Victory for Corby residents as bid to build hundreds of homes at Pen Green lakes is rejected

A plan to build hundreds of homes on a green spot on Corby’s Lloyds estate has been turned down by the council.

Countryside Properties had wanted to build 272 homes on the fields around the balancing lakes off Pen Green Lane.

Part of the site is Government-owned but has previously suffered extensive flooding. The only access for cars is through the busy Earlstrees Industrial Estate.

Locals, led by ward councillor Mark Pengelly (Lab, Lloyds), had led a furious campaign against the plan, which they said was not appropriate for the site and would place unacceptable pressure on local facilities and the road network.

Cllr Pengelly had also been forced to intervene several times when it emerged that the consultation with local residents and interested organisations had not been thorough enough.

An application originally submitted to North Northamptonshire Council in July 2021 and although Cllr Pengelly had tried to liaise with his own council's planning department, he had found communication difficult amid a raft of personnel changes in the team.

Now, planning officers have refused the two separate applications – one for 100 homes and a second for 172 homes.

Following the refusal of the plans, Cllr Penglly said: “I am really pleased that the the two developments for housing around Pen Green lakes have been rejected by council officers .

"This has been a long drawn out campaign with a petition against the development of over two hundred names from those living immediately next to the site.“This is not a case of nimbyism but local residents not wanting an area of natural beauty with scores of wild life ruined.

"I have personally sent dozens of email on this and had to remind officers they had not consulted with key consultees like Network Rail who had to endure serious flooding and a train derailment because of flooding on the site the developer wanted to build on .

"It took over a year for officers to even meet me on site but in recent months the planning team have started responding to concerns I have raised.

"To get to the site those living there would have to travel through one of the busiest industrial estates in the East Midlands.”

Concerns had been raised by the police around safety on the plot, and by highways officers who said that mixing residential and heavy industrial traffic was ‘actively discouraged’.

NNC’s ecological advisor formally objected to the scheme, saying it would result in a biodiversity loss. The site has two lakes, open fields on former steelworks land as well as many trees and hedgerows, some of which would have been removed during the building works.

The council had initially not asked for consultation from Network Rail, despite a major landslip that happened on the train line adjacent to the site in June 2019 caused by serious flooding. An official report noted six decades of flooding on the track at that point. It was only after Cllr Pengelly’s intervention that the correct Network Rail department were informed of the planning application.

Ultimately, Network Rail strongly objected to the scheme, with their response to the council reading: “The site is adjacent to Pen Green aqueduct, which is the highest floor risk area on this route.

"Recent flood modelling has shown that the flood risk here is one in two; an annual exceedance probability of 50 per cent. New houses, roads and drives will add to our flood risk and make our ability to run a safe and reliable railway in Corby impossible.”

Despite the serious flooding on the site, neither Anglian Water – which owns one of the balancing lakes - nor the Environment Agency, raised an objection to the scheme.

Corby councillor Kevin Watt (Con, Corby rural), whose own home neighbours the scheme, had also raised a formal objection. He said: “Corby has a history of lower income households being concentrated in cramped, unattractive housing leading to its partial demolition and the remainder recently being labelled as left behind communities.

"We should not repeat the mistakes of the past. We should not condemn families on lower incomes to life-limiting housing.”

In their report, council officers noted the high density of the housing and the ‘unacceptable’ access via the industrial estate. Their report said: “The re-development of the site is acknowledged for residential use which also include use of the previously developed land.

"However, there is a lack of evidence to persuade local planning authority that the site can be made suitably safe and accessible for non-motorised users, nor has it been demonstrated that the living conditions of future occupants would be acceptable in terms of noise impact, flood risk and highway safety.

"The proposed development is also unacceptable because the proposed scheme fails to demonstrate any net biodiversity gain.”

During the past few decades, the site has been the subject of a number of similar planning applications, though none so extensive as the latest.

Cllr Pengelly now hopes that the field can be formally declared as an official park to stave off future schemes.

He said: “Part of the land is owned by government owned ‘homes England ‘ it would be great if they gave this land to the community to make it a town park.

"Thank you to the local Lloyds estate community and those from Rockingham Park area, local residents groups and councillors. What a great early Christmas present!”