 metres with an overall height of 2.4
metres 😉 A bit more too it that that maybe as it doesn’t appear to actually be their land as such but adjoins theirs. Anyway, planning application is 2012/20212 Bill of you want a look. No idea what it all says as I only read the first bit cos I couldn’t understand why you’d need planning permission for a shed either 😉
“This is why planning legislation exists, and why anybody trying to avoid the standard procedure should be brought to account.” – if only that were true Paul C. The sad fact is in this borough those who should have been brought to account have not. All sorts of schemes (quite an apt word really in the case of Warrington and planning) have gone ahead without going through the standard procedures. It seems to depend on who you are whether your’s gets through or you are brought to account.
Geoff, you need to keep things in perspective. Where man and beast (cats etc) walk and prowl, the animals of nature won’t be.
Do you stop fishing? Stop development? Stop farming?
Take a look along Knutsford Rd and see what damage is being done to the environment along the river bank.