Residents living in the North of Penrith have seen a lot of changes to the area in recent years with multiple housing developments springing up expanding town northwards.
However, for residents in Pennyhill Park it’s not the houses springing up that are causing concerns currently it’s the mountains of soils and mud appearing on land just of Scotland Road.
In recent years residents have faced torrents of water flooding gardens, mud, dust and noise from machinery and still not a single foundation has been created for the new 270 Persimmon development.
For the last 5 years residents have faced battles over the development that has still to build its first house on the site.
However recently a new issue has appeared in the form on 60 lorry loads a day of soil. According to one of the new Westmorland and Furness Councillors this soil has been brough to the site from another development at “Carlton and a site in Carlisle”.
The lorry loads have caused mud build-up on the A6 and until residents intervened there was no signage to warn other road users of the site access or work undertaken to clear the mud from the A6, local residents have said.
The soil is currently forming a new growing fell behind properties on Pennyhill Park along with a steep mud and stone slope for lorry access into the site. A vehicle wheel wash has been installed in the middle of the current works on the site, but residents have said most the time the vehicles come through with no washing and emerge with dry wheels covered in mud and heading up the muddy slope and out onto the A6.
Further concerns have been raised after it emerged the developer Persimmon has faced issues on other developments for building up land and building on this raised ground causing the houses built to be now under investigation for planning breaches and at risk of demolition from local councils in other parts of the UK.
Residents have asked for some firm dates and meetings with the developers but one resident has said when we spoke with residents this week about the situation that they have been told by one of the new Westmorland and Furness councillors that “they should not be contacting the developers and they should go through them as the new councillors now with everything.”
A letter sent to all residents recently by Westmorland and Furness ward councillors Cllr Rudhall and Cllr Bell said that “Mark and I have meetings planned with EDC and CCC planning officers to better understand the site and how the development will progress.”
The same letter claims that the work is held up by a UK wide problem of ‘nutrient neutrality’ and that key national stakeholders met last week to try to find a way forward.
Nutrient Neutrality has been around in the UK covering 32 council areas since 2018. In 2022 Natural England added 42 more council areas including all of Eden District council’s footprint area.
Nutrient Neutrality impacts developments that create new overnight accommodation provision including housing requiring developers to make provision for nutrient offsetting measures.
Although the measures only impact new applications its understood not developments with planning approval agreed.
Residents have raised questions over the planning approved in 2017 still been valid after a former Eden Council planning officer said that the bit of works bring soil and a mid-road could not be classed and development or enabling works to keep the planning approval valid that has a three year expiry period if work is not commenced on the approved application.
The situation is leaving residents feeling overpowered and put on but the new councillors and the developers along with the increased site hight leaving them feeling they will be overshadowed by the new houses when building work finally starts.
But a new situation now coming to light in other parts of the UK is adding to concerns of residents of Pennyhill Park as it emerged that homes have been built on artificially raised ground potentially breaching planning and risking properties been demolished. This is adding to concerns that the Penrith development could be the same.
One development in Cheadle, Stoke-On-Trent had the ground artificially raised by 2.4 meters that goes against what the council there signed off on and now the homeowners face an anxious wait to find out what happens next after being warned they could soon be worth nothing. With Families fearing their properties could face the bulldozer now over the planning breach.
Persimmon has applied for retrospective permission in Cheadle to keep the houses as they are but like the Penrith development it looks set to rumble on.
Legal advisor Justin Price-Jones told a meeting of the Staffordshire Moorlands District Council's planning committee that covers Cheadle “Persimmon would have known when they sold it that they didn’t have planning permission. I imagine there’s a lot of people in this equation who don’t know how dire their situation is.”
He added there were potentially 'very serious consequences' for people living in them if councillors decided to refuse the application.” The chairman of Staffordshire Moorlands District Council's planning committee speaking about the situation in Cheadle warned that “nothing is being ruled out following the investigation”.
The situation in Cheadle has raised more questions for residents living on Pennyhill Park about the goings on in the field behind them as no foundations have yet been dug. Just the creation of new mountains of mud and clay growing behind homes that is substantially raising the level of the ground raising the question among residents of “are we going to have another Cheadle situation in Penrith”.
Eden Council planning have been asked is the site located along Scotland Road has a set ground hight approved and if the 2017 planning is still valid for the development site.
From Saturday the planning authority for Penrith will become the new Westmorland and Furness Council and they will become responsible for planning enforcement in the area.
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