Plans approved for homes and block of flats close to centre of town
Plans have been approved for the building of houses and a block of flats close to the centre of a town.
Four semi-detached houses and a block of flats have been approved on the plot which sits between Water Lane and St Mary’s Street in Newport.
The existing industrial/warehouse building which backs onto Water Lane – opposite the Victoria Park play area – will be demolished to make way for the development.
The three-bedroom houses will be over three stories and will face out onto Water Lane – with each property having a garden at the rear.
There will also be three two-bedroom flats over three storeys each with its own lounge and kitchen and a communal garden.
Plans have been approved subject to a raised pedestrian crossing being added to slow traffic down on Water Lane.
The Telford & Wrekin Council’s highways department supported the plans subject to the conditions that additional traffic calming measures were implemented.
A report from the highways department said: “The visibility as you leave the proposed development access and look to the right is insufficient.
“Water Lane has a 30 miles per hour speed limit along it and previous speed surveys undertaken by the authorities’ traffic management team confirm that vehicles are travelling at an average speed of approximately 30mph as they travel past this point.
“Introducing some traffic calming in the vicinity of the proposed access is needed. This way we would be able to bring the speeds down, so they are commensurate with the visibility splay available as you look right from the proposed access (20mph-25mph). It would also allow the local highways authority to increase pedestrian safety by introducing a crossing to the entrance into the Victoria Park play area.”
As part of the planning approval the applicant must also include a scheme to ensure that acceptable noise levels are within the houses and the gardens due to the close proximity of the children’s play park.
Newport Town Council supported the application and said that as part of their neighbourhood development plan they were ‘keen to see appropriate development in this area of the town’.
The developer said that the design of the approved development ‘will not prejudice’ any future housing plans in the ‘wider area surrounding the application site’.
“This proposed development has established how a larger development could come forward, involving land outside the ownership of the applicants,” the developer said in their application statement.
“As this proposal development has demonstrated, it is evidently possible to provide a high quality residential environment, taking on board key urban design principles, whilst not prejudicing the development of adjoining land.”
Story by Local Democracy Reporter Ben Goddard
