Two multi-million pound developments in Ellesmere Port granted outline planning permission

Dec 17 2009 by Gary Porter, Chester Chronicle

TWO multi-million-pound development schemes in Ellesmere Port have been given the green light by councillors.

Plans for a £25m academy and a £12m extra-care housing scheme for over-60s were granted outline planning permission at a meeting on Thursday.

Councillors voted 6-3 in favour of the proposed academy at the Hub Youth Centre site in Whitby Road.

Those opposed to the plan wanted to know where the entrance to the site would be located.

As yet, access to the academy has not been finalised, but would either be off Sutton Way, opposite West Cheshire College, or off Whitby Road at the existing entrance to the Hub.

The academy will include a new school building, car parking, synthetic sports pitches, as well as additional playing fields and pitches and an athletics track on separate land adjacent to the college.

The existing pedestrian footbridge across Sutton Way, connecting the two sites, will be retained.

However, there would have to be alterations to the existing signalised crossroads junction at Sutton Way, Whitby Road and Stanney Lane, as well as additional turning lanes and a controlled pedestrian crossing between the academy and the college.

A replacement site for the Hub has yet to be identified, but the council is considering using the old Ellesmere Port Specialist School of Performing Arts site in Woodchurch Lane on a short-term basis.

Meanwhile, the extra-care residential development at the old Gorsthills school site in Great Sutton was also approved with an amendment that the football pitch is maintained at another location.

The state-of-the-art development will provide purpose-built apartments, within a landscaped site, with access to a 24-hour care team, as well as a range of communal facilities.

Ellesmere Port is already home to one of Cheshire’s first extra care housing schemes.

The Hollymere development in New Grosvenor Road, Westminster, opened in March 2009, providing 71 apartments.

The complex provides an IT suite, hairdressers, library, snoozelum (a restful area), restaurant and village hall, which both residents and non-residents are able to use.