450 more houses

In addition to losing our greenfield land opposite the high school, there are now proposals to take another large area. Redrow has started the formal process for a development of up to 450 homes on 47 acres of greenfield land between our linear park and Clifton Avenue. There will be two separate roads into the site, one from Clifton Avenue and one from Swinhoe Place, off Wigshaw Lane.

This first stage is not yet a full planning application. It is to determine whether there is a need for an Environmental Impact Assessment to accompany a future planning application. It seems the developers view is that an EIA should not be necessary. They say ‘the Proposed Development is located adjacent to an area that is largely residential and will be similar and complimentary. It will not introduce anything incongruous to the area in terms of scale or land use. The scale and design of the Proposed Development are not considered to give rise to likely significant adverse environmental effect’

Their traffic assessment concludes ‘that the Proposed Development will result in 244 two-way vehicular trips in the AM peak hour and 235 two way vehicular trips in the PM peak hour. It is considered that the existing highway network can accommodate the Proposed Development of up to 450 dwellings’

At this stage there is no consideration of the wider impact of this development. What will be the impact of a thousand more people living in Culcheth on local schools, health care, transport, and the ‘character’ of Culcheth. Hopefully such issues will be fully explored and local people will have their views considered when a full planning application is submitted.

You can see further details of the proposals by entering the planning reference 2026/00903/SCR in the Warrington Council website here:

https://www.warrington.gov.uk/see-or-comment-planning-applications