Villagers unite in bid to stop development

May 23 2008 by Naomi Dunning, Chester Chronicle

TARPORLEY residents have formed a 150-strong action group to stop plans to build a three-storey, 100-bed care home between Forest Road and Heatherways.

They have also collected a further 160 signatures on a petition to object to the development which they have handed to Tarporley Parish Council and planning bosses.

This comes as the parish council submitted its own formal objection to the Heatherways care home to planning chiefs.

The CARE Action group want to make sure any development on that land benefits the village, and is not just commercial enterprise.

The proposed plan by the GB Development Solutions Ltd at Heatherways is for a 100-bed continuing care retirement community (CCRC).

The proposals are for assisted living accommodation within five buildings totalling 50 resident bedrooms within a care home and 50 self-contained units with 70 car parking spaces.

A range of communal facilities are also planned, including a function room, restaurant, kiosk shop, consultation rooms, terraces and landscaped gardens.

Eddisbury MP Stephen O’Brien has also objected to the scale of the development.

The CARE action group has set up a fighting fund and commissioned a professional planning adviser to represent the interests of Tarporley residents alarmed by the scale, height, design and impact of the development.

Ian Bailey, who lives on Heatherways and helped form the CARE Action group said: “Our action group wants to work with the parish council, county council and Vale Royal Borough Council.

“We are not against development, but it has to be in the context of the needs of the whole village including the need for a new primary school and the continued development of the high school.

“There is no identifiable need for this size of development in Tarporley. There are 66 care homes already within a 10 miles of Tarporley as defined on the Commission for Social Care Inspection website.”

He said the site is on the outskirts of the village, which would make it difficult for the elderly residents to access local amenities without a car.

Mr Bailey added: “The concern is that overspill parking and business traffic will further congest the High Street, Forest Road and Utkinton Road, and the small access road of Heatherways. With three shift changes, as well as deliveries and, of course, family visitors it will just add to the village’s traffic problems.”