A controversial bid to build hundreds of homes on a farmer’s field has sparked further dismay after trees and bushes cleared before planning permission was granted.
Homes England is working on plans for 600 properties at Wharford Farm near Norton in Runcorn, having already submitted a planning application for 250 homes on the neighbouring Sandymoor South plot of farmland. The plans are part of the ongoing expansion of Sandymoor and nearby Daresbury, which have provoked increasing pushback in the last two years as the scale of the building work and loss of greenery becomes more evident.
Homes England and Halton Borough Council said the clearance works are to allow a site inspection to inform designs of a new bridge to be submitted in the planning application, and said the works are taking place with permission.
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As part of the Wharford Farm development, Homes England wants to install a new access bridge over the Bridgewater Canal, parallel to the existing Borrows Bridge, which was built around 1770. On Tuesday, the Murdishaw Massive @MurdishawM account on Twitter published a picture of a cleared area of foliage with felled logs visible alongside contractors in orange high vis bibs, on the site of one side of the proposed new bridge.
They tweeted that the greenery was being cleared “in preparation for the bridge”, adding that “process must be followed” and “we can all understand the frustration of the people of Runcorn east, surely this is the final green space and it won’t go without a fight”.
Other Twitter users expressed concern over the potential impact on wildlife.
In a twist, the official Homes England account “liked” a tweet from actor and YouTuber Stephen Holloran in which he said his “heart just sank” when he saw the clearance work taking place and raised the issue of nesting swans along the banks of the canal.
A planning application is yet to be submitted for the Wharford Farm housing development and the new bridge.
A Homes England spokesperson told the ECHO: “Vegetation clearance is being undertaken by consultants for Homes England to facilitate further ground investigations in the vicinity of the proposed new canal bridge at Wharford Farm, which will inform the detailed bridge design.
“The council is aware of this work. Planning permission for the new bridge has not yet been applied for; Homes England intends to prepare and submit a planning application for Wharford Farm in 2023.”
A Halton Council spokeswoman said: “The vegetation work is to facilitate surveys that are required to inform the detailed bridge design being carried out by Homes England consultants. This work does not constitute ‘development’ or represent a 'start on site'.
"Homes England owns sites that are designated for housing in the adopted Local Plan.“There is an expectation that a landowner will undertake survey and ground investigation works to support any planning application they may choose to make."
It’s not the first time the area’s housing plans have provoked upset.
Mike Amesbury, Labour MP for Weaver Vale, said last month that he’d received contact from 1,600 residents voicing their opposition to the Wharford Farm and Sandymoor South plans.
On the other side of the railway line at the site’s eastern edge, a separate planning application now overseen by Castle Green Homes has threatened to cut off access at Norton Level Crossing, which is a key link for walkers, runners, cyclists and dog walkers travelling from Marina Village and Murdishaw towards a picturesque canal towpath and Daresbury, Preston Brook and Dutton beyond, and vice versa.
A demonstration also took place in October 2021, when Mr Amesbury declared “enough is enough” as Homes England launched its consultation over Sandymoor South and Wharford Farm. Fears that Borrows Bridge could be demolished or damaged during construction also led campaigners Rik Cotterill and Stephen Holloran to apply for and subsequently achieve listed status for the crossing.
Awareness, criticism and pushback over house-building have increased in the last two years, but their potential as residential areas dates back more than half a century. Ambitions to develop Sandymoor and Daresbury as residential areas were swirling as early as 1968 when the Runcorn New Town Masterplan was published, and when Runcorn’s population was forecast to reach 100,000 by 1996.
The new town’s expansion faltered in the following decades, vastly outpaced by Warrington on the axis of three motorways, and Runcorn’s eastern fringe remained semi-rural. Its development has resumed at a quicker pace over the last two decades.
When the council published its Core Strategy in 2013, 1,000 homes had been built in Sandymoor by 2010, with a further 1,400 envisaged, plus a further 1,400 proposed in Daresbury.
That in turn has been displaced by the ambitions of the 2022 Delivery and Allocations Local Plan, adopted in March this year, and which identified plots for more than 4,000 more homes across Sandymoor and Daresbury by 2037, the vast majority in Daresbury.
According to figures shared by the council with the ECHO, planning permissions are in place for 396 more homes in Sandymoor, with plots for 250 more identified in the DALP - presumably referring to Sandymoor South, plus planning permissions in place for 744 homes in Daresbury plus sites identified with "notional capacity" for 2,674 more.
A DALP map appears to show an island of greenery will be retained in the centre of the Sandymoor masterplan and Daresbury Strategic Site zones.
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