Richard Stevens

Last night, the meetings of the Planning Committee and General Purposes Committee were held in the Council Chamber and didn’t finish until ten o’clock. I won’t bore you with the technical stuff but just mention a couple of important planning matters which were discussed.

The first application was an amended application from St. Dominic’s Primary School. This has a long history all involving the use by the children of gates onto Newcastle Road. There has been a prolonged campaign by the parents against these arrangements on the grounds of safety. Indeed Cllr. Joyce Farnham and I voiced our objections to  the Development Control Committee at Stafford Borough some months ago when that application was adjourned. This amended application met with similar strength of opposition from the Town Council and I can see that Joyce and I will be appearing again down at Stafford before this is finalised.

Then we dealt with an application to fell a row of mature conifers on the Farey site at the back of Newcastle Road. Although several residents in Newcastle Road have been in touch with me about these trees because they live in my ward, the trees themselves are actually in Walton ward! So Phillip Leason has called the item in for the DC committee at Stafford to determine the application and I’ve passed on the residents’ complaints. Needless to say the Town Council unanimously objected to the removal.

And finally, there was unanimity again in relation to an application to build 5 large houses on the site of an existing bungalow in Nicholls Lane. This lane, on the very edge of open countryside, is narrow and high banked and totally unsuited for any extra traffic. The site itself is very visible from across open country down the Flash and every councillor expressed opposition to the plans.

Of course, the Town Council are only consulted on planning matters. The decisions are made at Stafford Borough Council so we must just hope that ‘the powers that be’ down there listen to the voices of local objectors.