Application to build three five-bedroom homes at planning row site
New houses could be built on a former builders’ yard in Lilleshall, if plans are approved.
Landowner Lorraine Jones has applied for consent to place three five-bedroom homes and a communal storage building on the 1.4-acre site on Barrack Lane.
Lilleshall Parish Council will be consulted about the homes proposal, and Telford & Wrekin Council will make its decision at a later date.
The site has been the subject of a protracted legal battle in recent years, with Mrs Jones’s application to continue using it as a storage yard dismissed by the council.
The Planning Inspectorate upheld the authority’s subsequent clearance order that asked her to remove vehicles, storage containers and other equipment.
Blueprints submitted to the council show the three houses would each have two or three storeys and 14 parking spaces between them.
A design statement, prepared by Staffordshire-based Aaron Chetwynd Architect Studio on behalf of Mrs Jones, said: “The site is bordered by a range of farm and agricultural buildings to the northeast and various housing estates to the west of Barrack Lane.
“The proposal will result in the reuse of a currently vacant site with a high-quality residential scheme.”
Summarising the proposal, which it said would “provide a positive catalyst for the regeneration of the wider area”, the statement points out that the site is a vacant brownfield, accessible by public transport and developing it offers “potential regenerative benefits for the wider community, including the adjacent right of way”.
Mrs Jones bought the site in August 2018 and applied for a “lawful development certificate” to permit its use for “storage and distribution”.
Her representatives argued the yard has been used that way with tacit permission from the authorities since the 1960s.
Two hundred local people wrote to object to that bid, including 14 who signed affidavits disputing her argument.
In its refusal letter, issued in December 2019, Telford & Wrekin Council said evidence presented was not “sufficiently precise and unambiguous” to show that “storage and distribution” had continued uninterrupted on the land continuously for more than 10 years, as required.
An enforcement notice, issued the following April, gave Mrs Jones until November to clear the site. She appealed, and government-appointed planning inspector Debbie Moore agreed to some technical amendments – including extending the compliance period to nine months – but otherwise upheld the order.
