Developer challenging refusal of application for 120 new homes in Buxton

High Peak borough councillors rejected the plan due to concerns about road access, visual intrusion and ‘encroachment into the open countryside’.

The proposal for the site - on grazing land off Leek Road - had originally included the realignment of its junction with part of nearby Macclesfield Road.

However this was withdrawn before councillors considered the application in January last year.

A spokesperson for High Peak Borough Council said: “The reasons for refusal are the same except that the ecology reason for refusal relating to phosphate levels in the River Wye was withdrawn after Natural England withdrew their objection to the application.”

The Advertiser understands that as part of the appeal Persimmon wants to revise the application description to ‘up to 100 houses’ and resubmit the junction realignment.

In a document from October last year Persimmon sets out its case for appeal.

While addressing concerns about the development posing a visual intrusion on nearby landscape, a planning consultant wrote how this was not the case as the site would fall below existing ground levels nearby.

They wrote: “The site is an area of land which falls from the line of Macclesfield Main Road and Leek Road.”

Speaking about the concerns over access to the site the appeal case document stated although further access detail may be provided, Derbyshire County Council had already ‘accepted the principle of the Macclesfield Main Road realignment’.

A spokesperson for Persimmon said the appeal - to be heard before a public inquiry on April 24 - would identify ‘a number of key benefits’.

She said: “These include the delivery of up to 30 per cent affordable housing in an area of acute need where there is an established persistent shortfall in affordable housing provision.

“Contributions are also proposed for education provision, open space and towards parks and gardens in the local area.

“The proposed development of between 100 and 120 new homes in a range of styles and sizes is set to meet the needs and objectives of the local development plan.”

To comment on the revised details, email [email protected] or [email protected] before April 15.