Crispin Lane & Mold Road junction improvements hit hurdle – planning condition could stop progress for a second time

The applicants behind a large scale redevelopment of the Wrexham Glyndwr University campus have called for the removal of a planning condition which would require highway improvements to a junction 500m away, a junction that missed out on improvements when a 2009 application condition was not enforced.

The already approved development includes the demolition of ‘redundant student halls’ on Plas Coch Road to make way for 410 apartments and parking.

At the time the development was described by the council’s planning officer as a “high density scheme in a sustainable location”, which would address the need for smaller properties and could reduce the number of HMOs in town.

Despite opposition to the plans and concerns over the impact the development could have on local infrastructure and highways network, the plans were approved by a majority of councillors last July.

Now the joint applicants behind the development are calling for the removal of Condition 11 which is attached to the approval of planning permission.

The condition requires that: “Prior to the first occupation of any part of the development hereby approved, carriageway alignment improvements shall be implemented at the junction of Crispin Lane and Mold Road in accordance with a scheme which has been submitted to and approved in writing by the local planning authority.”

However in a new application to Wrexham Council they say the condition is “neither necessary, relevant to the development nor reasonable in all other respects and we set out below the evidence for this”, noting that if that is the case it is contrary to Welsh Government planning guidance.

They add that it is felt that the condition was “wrongly attached” to this particular application.

In a planning statement, the applicants say: “The Condition was conceived as a result of Highways Observations on a package of applications for Campus improvements which included the proposed development (P/2018/0671) and one other application which affects the Campus directly.” The applicants note the plan to knock down the Students Union and other buildings, and redevelopment of the campus “… involved the use of all three access points to the Campus and Condition 18 secured improvements to the junction of Mold Road and Crispin Lane.”

“It is the Joints Applicants’ view that Condition 11 was wrongly added to the conditions imposed upon planning permission P/2018/0671 and there are a number of reasons for this view having been adopted.”

The developers point out the access to their development patch is off the B5101 – Plas Coch Road – rather than the A541 Mold Road. They explain, “This means that whilst Condition 11 might be relevant to the other proposed developments within the Campus, it is not ‘relevant to the development to be permitted’ and is therefore neither ‘necessary’ nor ‘reasonable in all other respects’ “.

“This Condition therefore fails the tests of validity of planning conditions as set out in Welsh Government Circular WGC 016/2014. In consideration of the above and the drawings and other information provided as part of the application, officers are respectfully requested to view these proposals favourably and subsequently resolve to remove Condition 11 from the grant of planning permission.”

The development is part of a wide scale redevelopment of the university campus site, one described as a development that will help the university “sustain a viable position within the higher education sector” and attract new students to the area.

The issue of the junction of Crispin Lane and Mold Road was subject to yet another Wrexham Council planning snafu, with our report from the initial Glyndwr University mammoth planning application noting issues from planning given a decade ago for student flats to the south end of the site was unenforced and therefore the junction itself remaining unimproved.

Back in 2009 the Planning Committee famously decided to approve the Wrexham Village student flat plans on Crispin Lane in April 2009 in a move that was described back then by a committee member in the meeting as ‘taking a gamble’, with that spin of the planning roulette wheel meaning a win for travel agent Geoff Moss and builder Ian Roberts rather than Wrexham.

In July 2019 during the Glyndwr application the council’s highways department, noted: “Access onto Mold Road from Crispin Lane is poor and junction improvement required by the previous planning permission have not been implemented.”

In the 2019 application, the Council’s Planning Officer stated: “The additional traffic generation from the development and its impact upon the junction with Crispin Lane and Mold Road was considered serious enough to warrant junction improvements.

“These were required to be carried out prior to the occupation of the development. These works were not carried out and it is considered that the timescale for the enforcement of this condition has now expired.”

No reason is given as to why such a serious requirement in 2009 was not enforced in the decade since (as we documented, the council could not or would not enforce even the right shrubbery on the previous 2009 development).

The officer went on to say: “I am satisfied that sufficient justification exists in this instance to re-impose this condition” noting it was “critical that the condition is imposed on the applicants”,

The new application to remove the condition from the Plas Coch development will be considered by Wrexham Council at a later date, by the same committee that discussed the junction and historic failures around planning conditions relating to it.

During the planning meeting in 2019 Cllr Paul Roberts said, “We can talk and talk and talk about conditions, but what assurances will the enforcement department give us if this is passed they will be enforced?

“We are talking about 11 years ago. If it is down in black and white, and we are asked to pass something, I would like to think the powers that be will carry out their obligations and do something about it.”

The Chair of the Planning Committee Cllr Mike Morris himself agreed and bluntly called it ‘a failing of the department’, “There is no two ways about it, you can’t dress it up. It was not pursued, it was not enforced against. I think the local member now will keep a close eye on it, and make sure things are enforced on that basis.”